From The Dust Returned

The Martian Rover Chronicles, continued... but before I resume all the delightful rovery wonderfulness, I'd like to let any would-be road-trippers know that if you are enjoying this weeks’ series on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, they will be holding an Open House Event on May 14-15. Yes, only a couple weeks from now!

JPL scientists and engineers will be on hand among the many exhibits, giving live demonstrations and answering questions about their projects on other planets. So, head for Pasadena if you are closeby!

Our intrepid host, Rover Driver Scott Maxwell, guided us through the Instrument Laboratory for the MSL, pointing out all things mechanic, all things robotic, and waving to other engineers and drivers along the way.

Scott's major programming project for JPL is the Automated Command Tracker software; over the years, ACT has also been used by the Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, Mars Global Surveyor, Deep Space 1 and Stardust space craft teams. The guidance software tells the hardware what to do and where to go without flipping over, becoming trapped or tangling up in its own arms and instruments.

Now, imagine trying to do that across martian soil! In one particular lab, we saw the test rovers used for experimentation in maneuvers across varying slopes and rocks, across their mock terrain of diatomaceous earth and Lincoln 60 Fire Clay. Imagine mixing pumice with Bisquick. I wouldn’t recommend the diet, but appreciate that we have a good analog on Earth for similar clumping properties of dirt on Mars.


The Surface System Test Bed (SSTB) Rover (picture on left in first picture at top, and here to the right of my mother), is the closest hardware to the real rovers that are deployed off-planet in terms of weight and instruments, though this particular model lacks solar panels.

I took video in this room, but sadly it was not built for acoustics, and most of the action is unintelligible. However, being a writer himself and an accomplished speaker, there are copious materials where you can see Scott cover the finer points of rovering with Spirit and Opportunity, “Four years into their 90 day mission!” -- not the least of which was an excellent presentation where he got one of only two standing ovations ever in the 10-year history of the Gnomodex Technology Conference. (Quite worth the time; I love around the 29-minute mark where he mentions both of his world records… just on another world ;)

For more up-to-date weekly adventures. Also see his Mars And Me blog, the "unofficial diary of a Mars rover driver, five years delayed". He, with other engineers, navigates both tough and subtle problems on the red planet through various Martian seasons, in and around craters, sequence by sequence, hoping to hit their science targests.

My favorite new Martian coordinate: "Fort Scott".

The Martian Rover Chronicles

It's not even a remote understatement that Roverman Scott Maxwell has the most colorful profile I've ever seen on any NASA website, anywhere. And until I met him, I was pretty sure *I* had the coolest job...

Wouldn't you love to have his business card? "Computer Programmer & Mars Rover Driver". Awesome. When one has the opportunity to explore a famous campus like the JPL with a passionate host who loves showing all the minutiae of NASA hardware, right down to the legends of how they were designed and named -- you've just as good as had a tour of the moon by Buzz Aldrin.

There is nothing quite so compelling as someone who rushes happily work each day, and honestly cannot think of anything he'd rather be doing.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

A major highlight of the day was when Scott took us to the Spacecraft Assembly Facility. Also featured is Laksen Sirimanne, a two-time crew member of the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), who I'll be blogging about next week in another series about Martian analogs.

Together, we all peeked down into the SAF's massive clean room at Curiosity, the new Mars Science Laboratory, and I've uploaded almost everything to my JPL Picasa Gallery if you wish to see the room interior.

To see technicians working their daily magic, you can also watch the LIVE Curiosity CAM! Just video, no audio… but the best we can hope for until someone at NASA TV clevers up and gives Scott his own television show!

Office Humor

We got our fill of Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Project Office art, and saw the Rovers' Mission Control Center. Scott gave us the rundown on all their adventures on the surface of Mars, with articulate introspection and meaning beyond the hard science. What does it mean to explore another planet? Truly, we are lucky to be alive at such a special time in history, where we can witness amazing views of our solar system in a way humanity never has before, and Scott is one of those people whose innate sensitivity and appreciation has never been dulled by mechanics, software code or red tape.

The Road to Endeavour blog has some wonderful detail about what it's like to explore Mars from "behind the wheel" of a rover, and some of the journeys taken by Scott's twin girls, Spirit and Opportunity! I had planned to speak about "Oppy" myself, but I know when I've been "out-written" and definitely recommend this blog for anyone who would like to see every move a Mars rover makes!

That would be Laksen with a rover wheel on his head.
And why not.

I also feel like maybe I've been unknowingly following Scott around cyberspace; we've both been interviewed by the Planetary Society, we've both been spot-lighted by Universe Today, we've both been featured in the Pars3c High Five… so I'm thinking about trying to talk him into doing a NASA Micro-Gravity Study, just so we can both say we set FOX News New York straight about myth vs. science ;)

If you do nothing else this week in the blogosphere, take a humpday break and check out some of his growing lexicon, because you will be able to say you read his early work before his many books are published.

On his first blog, he has a moving personal tale about how Ray Bradbury visited his team's project office, and drove a rover on Mars, in essence "connecting to him to that world he has imagined for so long". And if you like that, you'll love hearing about his first one-on-one meeting with Bradbury where he got the famous author to sign perhaps the most interesting celebrity autograph I've ever seen, and with pretty unapologetic flamboyance, I might add.

Definitely need to remember this trick if I ever get to meet Neil deGrasse Tyson at a book-signing. Stay tuned tomorrow for Rover testing goodness in mock martian soil, and Scott's current projects!

GOLD in Them Thar Hills

JPL Week! I won't spoil too much of the fun if you ever decide to go visit, but there is a beautiful hall of spacecrafts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where the public can see mock-ups and scale models of the hardware designed and created by many decades worth of their scientists.

Explorer 1, anyone? Sputnik is probably a better-known name in terms of early satellites, but the first American-Sat in space was no small feat. Other gems include the Surveyor series, Cassini, MRO, Ulysses, Genesis, etc.

And if anyone can beat my new shirt for
sheer nerdity, I want to know about it!

My longtime friends here will know I harp on the Voyager Program [probably more than necessary], so it will come as no grand shock that the full-scale Voyager craft and Golden Records jumped right out at me! What a treat!

My host was kind enough to capture a photo of me in front of the gold-plated record, which I still think of as "belonging" to Carl Sagan. And didn't he capture an artful reflection? Unplanned, methinks, but aesthetically welcome... and the first time I have seen one of the copies close up!

Voyager 1 and 2 each carried discs, to serve as greetings for any intelligent life. Sagan chaired a selection committee that created a range of scientific data for the records, also visual images, video, music from varied cultures, samples of 55 languages, and sounds of nature –- such as whalesong, waves, storms, birds, a train and a Saturn V rocket launch.

The Voyagers are currently the farthest human-made objects from planet Earth. And I don't care who makes fun of them for being remnants of the disco era!

Galileo... Figaro... Magnifico!

Another full-scale museum piece is the giant Galileo craft, which claims to look very much here as it did when it orbited Jupiter, but one wonders who witnessed this, right? We'll take their word for it, as the sheer amount of thermal blanketing is so impressive.

Additional layers of dacron, mylar and kapton protected the major probe from micro-meteor hits, though from an intent look, I was most surprised at the small size of the propellant tanks! I don't precisely know why, but I always imagine them to be larger.

It is stunning to think this gorgeous gal went all the way to Jovian system in 1989, and orbited Jupiter 34 times before finally being guided into the atmosphere and destroyed in 2003.

Highlights of her hard work included the first asteroid flyby, discovery of the first asteroid moon, first direct observation of a comet collision (Shoemaker-Levy in 1994), and the first in-depth studies of Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede, revealing their saltwater and volcanoes.

It's no exaggeration to say that Galileo and Voyager, both in development and mission activities, truly changed the way Earthlings viewed and thought about our solar system as a whole. Go to my JPL Picasa Gallery to see close-up details and angles!

Take Your Mother To Work Day

A toast! To my pal, Scott... aka @MarsRoverDriver on Twitter, who took time out of his workday recently to show me around some of the exciting buildings at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California! What an awesome place. In fact, awesome doesn't even begin to cover it.

I even started a new tradition: Take Your Mother To Work Day. Well, now when Mother's Day rolls around, she can't say I never took her anyplace interesting:

Take Your Mother To Work Day

After we left, it struck me as rather ironic that I hadn't actually seen anything to do with Jet Propulsion. The big draw there for me is, of course, the many aspects of Mars Exploration Rovers, or the MER project.

Elon Musk's Martian retirement plans notwithstanding, I am a huge fan of Mars travel, Mars analogs, Mars simulations, Mars landers and orbiters -- well, basically just All Things Mars, robotic or otherwise. Like many of you, I've followed Phoenix, Spirit and Opportunity, and look forward to keeping up with all the happenings of the newest rover, Curiosity -- no matter how fashionably late she may be.

Imagine working in an office where Mars Rovers
just hang around the conference rooms...

As a series for this week, I will be covering all the wonderful things at the "JPL", including spacecraft development, historical design and development such as Galileo and Voyager missions, Scott's amazing job as a Mars Rover Driver, and more about the Curiosity mission, including their new EDL sequence, and the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).

Along the way I'll be filling my newest album in my Picasa Galleries for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Come along for the ride!