Life on Mars, Hawaiian style

A blog about Ross Lockwood’s recent talk at University of Alberta Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences.  Note that much of this is by memory, so apologies to Mr. Lockwood, if I got something wrong.

The photo is from his spincrisis blogsite, link below.  There is plenty of good reading there.

The talk was about a NASA simulated Mars mission (sMARS, as he put it), on the slopes of a Hawaiian volcano, for 4 months.  The idea was to test a crew in a Martian-like environment – isolated and difficult.  Other projects of this type have been done in other locales, such as the Canadian Arctic and Russia.  The speaker was Ross Lockwood, a recent PhD grad, who had participated in the mission.

NASA site: http://hi-seas.org

Ross Lockwood’s site: http://spincrisis.com/

 

About getting the job:

• He thought that his training as an experimental physicist (U of A PhD, just defended recently) was the key reason for NASA selecting him for the crew.  Since the crew was to simulate being on Mars, training in practical science, such as an experimentalist receives, would be a very valuable attribute.

• In the NASA interview for the job, he was asked about his “MacGyver Moment” i.e. a time when he had to solve a technical problem with only tools and materials at hand.  He told them about driving across the Canadian prairies, when the throttle mechanism of his car began to fail.  He jury-rigged it (I can’t recall how) in order to be able to get to the “next town with a Canadian Tire store” (Canadians will understand that reference).

• His scuba experience probably helped too, being used to suiting up and having to bring your own air, I suppose.

• The other thing was persistence.  He had applied for this position in an earlier iteration, if I recall correctly.

 

About the job itself

• There were six crew members, living in a small (1600 square foot?) dome on the slope of Mount Lei in Hawaii.  The idea was to simulate the situation of a small crew on Mars, with delayed time communications to Earth, and only their own capabilities to rely upon (though Earth could provide advice).

•  Living conditions had to be self-contained in the dome – a small sleeping/private area for each person, and a common area, for example.

• All excursions outside the dome were done in “space suits” – cumbersome hazmat suits that were meant to simulate the suits actual explorers on Mars might use.  These were clumsy to get into or out of, and one could not easily do so alone.

• One of the main purposes of the study was to see how a small isolated crew would get on, psychologically, over time.  It had been observed that crews in these conditions sometimes withdraw, and become distant from “ground control”, for example.  I believe he thought that went on with his crew, to an extent.

• There were 3 males and 3 females in the crew.  He didn’t mention how that worked out in any detail, though.  I think that aspect might make a great Science Fiction Romance novel or short story.

About the Hawaiian location

• The slope of the Hawaiian volcano was chosen because it was very isolated and the volcanic geology was similar to the volcanic regions of Mars (Tharsis) which would be an interesting  region for exploration.  The altitude meant it was dry and cold (though not so much as Mars, obviously) and that the air was thin.

• The crew took training in geology and geological field work techniques before embarking on the experiment.

 

Problems Encountered

• A “Hal 9000 moment” (refers to the SF film 2001) occurred when the power went out one night.  Apparently,  the batteries were drained, due to a sensor that didn’t work correctly.  They had to boost the communications relay with “space suit” batteries.  I believe they had to figure that out on their own, as there was no power to communicate with “Earth”.

• The boost worked to re-establish (solar?) power and communications, but the power outage led to ongoing irritating problems.  The system wasn’t designed with the expectation of the power ever going totally black.

• A frightening moment for him, involved getting nearly trapped in a lava tube on the side of the volcano.

• Lava tubes are very interesting, because they exist on Mars and would be a ready-made shelter from solar radiation, which would be extremely harmful to explorers on Mars, as Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field to deflect the solar wind, the way that Earth does.  Therefore, exploring the Hawaiian lava tubes while suited up was a key mission objective.

• He nearly got stuck in one tube.  It narrowed down into a V shape.  At the bottom, he could make out something white, which proved to be the remains of a mountain sheep which had become trapped, as the V eventually opened up again, in a sort of hourglass shape.

• He nearly got trapped in the neck of the hourglass, having to haul himself back up to the first level by his arms, his feet not being able to find purchase to help.  This was especially difficult to do while suited up.  It wasn’t clear whether his crew mates were around to help.  He noted that there was a bit of the "fight or flight" reaction involved, triggered by the smell of the dead animal, most likely.

• A small, but significant problem, was the tedium of eating food that had to be rehydrated.  Mushy food was definitely monotonous, he said.

Afterwards

• He has done a number of talks about his experience, including the one that he did for us.  There has been quite a bit of interest (he is also a good speaker, which helps).

• He thinks an actual flight to Mars is still a long way off.  He thinks the internet “Mars 1” project is not really serious and would never work.  The private ambitions such as Elon Musk’s “SpaceX” have better prospects, but ultimately a NASA mission is most likely.  That would probably be in collaboration with other world space agencies.  Maybe it could happen by the 2030’s or 2040’s.

• He will defend his thesis soon.  He is currently working on some systems projects at the U of A.

Here's hoping that he continues to have an  interesting career.

Jupiter’s moon Europa and Love and Intrigue Under the Seven Moves of Kordea

Helena Puumala’s SF Romance series features a planet with seven moons.  This rather unusual setting gives me the opportunity to talk about some of the remarkable moons in our solar system, as I test different moons for the cover of book 2 of the series.  This blog is about Europa, one of the four large moons of Jupiter, and one of the most interesting, as there is intense speculation that it could harbor life in its deep ocean.

Here are a few facts about Europa, courtesy of Wiki:

• It's the smallest of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, but still the sixth largest in the solar system.
• As noted above, it is one of the four original moons discovered by Galileo in 1610 (thus, referred to a Galilean moon).
• It is the second farthest from Jupiter of the four Galilean moons.  It is easy to find in a small telescope.
• It participates in a 1:2:4 orbital resonance with the two Galilean moons that it is between, Io (closest to Jupiter) and Ganymede(third from Jupiter).  That means, for every one time Ganymede goes around Jupiter, Europa goes around twice and Io goes around four times.
• Europa’s orbit takes about three and a half days.  It is tidally locked with Jupiter (its rotation rate is the same as its orbit rate), so at a certain point on Europa, Jupiter would always be directly overhead.
• The orbit is slightly eccentric (non-circular), so sometimes it is a little farther from Jupiter and sometimes it is a little closer.  This causes the planet’s shape to change slightly, elongating when closest to Jupiter and becoming more spherical when farther away.  The flexing of the planet creates heat (friction, basically), which keeps the liquid ocean under the ice from freezing.
• The orbital resonance with Io “pumps” its orbit, so that it remains elliptical and does not completely circularize over time.  Thus, the moon continues flexing every 3.5 days, supplying a constant source of heat for the buried ocean.
• An ocean exists many kilometers underneath Europa’s icy crust, which acts as an insulating blanket.   Due to the temperature at the surface (-160 Celsius) that surface ice would be as hard as granite.
• Some researchers think certain “chaotic” surface features indicate that this ocean may occasionally break through in places to the surface.  This is an area of intense debate.
• Europa has a small magnetic moment, probably caused by the salty subsurface ocean, which can act a conductor, and induces the magnetic field.
• Water vapor plumes have been spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope.
• It is not known exactly how far down the liquid ocean is, but speculations range from a few kilometers to tens of kilometers.
• Life could cluster around features equivalent to the “black smokers” of Earth’s oceans, where heat and matter from the crust and mantle below escape into the ocean.  Europa might have similar hydrothermal vents.
• Alternatively, primitive life, like bacterial mats on Earth, might exist near the bottom of this ocean, which would be warmer than the higher levels.
• There may even be a relatively high oxygen content in this ocean, due to the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide, which seems to exist on the surface.  This could then be absorbed into the ocean below.
• Free oxygen might also come from water ice being broken down at the surface of Europa, by cosmic rays, that is then absorbed into the deep ocean.
• A high oxygen content could mean complex life (fish?).
• Its albedo is about 64% (about 64% of the light falling on it is reflected).  This is one of the highest albedos in the solar system.
• The surface is smooth and bright, due to the constant reworking of it by the tidal energies noted above. 
• There are plans to land a probe on Europa and drill into the surface.  That would be difficult and expensive; among other things, the surface has high levels of radiation (via Jupiter’s effect on the solar wind).

Here's a picture of Europa,  taken by a NASA probe.

 

Now, here’s a well-deserved pitch for Helena Pummala’s latest SF Romance series, The Witches’ Stones:

Helena Puumala's SF Romance series features the planet Kordea, home to a race of beautiful and powerful psychic aliens, known as the Witches of Kordea.  The planet has seven moons, an extraordinary arrangement for a terrestrial sized planet in its star's habitable zone, as is noted in Book 1, which you can get from the link below:    :).

http://www.amazon.com/The-Witches-Stones-Book-One-ebook/dp/B008PNIRP4 

In fact, the moons of Kordea become a central element in Book 2, soon to come out.  The cover below actually borrows the moon Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.  I will by testing out different moons for the cover of the Witches' Stones Book 2, so, as noted above, this gives me the opportunity to do a mini-tour of some of the major moons of our solar system.  Moons, including our own, are fascinating.  A terrestrial planet with seven moons would be cool (though it would probably be a very unstable arrangement).