Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - The Planetary Society's Red Rover Goes To Mars Project with Emily Lakdawalla

Episode Date: November 17, 2003

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This is Planetary Radio. Hi everyone and welcome back. I'm Matt Kaplan. You hear her week after week sharing the solar system's most intimate secrets. hear her week after week sharing the solar system's most intimate secrets. Finally, on this week's show, we'll get to know Emily Laktawalla a little better as we learn more about Red Rover Goes to Mars. And later on, Bruce Betts will have news of what's up with that same solar system, why we may even consider the mysterious tribal rights of penguins. I'll be back with Emily right after this from Emily.

Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, would it be possible to grow desert plants on Mars since the atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and water vapor? Even the most hardy desert plant would almost certainly die if it were planted on Mars today. There are three problems for potential plants on Mars. Low atmospheric pressure, low temperature, and lack of liquid water. How much thicker and warmer would the Martian atmosphere have to be before plants could be introduced? Right

now, Mars' atmosphere is more than 100 times thinner than the sea-level atmosphere on Earth. However, a piece of good news for our desert plants is that there is both relatively and absolutely more carbon dioxide in Mars' atmosphere than there is in Earth's atmosphere. So Mars has enough carbon dioxide, but plants also require liquid water in the atmosphere. Mars' atmospheric pressure would have to be about three times what it is now,

or about 30 times thinner than the Earth's, in order to be saturated with water vapor and carbon dioxide. So the atmospheric pressure wouldn't have to change very much, but the temperature would. Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out more. That was Emily Lakdawalla, as we've heard her each week on this program. Emily writes those Q&A segments, and she also has my undying gratitude for creating the webpage for every Planetary Radio episode.

After emerging from Amherst with a degree in geology, along with summa cum laude honors, Emily taught fifth and sixth grade science. A master's degree and a stint as an environmental planner came next before she arrived at the Planetary Society. As science and technology coordinator, she edits the comprehensive Exploring Mars section of the Society's website. But it's her work as deputy project manager for Red Rover Goes to Mars that I wanted to talk to her about, including the preparations she is making for the arrival at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the student astronauts. Some of this work has had her spending long nights with the Mars Exploration Rover Science Team at JPL. So, Emily, are you done with these JPL slumber parties?

Well, actually, no. The slumber party that I was working on a couple weeks ago is over, but there's going to be a new one next week. Luckily for us, they're simulating a part of the mission that's working much closer to Earth time than the last one did. So we'll be working slightly strange hours, but they won't be the wee hours of the morning this time. But when the rovers actually make it to Mars and land, all the scientists and engineers, and I suppose you too, you're going to be on Mars time, right?

We will be on Mars time. And Mars is nice in that it has days that are very similar to Earth days. They're about 40 minutes longer. But that little 40-minute difference means that the Mars time marches 40 minutes later every day. It's going to creep up on you. Yes. It really does. And it's amazing how exhausted it makes you to try to work on that kind of schedule. So here you're going to have these teenagers. I wonder who's going to do better, the quote-unquote grown-ups or

the teens in dealing with this schedule. Well, let's not forget that most of the teens are coming from other countries in different time zones, so they're going to have jet lag plus Mars lag. And I really don't know who of us is going to do better. I hope that the kids will be running on so much adrenaline that they will just be excited and marching right on through the week that they're here. I think you can bet on it. Since we're now talking about these student astronauts, let's talk a little bit more about that,

because that's just one piece of Red Rover Goes to Mars, which is something that you have a great deal of responsibility for at the Planetary Society. That's right. The student astronauts are a group of 16 kids from 12 different countries, five different continents, eight boys, eight girls. It's a remarkably diverse group of kids. They're fantastic. We selected them from an essay competition

where they had to put themselves in the shoes of the scientists and engineers working on the Mars mission, and they had to decide how they would use the Mars Exploration Rover to explore the surface of Mars. We originally started this program quite a long time ago with the Mars Surveyor 2001 mission. At the time, Surveyor was a landed mission, and the Planetary Society wanted to involve kids in this mission. And so the student scientists, as the group was then called, was supposed to be selected to work on the Mars

Surveyor 2001 mission. The contest had started when the Mars Polar Lander failure happened, shortly after which the Mars Climate Orbiter failure happened, and all of Mars exploration was thrown into a mess. One result of the mess was that Surveyor was canceled. Some of its programs were turned into Mars Global Surveyor. Others were moved forward to later Rover Mission. The science package aboard Mars Surveyor was called the Athena Science Package, and it's pretty much the same package of instruments that is now on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. The problem for us is that that mission was a couple of years beyond our planned scope of the Red Rover Goes to Mars project, so we had to replan. beyond our planned scope of the Red River Goes to Mars project, so we had to replan.

The decision was made, rather than delaying these kids' activities for years, that they would instead have a total of three groups of kids, the student scientists, the student navigators, and the student astronauts. The student scientists and student navigators came to Pasadena a couple of years ago to work first at Mail and Space Science Systems with the Mars Orbiter camera, actually running through a project to select a landing site on the surface of Mars for a future landed mission. The student navigators came to JPL to work with a JPL robotics lab and a rover called FIDO that is a test bed for some of the instruments and mostly the software that's running Mars exploration rovers.

So those two activities already took place with international groups of kids coming to Pasadena to work on a project together. They were very successful, and they paved the way for the current group of kids, the student astronauts. And these guys, these lucky 16, are actually part of conducting these missions, the Mars Exploration Rover missions. Indeed they are. They are technically part of the science team. The group is actually called the Science Operations Working Group.

This is a group of scientists and engineers on the Mars Exploration Rover mission that sits down every day to analyze the images that came back from Mars yesterday and use those brand-new results to plan what the rovers are going to do tomorrow. And so the Science Operations Working Group is actually working over the rover's night. The rover does activities during the day. It goes to sleep in the late afternoon, and while it's asleep, the Science Operations Working Group is going to plan what it'll do the next morning when it wakes up. And so the students are going to be in on these meetings as these decisions are made,

or, oh, there's an interesting rock over there, let's send spirit that way. They definitely will. Wow. And of course, the students aren't here yet, but you've got scientists, engineers, people who've worked on this for years, PhDs, a lot of them, and now they've got these high school kids coming in. What's the attitude toward that? a lot of them, and now they've got these high school kids coming in. What's the attitude toward that? The mission has been unbelievably welcoming to us.

They have gone above and beyond to make sure that we are incorporated into the operations of the mission. The great thing is that all of the scientists in particular, they're all teachers. They teach all the time. They have students. They have undergrads. They have graduate students. They like to teach or else they wouldn't be in the career that they're in. So teaching, working with a group of kids like the student astronauts is just part of the role that they have in their home institutions.

And these aren't just any kids. I mean, as you said, they're pulled from all over the world. I mean, if you consider all three phases, weren't there thousands and thousands of kids who applied? There were a lot of kids applying from all over the world, from dozens of countries. And so this is a really diverse group. That's one of the reasons that we're running this program, because kids in a lot of other countries, they don't get the opportunities to imagine themselves in a future where they can be working on actual space missions. There's only a few countries in the world that have active space programs that launch scientific satellites and that do this kind of research.

So unless you're a citizen of one of these fortunate countries in the U.S. and Europe and Australia, India and Japan, to name a few, and Europe and Australia, India and Japan, to name a few, then you're pretty much out of luck unless you manage to get yourself accepted to some major university in a foreign country, which is a little bit difficult for a lot of these kids to accomplish. Yeah, just two weeks ago on this program, we were talking about Noma Themba, the student from South Africa. That's right. What an incredible opportunity this is for people like her from countries that still qualify as third world nations. Absolutely. And she would never be able to imagine a future working on a NASA mission,

certainly not at any kind of program in her home country. But she can imagine this kind of project where she, as a kid, can get involved in a real NASA mission. What will happen outside of the actual mission activities for these students? I know we're talking about having them participate somehow in the Planetary Society's big event, Wild About Mars, which is going to be something happening at the Pasadena Convention Center that we'll be talking more about on this show in coming weeks. But the students are going to participate in that somehow.

We're not exactly sure how yet, but isn't that the plan? That's right. The kids were selected primarily as communicators. They're not scientists, although they're undergoing training right now to learn about Mars science. They're not engineers, but what they are is observers of people. And when they're inside mission operations, they're going to be seeing what's happening every day in mission operations, how the science is done, how scientists and engineers work together, what challenges they face, and how they meet those challenges and solve the problems.

And so what we're hoping that they will do for us is to report to the outside world, to people in their home countries and everywhere around the world about what they see. And they'll do that through the web, through online journals, through a variety of media, whatever we're able to get them to do, however we're able to get people to hear them and what they have to say about what's going on in the mission. So this probably won't end when they leave JPL and head back home. Absolutely not. And we hope that they'll continue to be spokespeople in their home countries

for the rest of their lives about the value of space exploration to inspire people and kids and to bring all of these diverse countries together and working together toward a common goal. We're talking with Emily Lakdawalla, who you may know as the voice and actually the creator, the writer of our questions and answers session, but does much more for the Planetary Society, a lot of it having to do with Red Rover Goes to Mars, and there is much more to Red Rover Goes to Mars than the student astronaut program.

So what I think we'll do is we'll take a break, and we'll come back and we'll talk about some of those other components. All right. We'll be back right after this with more Planetary Radio. 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. Planetary Radio returns. Our guest today, one of our colleagues at the Planetary Society, the Science and Technology coordinator for the society, Emily Lakdawalla, who is the prime mover, I think it's safe to say, one of them certainly, behind Red Rover Goes to Mars. We talked in the first half of our conversation about the student astronauts,

but as we said, there's much more to this. Start with the Mars stations, which are also going to have a presence at Wild About Mars. Well, the Mars stations are my baby, although it grew out of a project that started years ago at the Planetary Society before I was here. That one's called Red Rover, Red Rover, which is an extension package on Lego's regular educational product to teach kids about robotics and engineering. And we should say, yes, this is the Lego that everybody knows from growing up and blocks and so on, which have become these incredibly sophisticated toys.

Absolutely. You can build very complicated robots out of Lego. I've even seen one on the Internet that can solve a Rubik's Cube. Oh, gosh. Yes. You mean it even manipulates the cube? It sees the cube, figures out the colors, manipulates it, and solves it. Oh, my God.

All right. It's amazing what you can accomplish with Lego. Well, back to rovers. Yeah, this project is a little bit simpler than that. Basically, you have a little Lego rover with wheels and motors driving the wheels, and on the Lego rover is a web camera. And the web camera and the rover are connected to a computer so that you can drive the rover through a computer and see through the rover web camera. And the web camera and the rover are connected to a computer so that you can drive

the rover through a computer and see through the rover's camera. As far as that goes, it's sort of like a little video game. You drive the rover, no big deal. But the really cool element of Red Rover, Red Rover is that you can connect, if you have the Red Rover, Red Rover software, you can connect to another site over the internet and remotely drive a rover and see through that rover's web camera to an environment that's not in front of you. It could be thousands of miles away. And so it really accurately simulates the difficulty of exploring an unknown site with a rover that doesn't have a lot of sensory capabilities. And most of the Red Rovers just have cameras, and some of them have other touch sensors or light sensors or other things on them. The software that you mentioned, how can people get that?

Well, the Red Rover Red Rover educational package is available through a company called PITSCO, and there's information on our website. So we'll give that URL, that web address. So we've got a new project called Mars Stations, which extends Red Rover, Red Rover to the whole internet. It's based on the Red Rover software, but instead of having to buy or download proprietary software, you can just visit a website in order to drive somebody else's rover. You can't host your own. That's one of the big differences. But you can drive a rover

remotely just using a web interface. And so we just have the software in a beta condition right now, and there are four active Mars stations. There's one here. There's one at Wichita State University. There's one at Marshall University in West Virginia, and there's one at the Centro de Astrobiología in Spain. Is it possible there's going to be one set up in South Africa? We heard that a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, that's a possibility, and we are working on other stations in the U.K., in Canada, in Japan, hopefully Singapore and elsewhere in Europe. So we've got Mars stations in the works elsewhere, and we're looking for more hosts. So once this is out of beta, full release, anybody will be able to, just with a web browser, will be able to control one of these rovers. Absolutely, and you can actually do that now through the beta version by visiting our website. The software is still getting tweaked, but it will be launched, the full version will be launched before the rovers land on Mars in January. We better move on or we're going to run out of time, but we will post the web addresses for all of the sorts of things we're talking about.

And pretty much all of it in this case. This is kind of a unique conversation. You're going to be able to find it at planetary.org, but we'll try and be a little more specific than that. The astrobots, listeners of this program, they know about Biff and Sandy, but that's also part of Red Rover Goes to Mars. Absolutely. The astrobots are actual little figures that are printed on the surface of a DVD

that is physically bolted to the spacecraft lander. That DVD was provided by the Planetary Society to the mission in order to carry the names of all of the people all over the world who signed up in the Send Your Name to Mars campaign. So that DVD has on it 4 million names of people who signed up through a website, and those names will be carried to the surface of Mars on the DVDs on the landers. has on it four million names of people who signed up through a website, and those names will be carried to the surface of Mars on the DVDs on the landers. And I'm going to get in trouble with Bruce Betts, but Spirit has Biff.

That's right. Thank goodness. Spirit has Biff, and Opportunity has Sandy. That's right. Biff launched first aboard Spirit, and Sandy launched second aboard Opportunity. And we haven't heard from them for a while, but you can read their diaries on the website. That's right. I mean, we haven't heard from them in voice on this radio program, but hopefully that's still going to happen sometime soon.

We know you're all waiting with bated breath out there, folks, and it's very busy. They're trying to get to Mars. What was the whole idea, though, of doing this, of the astrobots, of letting people put their names on a spacecraft that's going to crawl around on Mars? Well, it's amazing how much people get excited about being able to put their names on a spacecraft. It's a way for everybody around the world to literally have their name on a mission. And so anybody who can access the Internet anywhere around the world, in Kazakhstan, you could sign up on this website and put your name on the spacecraft. I heard a story from somebody from NASA headquarters who

was working on this Send Your Name to Mars project. And she received a phone call from a distraught woman who said, my house has just burned down. We lost everything. And the things that my kids are crying about are these certificates that had their names on it that said that they'd sent their names to Mars. Is there any way we can get another copy? And yes, there is. Fortunately for this mother, there was a way she could get another copy. But it just shows you how much stock people put in being able to put their name on a spacecraft. And that's a project that the Planetary Society really likes to be able to participate in. Because this is a big part of the mission of this place. It's not just to explore,

but it's to share that excitement and let people have an outlet for it, because so many of us feel it. And the astrobots were a conceit in order to help teach kids about what's going on in the spacecraft. What are the parts of the spacecraft? What is each part for? How does it work? What happens if

it goes a little bit wrong sometimes? What do they do to try to fix it? All of those things. It was just a way for us to reach out and teach in a fun and sometimes silly way about what's going on with the mission. We only have a minute or two left. I want to continue with that theme of the excitement of what this is all about because you certainly feel that. Absolutely. You have an interesting background.

You were a schoolteacher. Yeah. But how did you end up at the Planetary Society? It was a long and circuitous path. I started in college studying geology at Amherst College, which I thought was a fun science because it integrated all of the other sciences and allowed me to get outside.

From that, I went into schoolteaching because I thought maybe I was interested in doing public education. I really enjoyed working with kids, but I also felt a little bit isolated in the classroom. I felt like I was doing a tremendous amount of work to a fairly limited end. And as part of that, my teaching, I worked on a space simulation project with a fifth grade class where they had to identify a mission and plan a mission and pretend one day to launch it and run through it and go through that excitement. And it made me think, huh, I wonder if I can do geology on other planets. And so it turns out you can. There are a few universities that

study geology on other planets. And I went to Brown, where I studied Venus using Magellan data, among other things. And then I came out here to Los Angeles, and through tremendous luck, I stumbled upon a job opportunity here at the Planetary Society. And you're still educating. Absolutely. We're out of time. But you know what? I get to say goodbye to you.

First of all, thank you, Emily Laktawalla, for joining us for an extended segment today. My pleasure. Making it much more real, your actual being to the people who've been hearing you do the questions and answers session on the show ever since we started almost a year ago. Emily is the Science and Technology Coordinator for the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. It has been great having you here, and you know what I have to say now? We'll be right back after this from Emily. I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A. How would Mars' atmosphere have to change in order for it to be able to support Earth desert plants.

It would have to get three times thicker in order to hold enough water vapor for the plants. More importantly, Mars's atmosphere would need to be significantly warmer, so that at least during the warmest part of the year, the daily average remained above freezing. Climate models suggest that this would occur when the annual average temperature is about minus 40 degrees Celsius or minus 40 Fahrenheit. To get this high a temperature from a carbon dioxide greenhouse effect would require an atmosphere about 15 times thicker than Mars's present one, which would be more than thick enough to support the amount of carbon dioxide and water vapor that the plants would need for photosynthesis. So if we could somehow thicken Mars' atmosphere to 15 times its present pressure, which is still less than one-sixth of Earth's atmospheric pressure, then

some hardy vegetation from the desert or arctic regions of the Earth might be able to survive. And if they did survive, they would photosynthesize and produce oxygen. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. And now, here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. He's back, and we're both in near-perfect health. Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society, is here with What's Up. I am indeed. Excited to be here in near health.

And in near perfect health. Near perfect health. Now that we're both on antibiotics. That's right. And more reason to be giddy with excitement. I'm so giddy with excitement because, you know, we have some things happening this week that are going to be very hard to see and I want to share them with the listeners. Ooh, tell us.

Well, first let's start with, for those of you listening in Antarctica, there will be a total solar eclipse late this week. Check the web. Frightens the penguins. All sorts of strange penguin cult things happen at this time of year. Penguin sacrifices. But go on. We digress. Meteors.

They also get excited about meteors. The Leonid meteor shower will be peaking on the 17th through the 19th And the Leonids have been spectacular the last few years But don't get used to it, we're done with that They will be less spectacular But there still will be tens of meteors per hour From a good spot If you go out somewhere clear and dark, you're still going to get a show

If you stare up in the night sky, they'll look like fast-moving stars that are splishing and splashing through the sky. Very beautiful. And there are a usual host of planets up there. Four planets up there. Mars in the southeast in the early evening. Venus setting an hour after the sun in the west-southwest. Saturn in the east-northeast. Four hours after sunset.

And Jupiter in the southeast at dawn. Did you catch the lunar eclipse? I did not. We were clouded out. And you? I'm ashamed to say I forgot about it. I was coming out of a store. Well, it may have been too cloudy before this anyway, but I came out of a store at about, oh, 630 Pacific.

And there it was, coming through the clouds, still about, you know, a quarter occluded. And, you know, it's still great. It's still beautiful. It's the coolest thing. It is. It's very, very clouds, still about, you know, a quarter occluded. And, you know, it's still great. It's still beautiful. It's the coolest thing. It is. It's very, very cool. What else? Well, we have This Week in Space History.

Two lunar dates for you. November 17, 1970. Lunokhod 1 became the first wheeled vehicle on the moon. Soviet, Soviet, what do you call it? Rover. Robotically controlled rover, basically joystick from earth. Why don't you just go on and I'll go wash my face, but you, you, you go ahead. All right.

And welcome back to another edition of my show. November 19, 1969, Apollo 12 made the second lunar landing. On to random space fact. Hey, did you know that one million Earths would fit inside the sun? Actually, I did. But I'll bet a lot of people didn't. And that's one of your favorites, isn't it? It is.

That and a thousand Earths would fit inside Jupiter. Therefore, ergo, henceforth, in as much as a thousand Jupiters would fit inside the Sun. These numbers are not exactly precise, but roughly. On to our trivia contest. Last week we asked you what locally famous architects designed the Planetary Society's headquarters. How'd we do? There are a lot of people mad at us because they said that this was not an easy one to Google out, although some people did have some success with Google.

We had one person who actually found a reference on Google. The headquarters of the Planetary Society was designed by blank and blank, we're going to say in a moment, and the Society is attempting to pay off its mortgage, but actually that happened several years ago. It did happen. Thanks to our members, we paid it off. Then we have folks who now, like Kyle Tinsley, who I don't think they really expect to win every time.

They just know if they're funny enough, we're going to mention them. So Kyle gets the award for funniest entry this time around because Kyle said that question is funniest entry this time around. Because Kyle said that question is way more challenging than usual. Can't you help us out a little? Maybe make it a multiple choice question. So here are his suggestions of the multiple choice answers. Coach Johnson's ninth grade woodshop class. A family of beavers from the nearby Nettle Creek. Frank Lloyd Wright's special cousin Elmer, Jacob Marley and Daniel Joseph Betts.

And then he did save for the last one. He did save for the last entry the correct answer, but we're going to give you the correct answer as it came in from some folks who have not won before. Well, we could do more multiple choice. I mean, was it brown and brown? No, it wasn't. But you're close. Purple and purple. Oh, keep going on that spectrum.

Yellow and yellow. Or green and green. Bingo! Charles and Henry Green. It says here, as shown in the September-October 1985 issueue page 15 of the Planetary Report. Can you believe it? That is from Barry Olson of 9... I don't want to give a street address.

What am I doing? You'll all be writing him and asking for his calendar. Sorry about that, Barry. Barry's from Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. We're going to leave it at that. Congratulations, Barry. You were right. Congratulations.

Serious bonus points for pulling it out of a 1985 Planetary Report. That, Barry. You were right. Congratulations. Serious bonus points for pulling it out of a 1985 planetary report. That's spectacular. That's when the Planetary Society moved into this establishment, which is on its 100th anniversary and is one of the examples, as all green and greens, of the arts and crafts movement. Beautiful homes all over Southern California, at least where they've been preserved. And I have to say that the Planetary Society's home is one of the finest examples. And when you're in town, drop by. We'll show you around. What else

have you got for us? We're almost out of time. I'm going for a new trivia contest. All right. No one has ever discovered an asteroid orbiting between the sun and Mercury. But a project that's been going on and now is recently funded by the Planetary Society will be searching for these mythical objects. Strangely, though they've never been discovered, they do have names. Now, there are other categories of asteroids, such as centaurs and elmers, the trojans, the fish. You made these up.

You made some of these up. Just Elmer and the fish. Elmer and the fish, right. But made some of these up. Just Elmer and the fish. Elmer and the fish, right. But I love that show on TV, Elmer and the fish. Have you seen that? No, I haven't. Okay. It's Cartoon Network, right?

So look for it. What are these things going to be called if in January, when on a suborbital flight, they are discovered? Asteroids between Mercury and the sun. One other thing for you, moving on to something else, which is we do have a letter-writing campaign going on right now. It is our understanding that right now the Bush administration is considering making some announcement of plans for future human exploration, and we encourage people to write to Bush and the administration and encourage such things, including a final destination of Mars. Not final, but at least the next destination, significant destination for humans, however we may get there.

So go to our website, planetary.org, and you can find out how to participate in that. Which, of course, is also where you can go to find out how to enter the trivia contest. Oh, do that. And get that into us by next Thursday. That is Thursday around noon at Pacific time. And that's it. We're done. Well, everyone, look up in the night sky

and think about beavers building arts and crafts houses. Huh? What do you think? Thank you. Good night. I can't promise you more beavers and penguins, but I can tell you that next week marks the one-year anniversary of our little radio show about space exploration. I hope you'll join us.

Have a great week.