Assignment 3: Phoenix Mars Mission with NASA's Peter Smith
Why I Selected this Topic
I selected the topic (https://soundcloud.com/bridging-the-gaps/phoenix-mars-mission-with-peter-smith ), to be to learn about the capability of Mars to support human life and what prospects this holds for humans in the future. There has been a lot of research and studies going on regarding the possible existence (and ability for life support) outside of the earth, so, part of my curiosity too, I wanted to understand the facts around this in this interview.
Peter Smith is a senior research scientist at the University of Arizona, United State of America and principal investigator of NASA’s Phoenix Mass mission. He worked in the space programme in Hawaii for five years before going back to school to study optics at the University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center. Combining Physics and Optics, he built a career in building instruments used for space exploration, for example, he designed one of the cameras in the Mars pathfinder mission to mars
Peter Smith has also been involved in other space exploration activities including the pioneer Venus mission (1978), exploration of Jupiter and Titan, helping to build the microscope for Beagle 2, a European lander that failed to return data upon its arrival to Mars in December 2003 (https://www.spacefest.info/V/speakers/Smithspeak.html ). He also worked on the he Japanese MUSES-CNear-earth asteroid mission (Peter Smith - Pima Air & Space)
What the discussion was about and learnings
The discussion covered the Phoenix mission to polar region of planet Mars with the objective to find out if the planet had support some form of life and its conduciveness for the habitation of human and other earthly lives.
I learnt the following from the discussion:
Interest in space exploration to Venus diminished because of the unfavorable weather conditions there – the temperatures are hundreds of degrees and pressure of 3000 feet below sea level (90 bars), As a result of these extreme conditions, it is not likely to be a place where life can be found and, hence, worth the effort and budget required for exploration.
There are three crucial stages for a successful space mission, these are entry, decent and landing. The was particularly critical for the Phoenix mission due the failures of the previous two missions. The team went to a great length to fix the likely issues that could have made the space craft fail, about 25 of them. Landing in Mars is particularly difficult because of its think atmosphere, which makes parachutes not enough to slow down a fast-moving space craft.
A pointer to possible existence of life (or the ability of a planet to support life) is the present of water in the planet. The Phoenix mission discovered ice on the planet, and through the chemical reactions that had happened there, given rise to calcium carbonate, it was inferred that the ice sample has melted to form water at some point. However, the mission could not confirm the existence of life as it was not equipped with the instrument to do that.
The Phoenix mission generated a lot of interest (and anxiety) as after the successful pathfinder mission, two missions to Mars had failed; the Phoenix mission being the next after those. The mission originated as a result of a competition posed by NASA for a mission to Mars to be proposed. About twenty groups of took part in the challenge but Peter Smith’s group won the completion. They used a craft that was prec was in one of these groups. The focus of his group was hinged on low cost and science.
Two mechanisms are generally used for landing on space missions, airbags and power landing mechanisms, the Phoenix mission used power landing mechanism, this was essentially due to the nature and weight of the craft.
Mars is not conducive for human existence for a number of reasons including:
The harsh weather condition and lack of water – humans can only survive without water for s short period
The human body is not geared for Mars time. A day on Mars is 24 hours and 37 minutes, though seemingly close to that of the earth, but the difference is enough to cause an effect of permanent jet lag to humans.
However, it is expected that in the future, maybe a few decades ahead, there will be human missions to Mars, first on fact-finding and, maybe, colonization later. But for humans to survive on Mars, there has to be provision of Water (which does not naturally exist as yet), probability by digging wells
