Dr. James B. Garvin is NASA's Chief Scientist, serving the Agency and the Administrator as the primary advisor for the entire NASA science portfolio. Here, he shares his thoughts on the Phoenix Mars Lander, what findings might surprise him, and when we might expect one giant leap to Mars.
Come back soon for the full transcript of Dr. James Garvin's live chat from Sun, May 25!
Q: What is the purpose of the Phoenix Lander?
A: It's really three things:
1) We're going to be touching the water with instruments that read where it came from. Why do we touch the water? The water is moving, and that migration is related to whether Mars could've been a habitable place as we know it. It's about a place where life as we understand it could and would have survived.
Also, we think Mars' climate is much more dynamic and variable than on Earth. Now, climate is the history of the changing environment -- that's the trends of weather over long periods of time -- and it's more topsy-turvy than on Earth. On Mars we have reasons to believe that climate history is subject to bigger mood swings in ways that may help us understand the variation of climate on Earth. Its climate is regulated by other factors -- our oceans moderate the climate on Earth. On Mars there are no oceans, so it's like a control experiment of our own weather.
Phoenix will indirectly look for chemicals that can tell us if life is possible in a perfect situation. Phoenix can measure organic molecules. In some cases they're made by life, in others they look like life, but aren't. No vehicle has gone to a place in another world that has water. It's the first step in the search for life on another planet, we are indirectly asking -- are we alone? Are the things necessary for life there on Mars?
2) We know the poles on Earth are so important in the study of global warming, so Phoenix is going to Mars to begin that process there and bring that perspective back to Earth. We are very terra-centric, so we think everything works the way it does on Earth. Mars does not read Earth textbooks. We have to make sure we're not slighted by Earth arrogance. This will relieve that arrogance, for about the cost of a James Cameron blockbuster.
3) The most tangible one -- it's inspired. I gave a lecture at a high school in Washington, D.C. I had a roomful of ninth and 10th graders enraptured when I showed them what the Phoenix can do. They get it. It's rocket science, but they get it. It's inspiring. After the rover landed we were measuring unique Web hits on our site, and we got more Web hits in the first month of that expedition than at anytime before. Hundreds of millions were first-time visitors. And I think Phoenix going to a more exotic place -- new vistas and chemistry -- is going to be even that much more amazing.
Q: What findings would surprise you?
A: With Mars we're always surprised, and I promise you we'll be shocked. No one has ever gone to the polar reaches on Mars -- it's terra incognita. I think the big surprise would be if we were to find all sorts of wacky organics, things that might look like amino acids, but in abundance. The other surprise would be if we find almost pure ice. There's a school of thought that the polar regions are ice with just a little dust. There's reason to believe that, but I also think it might be more like a checkerboard. There's a huge potential for discovery. What Phoenix might find could dictate missions over the next decade.
Q: Who directs the Phoenix to travel where it should?
A: There are people we call "navigators" at Jet Propulsion and Lockheed Martin. They watch the signals hundreds of million of kilometers away and tweak the rocket motors to get it right into the right corridor that we're going to. When the Phoenix lands, it'll go from 12,000 mph to 0 mph. It's a miracle of flight engineering -- the navigators got it right brilliantly. We're very optimistic that it'll go into the correct landing spot.
Q: When do you think we'll be able to travel to Mars?
A: That's the $64,000 question. NASA just finished a year of studies on that with a team of 30 scientists. It depends on what we would want to accomplish by going there. The scientific community wants it to be more than us setting foot on the ground and then leaving. We want a living-there experience. But we have to learn to do it somewhere else. We'd need to use the moon as a proving ground. I don't think we'll be going for 30-40 years. Why rush it?
