As previously reported, there's a great lineup of speakers at the BAA out of London meeting on September 3rd - including MER Principle Investigator Steve Squyres.

Steve has kindly offered some of his time so that we can meet up and do a Q'n'A based on questions submitted by you lot.

Obviously - there will be loads and loads of questions you want to ask and only so much time in which to ask them - however - I'll do what I can to pick as many of the best as I can squeeze in in the time available.

There will be a write up here, obviously, and I will try and record it as an MP3 and post that here as well.

Steve's book 'Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity and the Exploration of the Red Planet' is published next week - and a signed copy will be winging its way to the person submitting the best question! *

If you have questions you want me to pitch to Steve, then drop me an email to doug@rlproject.com with the subject SS Q&A

As a heads up - please take note of the other speakers at the BAA meeting - and if you have specific questions you'd like asked of them - I'll do my best to try and get them in after their presentations at the meeting. The last two ( Profs Greeley and Muller ) are on the Sunday and the Friday respectively, but I will be trying to get down to those presentations as well - but no promises.

-Prof. Carolyn Porco, Principal investigator, Cassini imaging system
-Prof. John Zarnecki, Principal investigator, Huygens surface science
-Prof. Mike A'Hearn, Principal Investigator, Deep Impact,
-Prof. Ron Greeley, Scientist on several planetary missions, Chairman of NASA & NAS Mars exploration panel
-Prof. Jan-Peter Muller, Scientist on Mars Express hi-resolution camera team, University College London.

Doug
* 'best' to be picked by SS and myself on the day

Is Squyres' book available in the USA yet?

Seemingly
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846

Doug

It's not been too easy finding where he will be on his signing tour, but he'll apparently be at KSC on August 9th. Has anyone found the schedule?

http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/eventsDe...?calendarId=192

Doug: I've sent you my questions. I'm curious how many others you've received. Do you have more questions than you could possibly ask?

I've had two.

Perhaps no one reads the news forum

I've added a link to my signature - the ammount of yapping I do here, no one can miss that

Doug

Darn it. I should have kept my mouth shut. My question would have had a 50% chance of winning the contest.

On second thought, I sent you two questions. If you were counting both of those, I pretty much had the odds locked up in my favor. Now I really hate my big mouth.

Seriously, though, I hope you've gotten more questions by now. This is a precious opportunity and we should collectively make the most of it.

Yesterday I was tempted to call for questions elsewhere, but then I thought no - it's the people here who I want to get the benefit from this. When the article and recording is done, I can post THAT elsewhere and say "if you did something about your conspiracist kooks, you guys could have asked him stuff as well"


Doug

(PS - I was just posting at another forum, and Suzi prompty sat on my keyboard - so I bowed to her superior judgement and just clicked X )

Great initiative Doug! Amazing how this place has grown.

Unfortunately, I don't think I know enough about the MERs to have a question ready. I only look at the general progress and the pretty pictures posted here

You could ask Carolyn Porco to get them to fix the Cassini RAW website

Was she really as bad as depicted in Gregory Benford's book Deep Time?

If so, she really hampered a chance to put a legitimate message to the future on the Cassini orbiter, as opposed to just a bunch of signatures (of which mine is one, I must admit).

http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/benford.html

I guess he's planning on taking in the MRO launch on August 10th.

Question for Steve:

Can i have a go please?

Seriously though:

Do you think you'll see Spirit or Oppy again in person?

I LIKE that one

Doug

no. It was Benford who was most clueless.

"Steve, I noticed that you're also on the Cassini Imaging Team. With both the MER and Cassini missions still being active, how do you devide your time between the two missions ?"

So what actually happened? I can't figure out either from the review or the correction, and I can't seem to find any other useful commentary on this particular row. What did the original message say, and why did Porco's co-lead object to it?

[I have got to say that I would probably have objected to there being a message at all, as it seems to me to be a waste of space. The spacecraft itself is a far better (and more interesting) time capsule than anything they could put on a disk; and if our descendants a century or two from now come across it, they are unlikely to find anything on the disk particularly informative or interesting. And I don't think there's going to be anyone else who will get to Saturn before we humans do.]

I was thinking of that whilst feeding the cat. That - and what SHOULD he and the rest of the team have been doing now if the rovers had quite 300 sols ago

Doug

1. Do you plan on having a public wake/roast/celebration of success once both rovers have completed their missions?
2. There have been lots of memorable pictures from Mars: Eagle Crater, Endurance, Bonneville, Methuselah, Larry's Lookout, etc. What's your favorite photo so far?
3. What's your favorite stereo image? Will Nasa produce a Viewmaster™®© series of MERs' Mars stereo photos?
4. What words of wisdom do you have for the MSL team?

How about: "When you are looking at the latest images of a new and unseen part of Mars which was of course beamed back to us from the rovers you helped create, do you ever think of what your teacher Carl Sagan might say if he were there to ponder them with you? Do you feel that you have honoured his memory with your achievement?"

deglr6328, that's a beautiful question...

I've tried to imagine that myself,

Steve, after-hours, one of the 'scenic' pics on the big screen, computers humming... Sitting there alone for a minute, before the rest of the crew comes in... Thinking of Carl....



Question: given that current scenarios talk about 500-ish days manned missions, and the rovers being able to function for that long... Has this changed the feelings re: feasibility of such stuff? The fact that the rovers keep functioning, does that mean we finally 'got it' how to do things there? That we're able to build stuff that lasts an arbitrary amount of time?

How about these:

Ignoring latitude restrictions, elevation restrictions and terrain restrictions imposed by EDL, if you could put a third MER rover anywhere on Mars, where would you put it and why?

Apart from the water story uncovered by Opportunity, which one discovery about Mars made by the MER rovers do you find to be the most scientifically compelling?

Similar to SFJCody's first question:

* Given that it's been harder for Spirit to come up with evidence of past water, have you wished one of the alternate landing sites had been picked instead?

Not a valid question, really, since without Spirit going there we wouldn't know what we know now.

I'm glad Spirit put down in Gusev - it's a very interesting and photogenic place. And we may not have had all of those cool dust devil movies!

Will Squyres lead as main scientist for the present MER project as the MSL project?

I like the SFJCody and Olave questions about the 3rd MER.

I think there is a 3rd MER in the laboratory and would like to ask him if this 3rd MER will be sent to Mars soon?

Rodolfo

Good thing I blew out of work early - Steve Squyres was on NPR's Science Friday this afternoon, along with Richard Zurek talking about MRO, *and* Mike Brown talking about 2003 UB313.

I missed Mike Brown and the first five minutes of the interview with Steve. Good show though, the audio should be archived for download after 6:00pm ET.

Talking about the book...it looks like it is Part I (or: the making of...)
will there be a part II (science results)?. Both rovers are still functioning, so that might take a while...

I just dl'd Steve's interview through the magic of podcasting.... and the mp3s are now up on the NPR link in odave's post if you don't have itunes set to get Science Friday automatically...

Ok, some Q's for the great Steve

1. IF one or both rovers will manage to reach SOL 1000 will there be any S1k bug in the software? And if so, is it being worked on?

2. Do you follow the different Mars/MER communitys on the Internet and what do you think about the general interest in the MER mission after such a long time?

Would be interesting to know the answer to the second one

Thanks for the link to that audio, odave. It was an interesting interview with SS, despite a few party-crashers and other clueless people that called in. They were quickly dispatched by the adept host. Too bad some of us didn't manage to call in. Fortunately, Doug has provided this access to Steve's ear. There are not likely to be any bad questions here.

I thought I had a fair chance with the questions I sent in, but there have been some really good questions proposed. I paticularly like the ones about alternate MER landing sites, but I can't help but think that deglr6328 trumped everyone with his question about Carl Sagan.

I can't help but take a shot at an answer to SFJCody's alternate landing site question. Besides, it will give us something to discuss while we await Steve Squyres' answers to the questions Doug asks him.

If I didn't have to worry about the survival of the mission during EDL, I'd toss a MER into the bottom of Valles Marineris. It seems that would be a pretty good place to find signs of water, or at least groundwater. There might even be some springs down there.

It just occurred to me that since I sent Doug my questions via the email address he posted, they were not publically posted. Since we are discussing the submitted questions, perhaps I should post my two questions here.
Opportunity Question
Many people in the UnmannedSpaceflight forum see the Etched Terrain as a wasteland that Opportunity needs to pass through on the way to Victoria Crater. Some of us believe the Etched Terrain will be a treasure trove of science targets that will perhaps keep Opportunity busy for the rest of its already amazing life. Now that you are seeing the Etched Terrain through the rover's eyes, what are your thoughts on this new terrain?
Specifically:
• What different kinds geologic investigations do you hope to perform there that can't be performed in impact crater exposures?
and
• What do you expect the topography to be like as Opportunity heads further into this terrain?

Spirit Question
The fascinating rock textures and geochemistry we have observed as Spirit has trekked upward in the Columbia Hills have fascinated many of us. Do you have enough data to confidently determine if the rocks were created by volcanic or impact processes, and if so, which would that be.

I´m not too confident my question about money & future missions will cut the grade amongst the many experts chipping in here. (Although I am not a "beancounter", honest!).

But my ten cents: I feel that the continuous presence of daily live data from Mars, near enough anyway, have substantially enlarged my world. What CNN did in the past to bring the world news into every house so to speak, did Steve & his team in making Mars a permanent feature in my daily news uptake. I watch less "old fashioned" TV these days, much less in fact, and instead I check the latest from Mars, Titan, various comets, and more. Not to mention the continuous pushing of the technology envelope whilst thinking about new opportunities & challenges for solar system exploration.

Think about it... our lives have been enriched tremendously.

Thus for me the big thing is: is how can we make the daily news from Mars a permanent thing?

3 Cheers for Steve!

Harder, you are the first (I don't want to violate your copyright/priority ), but this is very close to the question I would like to ask!
Also my life has been enriched tremendously, thanks to the wide, fast data availability from this successful mission (thanks, NASA!)...
So, in order to make this live-update permanent, why not to send within few years a half dozen MER rovers in other exiciting places? (eg inside Valles Marineris...).
I know, NASA has other plans (MSL or sample return mission), but the opportunity to capitalize a such tremendously successful space technology is really exciting!
I didn't make figures, but I immagine that sending 4 new MER rovers (with only minor improvements over original design) would cost like sending fist two and, for sure, probability of success is high, contrary to the new planned missions like MSL which will use innovative but risky technology.
I know, this "soviet"-like approach may appear conservative, but I'm convinced is the best way to widen sampling of Mars geology while keeping excited audience on Earth...

For Steve: "Have you ever browsed the unmannedspaceflight.com bulletin board and seen some of the amazing imagery interpretations done by its members?" I guess this is like asking the Rolling Stones if they ever visit their fan websites!

My humble offerings - more project based than science I think:

1. How do you see the current anti-intellectual political climate in the United States affecting future “big science” projects like planetary missions? As one of the most public science figures today, have you encountered any of this opposition in your travels?

2. MER has been quite successful in terms of balancing public relations and
real science. Do you find that others share your zeal for public outreach? Do you think this will be the standard for future planetary missions - a policy of near real time access to imagery? Or is this something unique to the team assembled for this project?

3. Has the team considered any long term “hacks” of the rovers in order to continue to do science? Or would these only be considered as needed? If mobility goes first, are there contingency plans for seasonal site observations, or even something "crazy-go-nuts" like a full MI panorama of the entire area accessible by the arm?

Doug

A couple of questions for Steve

1) Does he see any value in farming out research to this or other mars forums' enthusiasts, I can't imagine 100,000 images could be adequately evaluated by such a small team at JPL. e.g looking for certain rock types / distributions / clouds in images

2) Any possibility of a competition ( say schools / colleges / Mars Forums ) the prize being to 'Drive' one of the rovers on mars

Regards


Brian

I've got a couple of questions that are really variations on a theme. If I were clever, I could think of a way to phrase them as one question, but I'm not feeling clever today.

Given the constraints of money and mass, would you fly the same instrument package again? If not, what would you fly?

And related to that one: If you could add one more instrument (or maybe, a tightly coupled suite of instruments) to the MER package, what would it be?

Operationally: what would you do differently if you had to do it all over again? I'm especially curious to know what's tops on the "definitely wouldn't do it again" and "should have done it from the beginning" lists.

I wanted to, but unfortunately I don't have a cell phone and the show was over by the time I got home

It's just as well, though, since I would probably have gushed like a 13 year old girl meeting her favorite pop star

I did come up with one more question for SS, but maybe y'all have the answer:

* Is Sprit's RAT totally shot, or does it have a grind or two left in it that you're saving for a really interesting, high priority rock?

From a dribble - it's turned into a waterfall of good questions. Lots of duplication, and lots that I wanted to ask anyway - but I'll start collating them soon into an order

To give myself time to make sure I can sort thru all this lot - the submission 'launch window' will close on August 21st

Doug

Come on guys! Haven't seen any activity here in a while, and there's less than a week left! My question to steve would be how suprised is he that the rovers have lasted this long, and how long did he expect the rovers to last. Obviously, the "warranty" was 90 sols. I remember reading an article before launch from one of the MER team members saying they were fairly confident they could get 4 months out of the rovers.

May I suggest that it NOT be a question to ask Dr. Squyres? I get the feeling he has now been asked for his views/feelings/thoughts on the surprising longevity of the MERs about as much as the Apollo astronauts have been asked about what it was like to walk on the Moon.

I would ask him if he could place two more rovers on Mars, where would he like to put them?

I want to ask him what it is like to be PI of the most succesfull scientific operation on Mars ever

And if he feels that he could have done any better

And what he would do differently on the next assignment, assuming he'll be in a similar position on a next project, investigating the surface of another world.

True eough, but I would like to get his perspective without any possibility of having to "eat crow", so to say. Early on, of course the only figure quoted is going to be the 90 sols figure. Now, with this mission being classified as a huge success regardless of what happens tomorrow, I wonder if he would be more forthcoming of his original expections of accomplishments and longevity.

Then go and buy his book... Squyres is very forthcoming in his book about his expectations; he was so tied in to the 90-sol projection that he got a bit, um, shall we say "high strung" whenever anything threatened to steal away even a single sol from the exploration program. He also said he was rather expecting Spirit to be on its very last legs by the time it reached the Columbia Hills.

He talks about getting more and more relaxed about things as time went on and it became apparent that the rovers weren't going to die anytime soon.

-the other Doug

I'm curious about the strategy behind building ever-more complex spacecraft. Given the high cost of creating new designs, what do we give up by, say, making "n" more rovers just like the current crop and sending them different places?

I guess my question nets out to the question of wider surface coverage vs. new types of data.

Compare the science output of MPF with MER, and you know that technological renewal of spacecraft is important. I understand what you mean, because the output of MER we see now is absolutely astonishing and it would be great to see, let's say, 4 other sites with clones of Spirit and Oppy. But:

We need to move on. Considering the landing tech. (airbags) of MER, only a couple of % of the Martian surface can be reached (flat, low, near the equator). What we want now, is look somewhere else, and we want to look for other things. Higher latitudes, other kinds of terrain, maybe even polar regions. Also we want to follow the carbon (besides the water). And therefore we need a whole bunch of new things that can't be integrated in MER. RTG's, chromatographic columns, spectrographs, lasers, high def. video, maybe even a skycrane (or 2). Et voila: a whole new design is needed.

But believe me: We will absolutely not believe our eyes after MSL landed. It will be the same giant leap from MER to MSL, as it was from MPF to MER.

I can't wait.

PS: Another thought that adds up to it: The MER design isn't gone. It worked out as a great design and it learned a lot of people a lot of things. This knowledge is "in the pocket" and lot's of aspects will be used in new designs. It is not just sci. research on another planet, it is learning how to get there, how to squeeze out the optimum output of the project (people, limited amount of sols, route, etc.) AND, how to use this experience in making the next one even better.

People will never stop to improve technology.

Steve Squyres mentions in his book an early plan for the mars rover to be used as a sample collector for a later sample return mission. Spirit has seen such a variety of rocks and soil in the Colunbia Hills, I wonder which 3 or 4 sites would be highest on the list for sample return if Spirit was collecting samples.

Do you think the amateur community has a role to play in promoting the Mars missions?

I just realized that the deadline is August 21, so I will submit these questions prior to reading his book. These are the questions I would ask Steve over a pint:

1. What has he learned or seen from the MER that most surprised/shocked him?

2. What issue/question caused the most heated debate among the MER team and how was that issue resolved? (possible follow up: did the MER team have a similar debate as seen on this forum about whether Spirit should stop for "boring science stuff" while going up Husband Hill versus "put the metal to the petal" to see if more promising science targets were found on the other side?)

3. Which is his favorite rover and why?

4. What date does he predict humans will set foot on mars? What will be the vintage of the first wine made from grapes grown on Mars?

5. Any chance for a rover expedition to Titan?

6. Has there been any scientific (as opposed to PR) benefit from posting the raw data from MER so quickly on the internet -- have observations/analysis from the amateur community had any impact on the science conducted by the MER? Stated alternatively, is there any benefit he would tell to ESA of disseminating information rapidly to the public, aside from the PR aspects. Alternatively again, is there a down side to doing so? If so, what?

7. Does he still hope to find lacustrine materials in Gusev crater? If so, where does he think is the most likely place to find it?

8. How do the original space-based observations of Hematite at Meridiani compare with what was actually found on the ground and what does that tell us about Meridiani?

I will leave it at that!

I hate to be a bit complainy or something, but I keep wondering just why the Pancam near-infrared images are clearly not in good focus... as you step through filters to longer and longer wavelengths, the pictures get noticeably less and less sharp.

It's a wavelength thing. The longer wavelengths of IR result in lower resolution. If you want the finest details visible to human eyes, go for L7 or R1. That said, there are some things the human eye cannot see. To "see" them, use the IR filters. The pancams are amazing instuments.