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To MARS with MER - RESEARCH/ers
Phil Christensen
Principal Investigator
"Mini-TES" instrument on the Mars Exploration Rovers
Science lead for the Terra Meridiani/Hematite landing site
(& Principal Investigator, THEMIS on Mars Odyssey, and TES, the Thermal Emission Spectrometer, on Mars Global Surveyor)
Arizona State University, Phoenix
Personal
I live in Tempe, Arizona with my wife, Candi and two kids, Kevan, and Alexandra, now teenagers. One positive note on the failure of Mars Observer-my kids were very young when that mission was launched and really weren't aware of what was going on. They went to Cape Canaveral with us in November 1996 for the launch of MGS, and it gives me a tremendous amount of satisfaction to be able to share with them what we're doing; this time they could really appreciate where MGS was headed and what it would accomplish.
(Phil's commitment to the younger generation has led him to take the lead in a number of education and outreach activities headquartered at Arizona State University, and supported by NASA and JPL. One of these is the Mars Student Imaging Project, which allows students to use actual MGS images to make new discoveries about Mars, either via the Internet, or in short trips to ASU.)
