New Mars Forums

Please consider that NASA, although using the universally recognized acronym to disguise it's true identity and function, stands for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  It is a branch of the government paid for ultimately by the taxpayers.  Do not forget the word Administration.  What does it do?  It ADMINISTERS the funds allocated to it by congress.

For a time during the real activities in the second half of the 20th century, many scientists, mathematicians, technicians, and engineers actually did what their labels implied. Probably out of the exciting possibility that they might actually be allowed to do what they fought long and hard to obtain their training for.  Many still do.

It seems, though, that many of them have climbed their career ladders and become administrators and they are administrating.  An example of what happens as this situation progresses is very deftly illustrated in the children's story by Dr. Seuss:  The Bee Watcher From Hawtch-Hawtch.  Try finding that story if you can.  It probably won't be very easy.  Somehow it doesn't seem to be as readily available any more!  I'll admit that I wonder to myself if real, or percieved, pressures by those in authority might have something to do with that lack of availability.

Consider also that as "administration" becomes paramount, the tendency to claim "all of the authority while accepting  none of the responsibility" also grows.

Please forgive the wordiness, but remember that the word hiding behind the acronym is "administration".

Rex G. Carnes

Thanks to those of you who asked why I would be celebrating in regards to the Odyssey press releases and the Syrtus Major feature.  I'm not celebrating.  I certainly hope that some more definitive information will be forthcoming.  It may not be given the advertised lateral resolution of the various instruments. 

I applaud the release of information that shows that a significant amount of water is available on the planet's surface.  To be more useful, potential visitors to Mars need to be able to access the water nearer the equator than the poles.

The depths to which a couple of the Odyssey instruments can detect hydrogen, probably water, have been mentioned by AndyM. 

What may be more important, I hope, is the lateral resolution of the various instruments.  A brief and not comprehensive list includes the Odyssey visible imager at 20 meters, and MOLA at 400 meters.  This compares to the Mars Global Surveyor highest resolution images at 1.5  meters.   So the Odyssey imager is over one order of magnitude worse and the MOLA is more than two orders of magnitude worse.

To make a comparison with an image that has been on the news in the last year or so, the P3 Orion on the end of the runway in China was imaged at about one meter resolution, a little better but comparable to the MGS.  The aircraft has dimensions of around 35 meters length and width, especially considering the nose job it was given before making the landing.  This cross-shaped object, even if it had the highest possible contrast with its background, would have been imaged by the Odyssey imager as, if we were lucky, a slightly different tint, or grey scale value in so few pixels as to be indistinguishable from its surroundings.

The images produced by the MOLA and the Odyssey units are useful as wide area survey tools, but as anyone who has spent time examining the MGS images can testify, the surface takes on a very much more interesting character at highest resolution.  The MGS is still the most detailed show available.

Ice and perhaps even water?? may be visible in the MGS archives if one really looks for them.  In fact I have gone out on limb and pointed out a few candidate image details in the past.

Rex G. Carnes

Thanks for the post, Shaun.  First, let me say that the "evidence" I pointed out does not have to be absolute and definitive to be evidence.  Two different broad band color filters placed in front of two different CCD arrays do not constitute an spectrometer in any but a most basic sense.  If it happens to seem to work at all it simply implies that simple improvements in  technique may provide a powerful moisture/life survey capability.

As for the wind blown aspects, life, in the form of spores, can be propagated by the wind.  Certainly other more advanced forms also use this as a propagation strategy.  Since the possible density of a miniscule unit of life containing enough DNA, or RNA to propagate will tend to be less than the same size unit of a mineral substance, we don't have much to keep a good life form down, considering that there is good pictorial evidence for blown dust and sand on Mars from Pathfinder and Viking.

To make the remote sensing of chlorophyll more definitive, compared to greenish minerals or agregates of minerals, spectral resolution should be fine enough to pick out the fine spectral structure of chlorophyll.  See http://ghuth.com/NEWChloroplast.htm for some data and references.  If there is a mineral, or combination of minerals, which can mimic the chlorophyll spectral response, I hope someone can show me as I'm open to it and would like to know.  I haven't done a thorough search for such interferences.

Rex G. Carnes

One thing stands out to me on the results of the AOL poll as I looked at them just now.  The fourth question, (which politician would you want to send to Mars?) has significantly fewer votes registered than the other three questions.

One, partly tongue in cheek, reason for this might be the legitimate concern that the professional politician life form might contaminate the red planet with dire consequences for legitimate science and truth for all time.

Rex G. Carnes

An early image from a JPL news release e-mail showed an image of the surface of Mars including  the eclipse shadow spot of Phobos.  I thought it interesting, and installed it as the background for my Windows PC.  It was not a high resolution image.  It showed the Phobos shadow and craters around it.  What became really interesting to me as I looked at the image was the fact that dark spots apparently in the bottoms of craters in the field of view only showed up in the image taken through a red filter, and barely, if at all, in the same image taken through a blue filter.  The spots appeared a bluish green in a third image made up from the red and blue image information to show a version in color.

My interest was high because in looking for applications for a device I patented, which can be used as an imaging spectrometer, I researched the idea of utilizing the spectral resolution inherent  in the device to discriminate between green pigment camoflage materials and chlorophyl, thinking it might be of interest to the defense community.  (I was working for McDonnell Douglas at the time.)  Chlorophyl absorbs red light in order to achieve photosynthesis, it uses a little of the blue, but not much.

The fact that the dark spots showed up in the bottoms of craters where moisture would accumulate, if it were there, made it seem more possible.  I later learned of the paper by the Levines:   http://www.biospherics.com/Mars/spie2/spie98.htm  which lent the possibility more credibility. 

The image inquestion has been the only one I've found with the red, blue and color images side by side in that fashion.  Wouldn't it be interesting if a refined instrument could detect chlorophyl and the implied presence of water from orbit in this way?

Rex G. Carnes