MARS ALIVE! -- A DISTANT WORLD AWAITS HUMAN EXPLORERS

********************************************************* This section contains articles and links about the Mars and human space endeavors directed towards exploration of the Red Planet, destined to be humanity's second home beyond the Earth-Moon system.

MARS NEEDS MEMBERS! -- MARS SOCIETY OF NEW YORK LAUNCHES NEW OUTREACH PROGRAM

"To Mars! To Mars! We're off to Mars today -- It's just one world away, he's calling out our name -- To Mars! To Mars! We're going there to stay -- When we're on Mars, we'll be halfway to the stars." -- Elaine Walker from the CD "MARS" (copyright 2000 @ ZIA, www.ziaspace.com))

By Harold Egeln

Mars Needs Members! No, that's not a new movie, but part of a recruiting campaign launched by The Mars Society of New York. It held a public organizing meeting, its first such meeting in a few years, on May 14 in Manhattan at the Epiphany branch of the NY Public Library, with its members and the New York Space Society leadership.

The Mars Society, founded by Dr. Robert Zubrin (author of "The Case for Mars") and others in August 1998, has many chapters, and its NY chapter recently took part in the "Allies In Space" U.S. Space Policy Town Hall Meeting with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.

New York Mars Society Charter President Ed Fisher led the meeting, discussing the status of Mars research and strategies for an outreach program in the New York City metro-region, bouyed by a record amount of spacecraft on and around the Red Planet.

"We are at a very encouraging moment in the exploration of Mars," he said. "There are two active rovers on the Martian surface and three working satellites in orbit around Mars. That's the most active number of spacecraft at any world, except for the Earth."

The Martian spacecraft include the two NASA rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, working with the power of Energizer Bunnies ("they keep going and going") since landing in January 2004, and three orbiters, ESA's Mars Express in orbit since 2003, and NASA's Mars Global Surveyor since 1997 and Mars Odyssey Orbiter since 2001. These Earth-made craft and rovers are truly noe the techno-Martian citizens.

The Mars Society has played a principal role in NASA's Mars Scout Program, Fisher noted.

Fisher seized up this historic Martian moment, with the prospect of ever-further exploration such as the upcoming Phoenix Scout Mission in 2007 of a north polar lander, as a way of getting more people actively involved in promoting space travel and missions. "This is an important opportunity for us."

Mars Society presentations can be held for schools, organizations, libraries, street fairs and special courses, such as the Learning Annex, as suggested at the May meeting. These would inclde educating the general public in supportng pioneering visions and projects for the Red Planet, mobilizing suppport for funding programs for Mars exploration, and for conducting Mars research on a private sector basis.

The logo of the Mars Society of New York, Inc., is "Mobilizing the world's greatest city behind humaniy's greatest endeavor," and it uses the Statue of Liberty with Mars as a backdrop in space.

The Mars Society's public outreach program now includes a contest to place Op-Ed pieces in newspapers, large and small, to discuss the importance of the spaace program and how citizens can participate in the debate

RETURNING TO THE MOON & ON TO MARS

With the "Moon, Mars and Beyond" Space Vision now the stepping-stones in U.S. Space Policy, and the planning for a Crew Exploration Vehicle to replace the aging Space Shuttle fleet, Fisher noted that CEV designs have been made by Lockheed, Boeing and Grumman. Such designs can be seen on the Internet, such as Space.com and in the current issue of Popular Mechanics.

On the Public Space Transportation system, he also noted that the new NASA Director Michael Griffin, a space scientist (see Griffin's vision at http://commerce.senate.gov/pdf/griffin.pdf), is proposing moving up the process to build, test and fly the CEV before its 2014 first spacefllight, which would also help close the gap between the shutte's planned retirement in 2010 and that 2014 date.

Fisher suggested than rather build a new launch booster for the CEV, that the current launch boosters for the space shuttle be modified and used for the CEV, which will be capable of transporting or attaching modules for Moon and Mars landings. Both the boosters and the team that works on thsoe boosters are a ready-made asset for the CEV, he noted. "We have the software and the hardware, and the infrastructure"

"Pay attention to the details," he said, citing his own experience as a Broadway special effects planner as a guide to getting a booster for the CEV. "We do have the Delta V booster for Earth to Moon travel and to get to Mars."

Fisher will be speaking on the "Mars Analog Research Project" at the June 18 meeting of the The New York Space Society of NSS at NYU. Details are below on the NSS chapter's website.

For more information on The Mars Society of New York and the International Mars Society, visit the link below. Fisher can be contacted at MarsNY@Optonline.net.

IS EVIDENCE OF CURRENT LIFE ON MARS MOUNTING?

By Harold Egeln

MARCH 2005's TOP STORY -- The ongoing debate on whether life exists somewhere on Mars is like watching a tennis match, sitting in the center court by the net as the tennis ball (Mars) bounces. One's head boobs back and forth, with one player, Rusty Marte, wearing a "No Mars Life Now" tee-shirt and the other player, John Carter, wearing a "Mars Life Likely Now" tee-shirt. If the Red Planet tennis ball sprouts moss and lichen of an unusual nature, we will have our answer.

The cause of the deepening debate are readings of renewable methane taken by the ESA Mars Express Orbiter and found through NASA team studies, along with startling new photos of a huge frozen sea covered by ancient dust and volcanic ash.

In Europe, the prognosis among certain ESA scientists for current life is very good, while on this side of the ocean, NASA scientists at once proclaim current life on Mars is likely while other super-cautious NASA scientists, such as planetary scientist David Grinspoon (author of "Lonely Planets; The Natural Philosophy of Life"), try to quickly reign in such claims.

According to a recent Space.com report, NASA scientists Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, who have studied data from the Mars Express orbiter, have seen intriguing "methane signatures" in the data, suggesting the likelihood of it being produced currently by a subsurface biosphere. The evidence is indirect and inferential.

On February 13 they held a private meeting with NASA scientists to explain their conclusions, which will be published as a paper, now undergoing peer revew. in the British "Nature" science journal this May.

However, NASA, in a statement a few days after Space.com staff reporter Brian Berger's story appeared on Feb. 16, mysteriously denied that the meeting at Ames took place and that a paper was being prepared for "Nature."

In his story Berger wrote that Stoker and Lemke "have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hdden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water." They base their conclusions on the study of similiar conditions on Earth where life thrives in difficult Martian-like conditions. The study of the "methane signature" data from the Mars orbiters show that the renewable methane being produced likely comes from what the scienists call "bioreactor," meaning a place where lifeforms of some kind exist now.

Surface life on Mars is extremely unlikely, given the hostile environment of thin air, mostly frigid temperatures and radiation exposure. Martian life, if it exists, would be in an underground biosphere.

Back in November at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Science held in Louisville, Kentucky, a team of scientists shared the results of their own three-year study of methane in the Martian atmosphere. That was reported in a feature article by Kenneth Chang in the Science Times section of The New York Times, "Methane in Martian Air Suggests Life Beneath the Surface" on Nov. 2, 2004, page F2. The methane may be produced by geochemical processes or, more profound, by that underground Martian life. It's all being debated.

The further detection of a huge frozen sea, covered by a few million years deposit of dust and volcanic ash, in Elyshium Planitia near the Martian equator, as recentlly announced by European Space Agency scientists, has furthered fueled the speculalion of present life on Mars. As Yoda might say, "Getting hotter on life's trail, they are!"

That giant rusty red "tennis ball" in space may have moss and lichen, or at least bacteria, under its skin afterall. Or maybe not at all. ESA scientists have marked the apparent frozen Martian sea as a place for near-future exploration by a lander and rover.