Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - RATs, Astrobots, and a Six Iron on the Moon!

Episode Date: February 23, 2004

RATs, Astrobots, and a Six Iron on the Moon!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Music Meet the Rat Man on this week's Planetary Radio. Music Welcome back everyone, I'm Matt Kaplan. Lots of people to visit with this week, including Bob Anderson. He's the member of the Mars Exploration Rover team, who is sometimes known as the Rat Man. We'll find out why in a minute after we meet another of the student astronauts. And later today, it's the astrobots direct from Mars, and we mean it this time.

We'll hear from Biff, Sandy, and their human buddy, Bruce Betts. Stay with us. Hi, my name is Kristen Rodziniak, and I'm 16 years old, and I'm from Canada, but I'm currently living in Colorado Springs here in the U.S., and I'm one of the student astronauts. And we've actually had a really awesome week. We've got to talk to a lot of the U.S. And I'm one of the student astronauts. And we've actually had a really awesome week. We've got to talk to a lot of the scientists. They've been very open for us to come talk to them. If they see us peering over the shoulder, they'll stop and pretty much explain everything about the picture they're working on. And it's really exciting to see their insight and

see what they have to say and talk to the different scientists. I've just always been interested in a whole diverse background, so I've always liked to try a whole bunch of different things. And one of the ways I do that is through the arts as well as the sciences. The art, I just love music, but I guess it helps me in the sciences. Well, when I return, I've got a couple of presentations, definitely with just my classes. I want to know what I've been up to, why I got to miss school for two weeks. And my principal is organizing some stuff. And I've also hooked up with the Challenger Learning Center in Colorado Springs. And I'm going to be doing some presentations,

both for their public presentation and for their regular program with middle school students. So I'm going to come in and talk to them about my experiences and just try and get people involved more in the sciences to see how cool science can really be and how exciting. There's a lot of opportunities and a lot of excitement involved in the sciences. Bob Anderson is another Mars Exploration Rover team member who cut his red planet teeth on the Pathfinder mission. This Virginian worked his way west to JPL

after a stop at the University of Pittsburgh, where he received a Ph.D. in geology. But like so many of the people behind Spirit and Opportunity, his work goes far beyond what his degree might suggest. When we talked last Sunday, I asked him about the unofficial title his work with the rock abrasion tool has earned him. Bob Anderson, does it disturb you sometimes to be called the Rat Man? No, that's a pretty good look.

I've been working with the rock abrasion tool for about three years here, so I guess I've been called the rat man a hundred times. I even read on some website someplace about how you, during some of the training of the Mars Exploration Rover scientists and engineers, you sort of became the human rat. Yeah, when we were out in the phyto test sites that we had, we had two phyto tests. The phyto rover doesn't have a rock abrasion tool on it, so what we did was... Hold tight one second. Sure.

Now, we should say that Bob has his headset on. He's actually on duty. In fact, he's on Mars time. He must have gotten a call on the headset. We'll ask him what it's about in a moment. I'm back on. You're back. What was that about?

I don't know. They're waving at me, and I'll talk to them in a moment. I'm back on. You're back. What was that about? I don't know. They're waving at me, and I'll talk to them in a minute. I told them to hold tight. All right. Well, if it gets serious, don't hesitate to break away again. No problem. I just told the audience that you are actually on Mars time, and I think you're on Opportunity time, that side of Mars?

That's correct. Right now, we're Sol 29, about 11.17 in the morning, and the rover, and we're having some discussion about what we're going to do today on the rover. Must be fun. It's challenging. So let's go back to FIDO. You were saying it didn't have a tool like the rock abrasion tool, the RAT. That's right. What happened was that we didn't have the full MERS built at the time, and so we're using a little smaller cousin called FIDO, and FIDO doesn't have a rock abrasion tool on it. It actually was built with the time. And so we're using a little smaller cousin called Fido. And Fido doesn't have a rock abrasion tool on it.

It actually was built with a drill. So in order for me to simulate it, the scientists would pick a target as if it was normal, do their operations. And then what would happen is that I would go out with a drum roll tool and make a rat hole. So I actually got called the Dirty Rat Man for a while, too. so I actually got called a dirty rat man for a while, too. Well, and this was appropriate since you are a trained geologist in addition to all of the training that you seem to have done there at JPL. That's correct, yeah.

I'm sort of walking in two worlds between geology and planetary geology and actually terrestrial geology, too, and then engineering. So I do ops roles, and I do engineering, and I do planetary geology. Can you hold on one moment again? Sure, go ahead. This is kind of fun, actually. Maybe we'll hear what this call is about. Okay, can you hold on one second?

Yeah, go ahead. No problem. Okay. Can I call you right back? We have a target that I have to go over and look at for the arm reachability. All right, Bob, you're back. Yes, sorry for that, folks. You got a quick call.

They needed some expertise on something you said, arm reachability? Yes, we had an alarm come up on one of the targets that we had chosen to put the APXS on. And so what happened was that we had to either go with that sequence to see if it was correct, either that or go with a secondary target or to abort the sequence. And we decided to go with the secondary target. How often does this kind of thing come up? Not often, but once in a while. You know, what we do, we double check, triple check.

And, you know, one person may say it looks clear and somebody else will say, well, I'm a little nervous about it being that close. And so that's where science comes in. And so I had to try to find the right people, and we'd make the decision. Let's go on. I think what I was going to get to, we were talking about FIDO and how you were actually helping to train the scientists and engineers who would be working with the Mars Exploration Rovers, and that you even got to pick the site that they had to explore remotely with the FIDO rover?

Yeah, that's correct. We made it a hidden site, which is kind of hard to hide anything in the United States from most geologists, but we were able to find a site where it was Mars-like and didn't have vegetation, and the rover would have no problem, because rovers don't like driving with grass around. Their algorithms aren't really designed for it. And so we found a nice area north of Flagstaff,

which really confused them for a while. Now, so they had to drop into this place as if they had dropped onto an unknown part of a planet and figure out where they were and what the geology was and how to get around? That's correct, yeah. We even took the test model of the lander and airbags and everything up there, so when they turned it on, FIDO was on it just as if it was already into the stand-up position. We made sure that they already had the full 360 pan, just as if they were getting ready to get off the rover and egress off like we did here on Mars.

And we were basically training the scientists how to work with rovers. So have you seen this experience pay off on Mars? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, Mars is a little easier than the FIDO test I set up. Wow. Yeah, it's really helped a lot because people get a feeling of what's going on now. We're not as nervous about moving.

We're able to try to understand remote science. This training and education work that you do is something that seems to be a thread that runs through a lot of your life. You haven't had much chance to teach lately. You're still, I believe, on the research faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, and you were teaching at Pasadena City College, but I guess Mars got in the way of that temporarily. Yeah, Opportunity and Mer definitely did. I mean, right before, even before launch, we were really busy, and then between launch and landing, we thought, okay, we'll be able to catch up,

and it's one of those things, you're always running a marathon at a sprint speed. You have had some opportunity to continue this, though, in the middle of the mission because you, like a lot of other folks there, have had exposure to the student astronauts. And I don't know if you know this, there is a photo of you on the student astronaut part of the Planetary Society website. And in the student's diary, their journal, they say that the best part of their tour of JPL was going out to the Mars yard, and

you standing with this box with a big red button. Yes, yes, that's true. We have the advantage on Earth is that we have a kill switch. So if the rover starts doing something we don't like, we can kill it. That's why we're really cautious on Mars, because we don't have that little red button to push anymore. Because you're standing off to the side with this button, and you actually have wires leading to the rover, the rover Mata.

That's correct, yeah. We don't on Mars, though. That's why we're very cautious, as you saw earlier, is that we really, really have to be 100% sure before we do anything. That is the photo. For anybody who wants to take a look at it, go to the Student Astronaut section, and you'll see a nice photo of Bob standing there with his big red button ready to hit the kill switch. Yeah, in fact, I think I was talking to several of them the day before yesterday, and we were doing a very aggressive MI sequence in which we were putting the MI

and taking MI images, about 46 of them in one particular day, and they were watching me and helping me. So they've been a pretty good asset and value to this mission. Well, they certainly had a great time, and in fact, we'll have statements from a couple of them on this show. We've been featuring each pair of students as they come in. I noticed also on the web that you had worked as Deputy Director of Mars Education. Was that during Pathfinder? No, it was actually the year after it. I worked with Dr.

Sheikh Dair while he was here at JPL. And so I worked with Pathfinder as a post-doctoral scholar under Matt Golombek who was the project scientist. And so then my first job here at JPL was working as Deputy for Mars Education at the time. So obviously

you get a kick out of this, working with young people and helping people to understand what you're all about there. Yes. I used to be a high school teacher many, many years ago, so the students of high school age and early college age I really love working with. Let's turn to the other part of your professional life, which is, as we said, that you are a geologist. That's what your Ph.D. is in.

And so as you help people decide what it's safe for these rovers to do and help to communicate what they're doing to young people at the Student Astronauts, you've got to be following pretty closely these amazing findings that both rovers are making on Mars. Yeah, in fact, it's kind of tough because both rovers are about 12 hours apart, so you try to keep up on data on both of them. If you do, you never sleep. So it's really tough, and you come in, and you get five or ten minutes, and you just start going through the data as much as you can

because you're so busy collecting the data that sometimes you don't get to see the data. And that's what happens when you do an operational role on a mission is that you're doing so much to collect all the high data you can and get the best data that you know in the future will be used for good science. But sometimes you don't get to see it. In fact, I came in today and had to look at all the images that I collect that I wrote the sequence for two days ago. I hadn't even seen what the results of the sequence was. Wow. Well, fortunately, that data is not going anywhere. And you guys are going to have months and years to look things over and analyze and try to reach conclusions. And we're going to have to do a special show sometime in the next couple of months

just about the findings, what these rovers have discovered. Are there any preliminary surprises? I know the newspapers love to talk about the so-called blueberries. Yeah, we're still, in fact, we were just looking at those about 15 minutes ago, too, trying to figure, you know, we really, there's all kinds of ideas of how they formed, but we don't have anything definitive yet. We have the outcrop, what we call it, which is at one time was going to be called the Great Wall, but it's only really about the size of a curb. It's not large at all, but it's bringing back some very interesting chemistry.

We don't really have any data that we would stand up on and say this is true, but it's something different that we've never seen on Mars, and that makes it the most unique thing. And then on the other rover, on Spirit, she's just moving along. I think they've done over 100 meters the last I looked. They're heading to a crater, another crater that's inside this big crater. So it's a really exciting time. It's just hard keeping up with both of them. Are there any other surprises?

I mean, certainly we've read some. Well, about three days ago or four days ago now, or four sols ago, I should say, we did our first trench at Opportunity, and the soil looked very interesting. It's very fine-grained, but other than that, I can't say much yet because I haven't seen the chemistry data that came back from it because it takes a little bit longer for the chemistry data to come down, but the images come down because you have to use it for next day planning. And then following Sol, I think, or second Sol after that, Gusev did the same thing.

So it's interesting. We're starting to get all this data. We're starting to get a handle on it. There's definitely variety. I mean, we were so lucky at the Radiani site that we actually went into a crater, which we probably would have gone to anyway if we had been on the outside of it, but we were very lucky to be landed right inside of it. So there's no major discoveries yet that I want to say, but we're working very hard.

And, you know, most of the data is out there for people to look at, so I suggest people take a look at the websites and you'll see most of the data. There is a little touch I hear in this of the careful scientist who is probably keeping his speculations to himself. Yes, you know, we each have our pet ideas, and so, you know, we'll keep them. And when you start with a hypothesis and a scientific idea, you know, you have to look at all the possibilities, and then what you try to do is rope yourself into or bring yourself down into one that makes sense with all the data.

So it's interesting to say because I've been working with the soils and I've been working with the wheels and the rover traverse and stuff, but I need to look at the chemistry and I need to look at other things, the photometry stuff from the pan cam. It's the total story, not just one part of it. So that's why scientists are a little bit more cautious until they see all the package. Well, it's a good approach. It seems to have served us well for a few hundred years here, to say nothing of the last few years of Mars exploration. Something that we will want to explore further on this show. Absolutely.

Let's come back to just the rovers themselves. You are one of these guys who sort of straddles science and engineering. The general health of the rovers? Looking pretty good, isn't it? Excellent. Both of them are just running beautifully. I mean, they're just, the engineers have given us such beautiful equipment. It's actually kind of funny, because on a of days, the engineers are telling us to be more aggressive. And it's kind of hard for an engineer to tell a scientist to be more aggressive because usually it's the other way around. Yeah, there's a switch. Yeah, I know. But this is a solid team

here. The engineers work well with science and science works very well with the engineers. And so it's really a cohesive team. And we're just starting. I mean, I guess we're on sol 29 as we speak right now. And hopefully we'll get a lot more out of we're just starting. I mean, I guess we're on Solve29 as we speak right now, and hopefully we'll get a lot more out of them. All right, I'll knock on wood as I say this, but it sure looks right now like these guys are going to outlive their warranties. I would not be surprised if they did. I think they're going to last a lot longer than people think.

You still have your headset on there? I still have my headset on. Okay, well, we'll let you go back to paying full attention to that. But Bob Anderson, I very much appreciate your taking the time to talk with us right in the middle of your shift. Well, it seemed to be the best time to get with you. And if you or anybody else has any questions, feel free to drop me an email or give me a call.

Bob, is there a website or something that you would want to direct people to? Yeah, I would direct them to the JPL website. And you can see all the new data from Mars. And we have little feature stories here as soon as scientists are willing to put it out. But it's usually within a day or two after we get these images. There's either press conferences or we put in nice little stories that are written by us here. And so I think the general public could follow very well along with the webpage. So it's www.jpl.nasa.gov.

And certainly we try to digest some of that information and provide it here on the planetary.org site as well if you're listening. Absolutely. At the Planetary Society's website. That's an excellent webpage to start because you guys link right into our stuff too. Yes, thank you very much. And thank you again for taking this time, and we'll look forward to talking to you again soon. Okay, good luck guys.

You bet. Bob Anderson is the, well, the rat man among other things. Geologist. They're working on Mars time, specifically Meridiani-Planum time where the rover opportunity is. Part of that amazing team at JPL where they are still operating

and hopefully will be operating for a long time to come, the Mars Exploration Rovers. I'll be right back with Bruce Betts after this. This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure in the solar system. That's why I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets. We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first

ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration in the Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS. That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, planetarysociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Time for What's Up here on Planetary Radio.

And we are not in our usual digs. Normally we record this back in the carriage house in the back of Planetary Society headquarters. But it's a very quiet day here, and so we're doing it, what, in the conference room in the main house. And so what is that funny noise, Bruce, that people may be hearing in the background now and then? I'm sorry, I haven't had lunch yet. Oh, you mean the rover. That's our Mars station here, the Carl Sagan Memorial Mars Station, and people can drive

a Lego rover over the Internet and a simulated Mars Pathfinder landing site, and people are doing that, even as we speak, in the background. So if you hear a... then it's either my stomach or the rover. Well, let's get started with... So go to planetary.org, and you, too, can drive it. What's up this week, Bruce Betts? Four planets.

You can see it once in the night sky shortly after sunset. And this is the week for planets to party with the moon. Get ready to take some notes if you've had any trouble finding those planets or if you just think it's cool when they hang out with the moon. Here we go. Venus, Monday night, the 23rd. Venus and the moon very close together. In fact, if you're crazed enough and get to this show quickly enough, you can actually use the moon to help try. In fact, if you're crazed enough and get to this show quickly enough, you can actually use the moon to help try to watch Venus when it's still daylight because it's so bright.

Hard to find if you don't know where to look, but you can see the moon and then look for Venus. You'll see them off in the west. Very cool. On March, we'll go ahead and try February. February 25th, which is a Wednesday. Mars will be near the moon. Mars is considerably to the upper left of Venus, much dimmer, orangish.

And then on Sunday the 29th, Saturn will be near the moon. It's very high in the sky at dusk. Our other friend up there is Jupiter, rising shortly after sunset in the east and also very, very bright. So those are good planets and five planets coming soon. So that's what's happening in our solar system neighborhood. What else do you have for us? Well, this week in space history, on February 24, 1969, Mariner 6 was launched, one of the flyby spacecraft that gave us some of our first glimpses of Mars.

On to random space fact! Venus rotates retrograde, which i just enjoy saying which the implication of this is that the sun appears to rise in the west if you're hanging out on the surface there compared to the earth that's so retro so retro which is very in trivia contest last week we asked you what golf club did Alan Shepard use when he hit a couple golf balls on the moon in Apollo 14. How'd we do? Who knew that we had so many duffers among our faithful listenership?

We had an amazing response to the contest this week. Something about golf, I guess, that or golf on the moon. The response was just tremendous, and I didn't see any incorrect answers. Shall I tell you who won? Oh, please do. It was Jose von Frias. Jose von Frias, he hails from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. I wish I did. That sounds so cool. And it's such a pretty area, too. I don't know if you've ever been to the Hudson River Valley, but Hastings-on-Hudson. That's where Jose Von Frias is from, and he had the correct answer. Alan Shepard used a six iron to hit his golf shot on the moon. Now, I do have to give honorable

mention to one of our regulars, and that's Bill Magnuson, because Bill went all out, man. He found a number of NASA sites that said it was an eight iron, and then there were some that said 6. So what did he do? Are you ready for this? He called the U.S. Golf Association Museum in Far Hills, New Jersey. Which is where it resides. Exactly.

And their library confirmed that it is, in fact, a 6-iron. So, Bill, no T-shirt this week, but, boy, an A for effort. Nice job. Alright, for next week, the Magellan spacecraft as well as various Earth orbiting spacecraft have used a technique to image

the surface of a planet called SAR. In this context, what does SAR stand for? We're not looking for the disease here, we're looking for the observation technique. What does SAR stand for? And how can people for the disease here. We're looking for the observation technique. What does SAR stand for? And how can people enter the contest? Go to planetary.org slash radio and enter our contest. Get it into us, too.

By Thursday at noon Pacific time. And do tell us what size shirt you want. We're going to have to get a hold of Jose and see what he wants to get from us. That's how the trivia contest works. But we're not done, because right after we take a break, Bruce, we're going to finally get to visit again with Biff and Sandy. Yes, we're going to go back to Biff and Sandy and hear how they're doing on the surface of Mars. I am giddy with excitement. Right now, I will just encourage people to look up in the night sky and think about gum.

Thank you. Good night. And that's Bruce Betts, the director of projects here at the Planetary Society, who joins us each week for What's Up. And he is a close personal friend of Biff and Sandy, who will be joining us right after this from another of the student astronauts. Hello. My name is Cheng Dao Cheng. I'm from Taiwan. I'm 14 years old. I'm a student astronaut.

The time I spent here was awesome. I got to hold a piece of the rover, which is the RAT, or the RAT. And it's fun to watch those scientists debate, discuss about what is more important in the sequence. It's fun to watch them, you know, discuss what's more important and what's not. There are constraints to the rover on energy, time, and power, so only the most important things get to go to the sequence. So it's quite fun to watch. I've experienced the life scientists have on those MER rovers.

Science, I think, is quite interesting. When I get back home, I'll start organizing my notes, take them at JPL, and I'll review my journals and see if there's any new findings. I think I'll be glad to answer those questions my friends ask, like what's it like inside JPL. I'll be sort of a reporter. We're back on Planetary Radio. As promised, we are about to bring you more of those wonderful tapes,

recordings made of Biff and Sandy, and we're going to pick up pretty much where we were a couple of weeks ago. When the microscopic imager on Spirit returned an image of the Martian soil with a consistency that was compared to that of powdered cocoa, Biff got a little overexcited. Yuck! This is not powdered cocoa! It tastes, Sir Biff, not a taste.

That's for sure. One thing Mars doesn't have is good taste. Mars isn't alone. I know, for I, Biff Starling, am here now with it. So that was Biff trying to ingest a bit of Mars. Let's go up to a little bit of Sandy. And this is still before she actually arrived on the Martian surface. Not long, though, before she entered the Martian atmosphere.

And I think she composed a haiku for this occasion. To show my current excitement, I created this. Opportunity. Engineering devices. Enter atmosphere. How emotional. I moved. And you will be, too, when you hit the gas rear.

You and your engineering devices. What a great opportunity! Party on! Well, that's the Biff we know and love. Now, after Sandy's landing, things got rather strange with the usually serious and subdued Sandy Moondust. Even stranger than Biff writing a profound haiku. Dude, this is so totally awesome. I can't believe it. Whoa, Sandy, did you just speak surfer?

Oh my gosh, I did. How could I have done that? But Biff, this is just so righteous. The view is bodacious. The entry, the descent, and the landing was radical. I can't stop! It's okay, Dudette. It's called happiness. It's an emotion. Go with it, Dudette.

How's the landing site? It is totally the most stupid place I have ever seen. So not Earth. Like, whoa, most stupid place I've ever seen. So not Earth. Like, whoa, I've written a quick haiku. Ode to a landing site. Found smorgasbord on the ground. Outcrop calling us over.

Pumatite around? Sandy's excitement on arriving at Mars was soon followed by a rather harrowing experience for the little astrobot. We'll hear it as it happened on next week's show. We're out of time for this installment of Planetary Radio, though. I hope you'll all be back for our next visit.

Take care, everyone.