Mars's MAVEN Mission

I was gonna say, that's a mouthful, but you've preempted me. Well, it's still a mouthful. You're not incorrect. So the the You know, we've talked a lot about Mars on this show, and because I mean it's it's a fascinating subject. It's one of the possible jumping off points for uh further exploration into space, both manned and unmanned. Right, It's central questions about whether there could exist life on other planets.

You know, there's a question of, well, we don't seem to see life on Mars today, or at least not so far, but maybe there could have been life there in the past. And if there had been, what conditions would have allowed that, And what changed? What? What? What happened to the point so that now they're the conditions

are no longer supportive of life. Another thing about the conditions of Mars is knowledge about what happened to Mars to make it the way it is today could help us in the future if we were to ever to want to terraform Mars, to turn it into the kind of planet that we could live on. Right. So, for example, if we decided as a group, hey, you know what would be awesome, let's just pack up a whole bunch of oxygen, head over to Mars, let it loose and uh,

party times, y'all. Uh, it turns out that would not be an immediate solution to the problem. Would not be so many party times now we would we would have to we would have to solve some other really big issues. And it's kind of one of the things may even will be looking at, or at least the information that may even gathers could end up informing us, uh, and

when we come to make decisions like that in the future. Right, Because two of the big problems with you know, up and moving to Mars is that it doesn't have as much of an atmosphere as Earth does, and it doesn't seem to have water. Yeah, it's got it's got water and ice form, but it doesn't have any like free flowing water on the surface. Yeah. Right, So it's those are big issues. Obviously, there's also other ones, like the fact that Mars does not have a magnetosphere the way

the Earth does. The Earth has a very powerful magnetosphere that uh that surrounds us and binds us in PNOI that's the force. But it does protect Earth largely from a lot of harmful radiation. Yes, Also it's Mars's soil happens to contain a lot of percolates which are highly cancer causing particles. Um. But other than that, I think that the really interesting questions here and the things that Mayven is going to be looking for are those atmosphere

and water questions. Yeah, it's it's it's stuff that It's not all about sending a rover onto the surface and exploring the soil, which we've done several times. This is specifically a spacecraft dedicated to orbiting Mars and sampling the atmosphere of Mars to learn more about it. Right, So let's tell the story of Maven. Okay, sure, all right, you guys, Uh, gather around. Uh, I got some hot

chocolate over here. I'll tell you the story. So it goes back to the mid two thousand's when there was a lot of interest in Mars still is, clearly, But NASA had this challenge of coming up with what how are we going to study Mars? Right? What are what are the next steps? How are we going to actually

implement this approach so that we can learn things? I mean the answer was wide open at that point, right, So they started looking around, and they knew that they needed to keep the costs low because NASA had had some budget cutbacks. It was no longer the era of a three billion dollar space probe to be sent out into space. They needed to come up with ways they were much less expensive and had a low risk of failure. I mean, it would be terrible for you to send

something up into space and it malfunctions. That is not a great uh, not a great message to send to the people who are signing the checks that are allowing you to get the science done. Uh, certainly not no. And and right around that time, there have been a few space shuttle failures that I'm sure we're fresh in everyone's mind. Sure, And you know, we also were living in a post nine eleven world. There were a lot of things going into creating a complicated political atmosphere for

the space research budget. Yeah. So, Uh. The program that NASA came up with was called the Mars Scout program. It was specifically this approach to say, how can we make efficient, low cost projects that will effectively explore different elements of Mars bring back then for animation to us that's in, that's useful, so that we can actually demonstrate that this is an important work of science that we are doing and are likely, you know, the most likely

to succeed. And so from the twenty six different proposals they looked at, they started off with the Phoenix Lander. You guys probably remember the Phoenix right, the Phoenix Lander. The thing I remember most about it is that they were NASA was very savvy and uh and ended up using a social networking approach to communicating the Phoenix Landers

mission progress. And so there was a Twitter account dedicated to the Phoenix Lander, and it was all delivered in the first person, so it's sort of anthropomorphized the Phoenix Landers saying things. Um today, I discovered that kind of thing, and people developed an emotional attachment to the Phoenix Lander. I mean they were they were emotionally invested in the

science that was going on on Mars. Which is great news, right because now you've got people who are really interested and evolved and they want this project to succeed so much so that when the Phoenix Landers sent its final tweet, people got really emotional. Uh it's sent a message in binary code, and it was a Twitter message that was all just one s zeros and if you were to translate it, it's spelled out the single word triumph. And immediately people broke down in tears, um, except for Gladys,

who just said anyway. Uh So that was the first of the Mars Scout program, and they all of the programs had to uh or at least they were supposed to cost less than than essentially half a billion dollars, which sounds like, I mean, it's a huge amount of money, but in space terms, it's you know, tiny, at least as far as NASA's history is concerned. So around four

million dollars was like the That was the Capper. So the second project they looked at was Maven out of those those initial twenty six and uh, it turns out the MABN was the last of the Mars Scout project, second and last. Yes, in fact, to the point where you know it launched is jumping ahead a little bit. But it launched in two thousand thirteen, um, but the

the Mars Scout program was ended in two thousand ten. Now, the reason why Maven went ahead anyway is due to the complex nature of the way Earth and Mars line

up and don't line up. So there are times when you have an ideal launch window where you're going to be spending the least amount of fuel in order for you to get from Earth to Mars, right, because the planets are moving around, so sometimes they're further away from each other, and sometimes they're close together, right, and and so you can't just launch when they're close together, because by the time you're getting out to where Mars was,

it ain't there no more. Right. Yes, I I posit that space travel is really the universe's most expensive and carefully calculated form of bacci. Yeah. Imagine that you're planning a family vacation to a specific destination, but that specific destination is also in motion relative to you. So, so the problem is that you have to plan for where it will be, not for where it is. And uh,

same sort of thing with Mars. I mean, it's it really is and so uh the problem there is that if there's a delay in the process of getting your spacecraft off the Earth and and towards Mars, you might miss that window. And in fact, that did happen to Maven. Uh. It was originally announced back way back in two thousand seven that they were going to delay the launch until

two thousand thirteen, that would be the earliest. It's funny because if you look at NASA's records, it talks about how Maven was approved for budget in two thousand eight.

So you might say, well, how the heck did something Did they delay a project in two thousand seven that they have not yet even approved and budgeted, And it was because they realized already they were not going to meet that original launch a first window, right, Yeah, So it meant that they were automatically going to be delayed twenty six months, even if all the technology and everything else went went perfectly, the design of the device, the building of it, even if all of that worked, flawlessly

that that delay was still going to happen just because of the way Earth and Mars orbit the Sun. So uh, it was a it was a tough blow, but it was an important one. It turned out that the reason for the delay in the first place was because there was a conflict of interest in the mission statements of the various instrumentation groups. They were all putting stuff aboard the maven and they had to say, look, if we go forward with this, we are not doing We're doing

a disservice to the project. And I would rather, as painful as it is, I would rather go ahead and delay and and and hash all this out than to go forward and potentially endanger the entire program. You know, you also, if you if you know the history of NASA, you also know there have been lots of stories of budgets getting out of control or at least inflating beyond what they were originally anticipated to be. So they were

being very careful about this. Now. The principal investigator of this entire project is Bruce Chakowski of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the spacecraft itself was built by Lockeed Martin, not a big surprise, Luckied Martin has done a lot of work with NESSA, and it was based on innovations that were made for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars Odyssey missions. The original launch date again was going to

be two thousand eleven. It got delayed to two thousand thirteen, and in two thousand thirteen. October two thousand thirteen, so this is essentially the month before it was supposed to launch. Yeah, in October two thirteen, there was a completely different issue that threatened to once again delay Maven by another twenty six months. Mart worse government shutdown. I remember that. I had some friends working for the Park Service at the time. Yeah.

It's it's rough, right, I mean, it's one of those things where you know, no one comes out looking good in that situation. Now you're either you're either vilified for what you have done, possibly justifiably, or you are suffering because of something else someone has done. And very rarely is that justifiable. But at any rate, it was. It

was tough all over the United States. Oh, for many reasons, right, um, but but in this specific case, so I mean, okay, So so the shutdown in the end only lasted sixteen days, but there was only um but but there was no way to tell at the outset how long that was going to be, and it was no there was no way of telling if it was going to delay enough things. You know, when you're coming toward a launch, the stuff is happening. It's it's not like they're resting on their

laurels right up until the countdown. It's not like you wake up five in the morning and I'll better go put the rocket on the launch pad. No, it's exactly a meticulous, us painstaking approach to get something into space. I mean, it's obviously not an easy thing to do. And so there was a lot of fear that this was going to end up delaying it again, which would mean another twenty six month delay. The earliest that they could have a launch at that point would have been

two thousand six. And you might say, oh, you know, it's just the study of Mars, which is really cool but maybe not critical. Um so, why were they so worried about it? Well, they were able to show that there is a critical factor here, so you know, we've got the curiosity rover rolling around on Mars yea, and it sends information back to us, which all the scientists

clap their hands for and get really excited about. Well, the reason why it's able to send information and part is because of communication relays that are set up to relay that information to communicate it back to Earth. Right. So Maven is not the first spacecraft that will be orbiting Mars. Right. So the problem is that the communication relays that are in operation on Mars are already beyond

their life cycle. They they have lasted longer than they were projected to, which is great, but you you never know when it's going to stop working. So the scientists were pointing out the Maven, apart from just doing amazing science in the atmosphere of Mars, could also act as a communication relay and supplement these older relays that could break down at any moment, and said, this is critical to things we have already invested in. We have already

put our money into this. They are already on Mars. Plus we have some other future plans that if they do go into effect, will require those communication relays, So we need Mayven to be there. So they were looking at a potential two year lapse in communication with the Curiosity rover um, you know, during which it could go out Lord of the flies on us. I know, we don't know now we we we would expect it would, we'd re established contact. It has established the new Martian religion. Well,

you just have the red. You just hear that there was a terrible incident with a with a someone only identified by the name of Piggy at any rate, Um that that that did not have, That did not happen, as it's also the color of blood, you know, coming back having having now that we've had our little literary digression. Um, no,

the the obviously that did not happen. Uh. The government agreed with NASA and May even launched off as scheduled in November two thousand thirteen, specifically November eighteen, two thousand thirteen. It's launch vehicle was an Atlas five vehicle, and the May even slowly made his way to Mars because the speed was not what was important. It was that that you know, concerned conservation of fuel. You know, that's the best, the most important things because it cuts down that cost.

So it arrived in Martian orbit at ten thirty four p m. Eastern time. Whoa wait a second, is that the time it arrived at the time we got the signal that it arrived. That's a great question that I do not know the answer to, because if you have you know, paid attention, you know that it takes like well, when when the Curiosity Rover was landing it was a fourteen minute the lake just because that happened to be how far apart Earth and Mars were at the time,

but speak in say ten to twenty minutes. Yes, somewhere around there. It all depends on where the orbits were at that point. But yeah, I think that's that's safe. At any rate. Um, the the Maven had had arrived where it needed to be. It was a September two thousand and fourteen. I didn't say what the date was. It didn't arrive at ten that evening. Actually it went from November eighteen, two thousand thirteen to September twenty, two

thousand and fourteen. That's three hundred six days of travel um. But it's four hundred and forty two million miles, so I feel like it was making pretty good time. A considered, it would have made the Griswolds proud. But now it's there.

It's they're doing science. Yeah, well, it's their ish. It's currently in a six currently by the recording of this podcast, i should say, and by the publication of this podcast, will still be in this six week commissioning phase, which is where it is maneuvering into its final science orbit.

As of October tenth um it had activated its engines four times to kind of edge closer into the planet into a into a lower orbit where it needs to be in order to do the science um and had also activated and or deployed a few of its instruments for for testing. Yeah and uh. Once it is in position, it will begin a one year scientific research mission, and part of that mission includes what are called deep dip campaigns.

Deep dip campaigns different from campaign. Yeah. Well they're gonna dip five times, so it's it's much better than double dipping. Um they are. What this means is again, this is a spacecraft that is analyzing the atmosphere, the upper atmosphere, largely of Mars, but five times it's going to dip down from around ninety three miles above the surface of Mars to seventy seven miles or so, and the purpose of that is to study the area of the atmosphere

where the upper atmosphere meets the lower atmosphere of Mars. Yeah. Yeah, it's getting the entirety of the upper atmosphere and and really pretty close to the lower atmosphere kind of seeing where they interact. Now, that's going to be significantly different than studying, say, the upper atmosphere of Earth, because Martian atmosphere is much thinner than Earth's atmosphere, right right, Yeah, those those numbers are way further down than um than

they would be on Earth. Yeah yeah, yeah. Um, in in Earth terms, that would be something like a hundred and fifty kilometers to kilometers above the surface. Um. Well that's not in Earth terms, that's just a metric to imperial conversion, um. But ethnically it is Earth terms because I'm pretty sure alien civilizations don't use the kilometer accurate. Um. But but that would be somewhere in the in the lower to mid thermosphere here. So um, so that's that's

way lower than we put our stuff into orbiting. Sure, sure, yeah, we're looking at I was referring after the altitude, but to the thickness of Martian atmosphere, which is Uh, it's one of earth density rather yeah. Yeah, it's very thin, yes, yeah, and then that's part of why the spacecraft is necessary. We want to we want to find where did that

atmosphere go? Yeah, what happened to it? So in order to talk about what happened to it and to and we have some ideas, we'll we'll talk about some of the things that have very likely, in fact, we're pretty certain, have caused the Martian atmosphere too um to disappear over time. But here are some of the tools that we're going to be using to actually study that to you know, support the hypotheses we've drawn. Number one, a hammer. There is no hammer aboard the Maven. Is there a mystical X?

There's no There are no arms on the Maven. Neutral gas and ion mass spectrometer, Now, Joe, you're just being son of a gun. You're right, there is a neutral gas and ion mass spectrometer. Purse you, Joe. Uh. Yeah, that's the instrument that measures the composition and isotopes of thermal neutrals and ions. So essentially it's going to determine the basic structure of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere of Mars. So when you say neutrals, you're talking about an uncharged

particle essentially ions. Obviously that's something that has either gained or lost on electron and thus has a net charged. This is just straight up looking at what particles are there. Then you've got the Remote Sensing package, which is UH that includes the Imaging Ultraviolet spectrograph, and that's going to look at the global characteristics in the Martian upper atmosphere, so kind of looking at the overall composition as opposed to specific segments of the atmosphere. It's kind of more

like a U Satellites eye view, I guess. So then you've got the Particles and Fields package, which includes six different instruments. The magnetometer, which is an instrument that is used to measure the strength and direction of magnetic fields. We mentioned you know, the Martian UH planet does not have a magnetosphere the way the Earth does. That doesn't mean it doesn't have one at all. It does. It's patchy, it's smaller, it is not as effective at warding off

the solar wind, but it is there. So this would be one of the instruments that would be able to detect it and kind of get us more information about it. So then there's the supra thermal and thermal ion composition, which will measure the source ion populations and sort between shocked solar wind and planetary ions, in other words, saying which one of these came from the Sun and which of these were affected by the Sun but came from Mars. Then you've got the Solar Wind Electron Analyzer, which will

measure the solar wind and ion a spheric electrons. It will look at the effects of electron impact in the Martian atmosphere. You're probably picking up on some themes here. The Solar Wind ion Analyzer, which will study the ionization rates of neutral particles as an input to atmospheric loss processes. So we talked about, you know, what made the Martian atmosphere leave, like why is it? Why is it no

longer there? This is one of those instruments that's going to be looking specifically at the factors that affect the Martian atmosphere why is it escaping? So really we're looking at here is the effects of the solar wind on the Martian atmosphere and how that's kind of ripping away the atmosphere of Mars. Uh, it will also measure the Martian magnetosphere, which again is not terribly strong, and how

the solar wind affects that magnetosphere on Mars. And then you've got the solar energetic particle, which is an instrument that will determine the impact of solar energetic particles on the upper atmosphere of Mars. And I like the names that are they totally make sense. Now, does anyone know how to say this first word? I know how I would say it, but I'm used to hear while you would say it. I was going to say langer yea, yeah, I was gonna saying more like lang mirror so a little.

So I was going like, it sounds like it's a progression. We had lang mir, Langmuir, and then langmir. At any rate, it's a probe and waves, and it's an instrument that will look at ionospheric properties, wave heating of the upper atmosphere, and solar extreme ultra violet input to the atmosphere. So again it's really looking to see what how the Sun has affected the atmosphere of Mars. That's ultimately what we're

talking about here. So if you've got a planet that lacks the protection that Earth's magnetosphere gives Earth, then what would happen to it? Well, it's that's that's what Mars is, right, Mars is a planet that lacks that protective magnetosphere. And so the question is, did phenomenon originating from the Sun over time rip away an atmosphere that once existed on Mars by ionizing those particles, by charging those particles, pushing essentially the wind blowing the atmosphere, the solar wind, the

solar wind blowing the atmosphere into space. Um. There's some really cool animations out there that kind of illustrate this that I wish we could include, but as an audio podcast, we have not yet figured out how to put the animated gift in there. You could state the color of each pixel and graph you just see blue, green, yellow, yellow, yellow, green, red, red, zero one one. So the question is we're really early on in the actual project of Maven right. It has Yes,

it's it's there. It's taken a couple of samples, and everything that I've seen so far seems to be working as expected. Um, but we're not. I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of science to do, right, it has not yet reached its UH it's final position, so it is still maneuvering into position. It's still testing its various UH instrumentation and so that make sure that everything's working the way it's supposed to. UM. But we

have already seen some results. In fact, within eight hours of it arriving at its orbit, it was sending back pictures to NASA, which is kind of cool. So now those images were of Mars's upper atmospheres you would expect, and it was mapping out the presence of hydrogen and oxygen. UH. Now it was using the imaging ultra violet spectrograph to capture the images, which then we had to convert. We had to put in false color for us to be

able to see the results. Right, So you'll see if you if you look up the images that may even has gathered already, they're very vibrant. But obviously that's not the actual data that came back to us. That's us after we put in it through a conversion representation so that we can look at it with our eyeballs and tell stuff about it. Exactly because most of us are incapable of seeing the ultra violet spectrum UM, so they if you were to look at these pictures to see

a series of them that were first sent back. One of them is a very blue planet Mars, and the color blue represents the ultra violet light that scattered that was scattered by hydrogen gas. Uh. There's also a green one which shows a different wavelength of ultra violet light that was scattered by oxygen. There's also a red one which actually shows the ultra violet light that made contact with the surface of Mars itself and then was reflected off.

And there's a fourth one that is a composite of all of those different images put together, so you can kind of see the mixture that's there. And uh, it's really pretty. I mean it's dramatic. It's uh, it's cool to see and to think this is before MAYBN is even in position to really do what it's supposed to do.

This is this is preliminary stuff. Yeah, this is eight hours into being the exactly so, uh, it's really exciting to see how this is gonna end up, you know, affecting our understanding of Mars and how it might shape our plans for futures to Mars. Because again, it's going to act not just as a scientific instrument or a communication array. It's going to give us a lot of information that could be valuable for things like coming up with new ways to protect astronauts if they were to

leave the protective envelope of that magnetosphere. You know, if you were to journey beyond, say the Moon, and you needed to make sure that they were protected. Learning more about the interactions of the solar wind with an area that doesn't have that magnetic protection is valuable. Sure, Yeah, Yeah, It's one of the things that we continually talked about when we talk about the problems of space flight. Yeah. So this information could tell us more about our solar system.

It could tell us more about the conditions outside of our immediate surroundings, and better prepare us for when we decide to shuffle off the coils of Earth and gravity, when we personally, the three of us, I'm working on it, see, but when we are able to do that and be able to slip the bonds of Earth, I think is the best way of putting it less like you're saying we're going to die. I didn't say mortal coil. Mortal

coil is a very specific thing. It would merely imply the phrase shuffle off is just not used all that off if you unless you're talking about like leaving after I don't know, one of those races where your feet are tied together. Yeah, I guess maybe if you're very British, I mean, not just mildly British, like I'm talking extraordinarily British. Deep inside, I am extraordinarily British. I'm also an actor,

So shuffling off the stage happens all the time, It's true. Um, but at any rate, um So, So we're gonna try to remember to share with you guys on our social media networks, um, some of these brilliant images that are already coming out of the Maven and and we'll keep an eye on it see what other kind of cool information. Maybe if there's something that is spectacularly interesting, will do an update to the episode and kind of talk about some of the science that has come out of the

Maven project. I'm really interested in how some of the science coming out of Maven will inform our ideas about the possibility of terraforming Mars in the future. Yeah, that's I mean, and you know, we had mentioned that that's a big challenge obviously, not just because terraforming is this idea that we have, but we don't really know how

to implement said idea. But beyond that, even if we could implement it, how would you transform Mars in a way that would be permanent right as opposed to we talked about this in our Our Colonies episode where you can make changes to Mars, but without fixing that magnetosphere issue, the solar wind would just come in and start wreaking havoc anyway, So maybe the answer is that we figure out a way to create an artificial magnetosphere. That sounds easier said than done to me. Yeah, get a bunch

of bar magnetismswhere yeah, everybody, we got this. We got this. Guys, we got this. Yeah. We just need some funding. So if you guys, uh, you know, I want to send us bags of money, Um, well, first you should probably get in touch with us, and the best way to do that is actually not through the mail, but through Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook. You can find us on Twitter and Google Plus with the handle f w Thinking. Just search for FW thinking over in Facebook. Ours will pop

up right away. Give us your ideas about you know, what you want to hear for future topics forward Thinking give us your ideas about the future of Mars itself. I'm curious to hear what you guys think and uh, just get in touch with us that way and we will talk to you again really soon. For more on this topic in the future of technology, I'll visit forward thinking dot com. Rock you buy Toyota, Let's go places.