From: ken.edgett@asu.edu (Ken Edgett)
Subject: Mars !!!
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 14:56:11 -0700 (MST)
Dear Mars Educators, Greetings from sunny, warm, dry, Arizona. I'm glad to hear the dates from Jan as to when LFM 2 will be rebroadcast-- because I missed it on the 24th... I spent this past weekend (April 24-27) in Houston (rainy! flooding!) at a conference about "Early Mars" and potenial for life on Mars. I told you last week in an email to expect a press conference on Sunday, April 27 after the conference ended... well, the press didn't come and the conference was cancelled. Apparently, the press wasn't interested because the scientists at this meeting were not planning to "decide" if there "really is life on Mars". The press doesn't understand the process of science. The meeting brought together a wide range of scientific disciplines that are all converging on the questions of the origin of life. THAT is really what the search for life on Mars is really about-- how does life start on a planet, and can life be different than that which we have on Earth (i.e., is there only one way to do it?). People at this meeting included experts on the Early Earth-- people who study the few rock outcrops on Earth that are older than 2 billion years. It also included people who study the early climates of Earth and Mars (mainly using climate models and what info can actually be inferred from the rocks). Others included experts on the issues of the origin of life, experts on Mars geology/geomorphology, people who study the Mars meteorites, people who are looking at microscopic organisms that live in "extreme" environments (e.g., black smokers, salty lakes), and people that study fossilized microbes. (And more!). The conference was mainly a review of the state of knowledge in all of these widely different fields. All of the participants (over 150 people) were challenged to deal with information and knowledge far outside their normal range of experience. Talk about interdisciplinary!! Here is the main thing I learned, and my main point for writing you this message: The people who presented and attended this workshop are all working at the cutting edges of their respective fields. All of them are working on VERY BIG QUESTIONS (e.g., where does life come from?) with VERY LITTLE DATA to go on. They are all working in fields that are short on funding (this is true all throughout science). They are all doing clever and important science despite the data and funding limitations. In each field, there are big controversies. The most fascinating controversy revealed at the meeting (from the perspective of a Mars geologist, that is), was the question of "nanobacteria"-- small things that look like bacteria, but are too small to contain enough molecules to function as living organisms. Despite the lack of funding, the lack of data, and the exciting controversies, the BIG QUESTIONS being asked are being addressed and can begin to be addressed because of new instruments and technologies that are only now becoming available that allow us to pursue these questions. It was very exciting, though it was also a difficult meeting to sit through. The reason it was difficult-- no one in the room was an expert on all the topics presented. No one can be an expert in *everything*. And science doesn't have *everything* solved. The more we look, the more questions we have. Things are being discovered that we had no idea were even out there to be found. We live in amazing times. I only wish the funding levels could keep up with the technology and intrigue. Be aware, for example (and this was made painfully clear at the meeting), that the Mars Surveyor program is *really* being done on the CHEAP. There are many questinos about Mars that CANNOT be addressed in the 1997-2005 timeframe, NOT because we don't know how, but because we don't have the money. Money is a BIG constraint on the Mars program-- something worth considering in the classroom as you have kids design instruments or missions or think about Mars colonies, etc. The cost to each person (man, woman, and child) in the United States for the Mars Surveyor Program is about 50 cents a year-- or about the cost of a foot-long sandwhich at Subway every 10 years. Ken Edgett Arizona Mars K-12 Education Program http://esther.la.asu.edu/asu_tes/ Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer