Fwd: Human Spaceflight ("Marv" & Mars) News - September 20, 2013

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: September 20, 2013 6:44:59 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight ("Marv" & Mars) News - September 20, 2013

JSC today must think its Flex Friday !   as of yet nothing from them.

 

NASA TV: www.nasa.gov/ntv

·                     Noon Central (1 EDT) – REPLAY of NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission panel discussion

·                     8 pm Central (9 EDT) –  REPLAY of NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission panel discussion

·                     3:30 am Central SUNDAY (4:30 EDT) – Cygnus rndv, capture & berthing coverage

·                     ~6:25 am Central SUNDAY (7:25 EDT) – Cygnus capture (berth to Harmony +4 hrs)

·                     Noon Central SUNDAY (1 pm EDT) –Cygnus post-berthing news conference

 

WEBCAST HEARING: (House Sci, Space & Tech Committee - Subcommittee on Space)

·         8:30 am Central (9:30 EDT) - NASA Infrastructure: Enabling Discovery & Ensuring Capability

                                                Witnesses:

ü  Paul Martin – NASA Inspector General

ü  Richard Keegan – NASA Associate Dep Administrator

 

Human Spaceflight News

Friday – September 20, 2013

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

En route to ISS: Smooth sailing for Cygnus in orbit

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

A new U.S. cargo spacecraft is performing well a day after its launch from Virginia – the first launch from there of a vehicle bound for the International Space Station. Since the 10:58 a.m. Wednesday launch from Wallops Island, Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus has performed two thruster firings to adjust its speed and gradually raise its orbit, and a third was planned early this afternoon. The spacecraft packed with 1,300 pounds of food and other supplies has also completed tests that put into free drift, in which thrusters are disabled, and ensured it is navigating properly with the Global Positioning System.

 

Boeing eyes landing space vehicle on playa

 

Ainslee Wittig - Arizona Range News

 

The Willcox Playa is being considered as a landing site for The Boeing Company's version of a commercial crew transport vehicle, the Crew Space Transportation-100. The CST-100 was developed as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, with help from grants from NASA, to transport cargo and crews to the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit missions. Boeing is one of three American companies (the others are Sierra Nevada Corporation and SpaceX) working with NASA's Commercial Crew Program to develop safe, reliable and cost-effective crew transportation systems during the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, which is intended to make commercial human spaceflight services available for government and commercial customers.

 

Nasa chief Charles Bolden to visit Beijing

 

South China Morning Post

 

Nasa chief Charles Bolden will visit Beijing next week to take part in an annual gathering of space agency chiefs, although he avoided saying whether he would meet his Chinese counterparts. Direct contact between the two sides is carefully watched by US congressional lawmakers, suspicious that co-operation could give Beijing an opportunity to steal technology. Bolden, the administrator of the American space agency, said in Tokyo yesterday he would visit Beijing on September 27 to attend the last day of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC). "In China we will be meeting with the heads of international partners of the International Space Station [ISS], as well as the heads of some space agencies that don't participate, but with whom we have partnership," he said.

 

NASA warns its employees that no federal budget deal by Sept. 30 would mean furloughs

 

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

 

NASA warned its 18,000 federal employees this week that some of them will be furloughed if the federal government runs out of money Sept. 30. That warning follows White House instructions to all federal agencies this week to prepare for a spending halt. NASA-watching websites are printing a Sept. 18 memo to NASA workers from David Radzanowski, the space agency's human resources chief. In the memo, Radzanowski says no funding for the 2014 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 "would ... mean that a number of employees would be temporarily furloughed."

 

Spot the Space Station

 

Red Huber - Orlando Sentinel

 

Have you ever looked up on a clear night sky and wonder where the ISS might be? If so, there's a website for that. NASA has made it easier for observers to sign up for email alerts or text messages whenever the space station may be visible overhead. Because of the enormous size of the space station - its large solar arrays span the area of a U.S. football field, including the end zones, and weighs 892,981 pounds - it's the third brightest object in the sky. At altitude, which ranges from 220-250 miles, it can appear to be a moving star. Keep in mind the ISS has no blinking lights like an airplane or commercial jet airliner. From my experience I have found that the best viewing times, weather permitting, are after dusk and before dawn. NASA has provided a website http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/ to Spot the Station. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

Friendswood Junior High nurse flies to Russia to see husband leave for Space Station

 

Friendswood Journal

 

Seeing your husband off as he leaves on a trip is what this week holds for Friendswood Junior High nurse Julie Hopkins. But to do this, she had to travel to Russia where her husband will be leaving for the Space Station next week. Fifteen family members and friends set off for Moscow today (Thursday, Sept. 19). Michael Hopkins has been in quarantine there for four weeks but will be able to greet and visit with his wife and family before the blastoff into space. This has been a dream of his and he has spent the last two and one-half years preparing for this trip.

 

'Challenger Disaster' coming from Science Channel

 

Hal Boedeker - Orlando Sentinel

 

Science Channel will enter the movie business with "The Challenger Disaster," a depiction of the Presidential Commission's investigation of the space shuttle catastrophe in 1986. The movie will premiere at 9 p.m. EDT, Saturday, Nov. 16. "The Challenger Disaster" focuses on Dr. Richard Feynman, a commission member, and is an adaptation of his book "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" He was an independent voice in exploring what went wrong with Challenger, which exploded over Cape Canaveral 73 seconds into flight.

 

Mark Burnett Pitching New Space-Themed Reality Show

 

Michael Schneider - TVGuide.com

 

Mark Burnett hasn't given up on his space dreams. According to multiple sources, Burnett is pitching a show to networks that would send the winner on one of Virgin Galactic's first suborbital space flights. Insiders say a bidding war among several networks is already underway for the project, which would give an ordinary citizen the chance to fly into space. The winner would take off on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo from Spaceport America in New Mexico — perhaps as soon as next year.

 

Cohn, 88, keeps raking in the aces

 

Mike Bailey - Houston Chronicle

 

 

As the former director of the Johnson Space Center and its first flight director, Christopher Kraft is used to calling important shots. But on Labor Day at Bay Forest Golf Club, Kraft called one more shot. He was playing with longtime colleague and golf partner Marv Cohn as well as Darren Brown. The threesome had arrived at the 17th tee when Kraft told Cohn they were due for an ace. "I said it was about time for one of us to get a hole-in-one," Kraft said. "And he did it." Sure enough, teeing off second, Cohn launched his 7-iron left of the hole. "It curled back and went in right away," said Kraft, for whom Mission Control is now named.

 

MEANWHILE ON MARS…

 

Curiosity unable to detect methane on Mars

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

After repeatedly sniffing the thin atmosphere of Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover has not detected any clear signs of methane, contradicting earlier, long-distance observations that indicated the ubiquitous hydrocarbon, a possible by-product of microbial life, was present in measurable quantities. While methane can be produced by non-biological means, the earlier observations had raised hopes in some quarters that Mars might harbor some form of recognizable life to this day. But Curiosity's high-precision measurements would seem to cool those hopes.

 

NASA rover finds no hint of methane in Mars air

 

Alicia Chang - Associated Press

 

NASA's Curiosity rover hasn't discovered any signs of methane in the atmosphere of Mars, a finding that does not bode well for the possibility that microbes capable of producing the gas could be living below the planet's surface, scientists said Thursday. Since landing in Gale Crater last year, the car-size rover has gulped Mars air and scanned it with a tiny laser in search of methane. On Earth, most of the gas is a byproduct of life, spewed when animals digest or plants decay. Curiosity lacks the tools to directly hunt for simple life, past or present. But scientists had high hopes that the rover would inhale methane after orbiting spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes detected plumes of the gas several years ago.

 

NASA Mars rover finds no sign of methane, telltale sign of life

 

Irene Klotz - Reuters

 

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has come up empty-handed in its search for methane in the planet's atmosphere, a gas that on Earth is a strong indicator of life, officials said on Thursday. The rover landed on Mars in August 2012 to determine whether the planet most like Earth in the solar system has or ever had the chemistry and conditions to support microbial life. Over the past decade, scientists using Mars orbiters and telescopes on Earth have reported plumes of methane in the Martian atmosphere. The gas breaks down in sunlight, so its presence on Mars indicated that either biological activity or a recent geologic event was responsible for its release.

 

Life on Mars? Well, Maybe Not

 

Kenneth Chang – New York Times

 

In findings that are as scientifically significant as they are crushing to the popular imagination, NASA reported Thursday that its Mars rover, Curiosity, has deflated hopes that life could be thriving on Mars today. The conclusion, published in the journal Science, comes from the fact that Curiosity has been looking for methane, a gas that is considered a possible calling card of microbes, and has so far found none of it. While the absence of methane does not rule out the possibility of present-day life on Mars — there are plenty of microbes, on Earth at least, that do not produce methane — it does return the idea to the realm of pure speculation without any hopeful data to back it up.

 

How much methane on Mars? Zero. Findings a setback in search for life

 

Scott Gold - Los Angeles Times

 

The most high-fidelity search for methane on Mars has turned up none, a result that significantly reduces the chances of finding microbial life on the Red Planet. The highly awaited results of tests conducted by NASA's Curiosity rover do not completely rule out the possibility that something is alive on Mars, researchers said. But the findings, published online Thursday by the journal Science, strongly suggest that Mars is barren. "We're very confident in this result," said study leader Christopher R. Webster, who oversees the development of planetary science instruments at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. "It's a very robust measurement."

 

Life on Mars? New Doubts Emerge

Curiosity fails to detect Methane, which would have suggested existence of microbes

 

Robert Lee Hotz - Wall Street Journal

 

NASA scientists seeking methane on Mars—a potential biomarker of life on the red planet—are running on empty. Researchers using an unusually sensitive gas detector aboard the Mars Curiosity robot rover reported in Science Thursday that they can't find any methane in the thin Martian air, dealing a blow to hopes that life today might be lurking in the soil of the cold, arid world. More Mars probes, including India's first mission to the planet and a $1 billion European effort with Russia, are poised to search for methane there in the years ahead. In light of the new finding, some researchers now doubt these efforts will find any evidence of the life-related gas.

 

Curiosity Finds No Sign Of Methane On Mars

 

Alex Knapp - Forbes

 

NASA has announced today that after conducting extensive tests, the Mars rover Curiosity hasn't found any sign of methane in the Martian atmosphere. This comports with preliminary findings made by the rover last November, in which no methane was found either, but nevertheless makes it less likely that life currently exists on Mars. Between October of 2012 and June of this year, Curiosity made six different analyses of the Martian atmosphere. The atmospheric samples were tested with the rover's Tunable Laser Spectrometer, an extremely sensitive instrument capable of detecting methane up to 1 part per billion. There are, however, methods to get the instrument to detect it at even lower concentrations, which is something that the rovers team will be trying soon.

 

Slithering Snake Robots on Mars Could Aid Future Rovers

 

Elizabeth Howell - Space.com

 

Mechanical "snake robots" could boost the scientific output of next-generation Mars rovers and get them out of jams from time to time, researchers say. Small, serpentine robots could help Mars rovers collect soil samples from crevices beneath rocks and other hard-to-reach places, and they could pull their wheeled siblings to safety if the bigger vehicles get bogged down in soft sand. The snake would ride along with the rover, accessing its power source via a cable.

__________

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

En route to ISS: Smooth sailing for Cygnus in orbit

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

A new U.S. cargo spacecraft is performing well a day after its launch from Virginia – the first launch from there of a vehicle bound for the International Space Station.

 

Since the 10:58 a.m. Wednesday launch from Wallops Island, Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus has performed two thruster firings to adjust its speed and gradually raise its orbit, and a third was planned early this afternoon.

 

The spacecraft packed with 1,300 pounds of food and other supplies has also completed tests that put into free drift, in which thrusters are disabled, and ensured it is navigating properly with the Global Positioning System.

 

"All parameters on the Cygnus are in excellent shape," NASA TV commentator Kyle Herring reported this morning.

 

In all, the Cygnus must complete 10 demonstrations of various systems before receiving approval to approach the station 260 miles above Earth.

 

The rendezvous is on track for Sunday morning, with capture of the 17-foot vehicle by a robotic arm now targeted for 7:25 a.m.

 

Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano will be at the controls of the 58-foot, Canadian-built arm.

 

"I am exponentially grateful to those who have confided the task to me, because it offers a unique opportunity for professional growth, not only for me but also to the space agencies that I represent," Parmitano wrote in a blog posted today by the European Space Agency (http://blogs.esa.int/luca-parmitano/2013/09/19/departures-and-arrivals/) . "This will be the first time that a European astronaut will be at the controls of Canadarm to capture a vehicle in free flight."

 

The station's three-person crew today is installing software that will be used during Sunday's rendezvous, capture and berthing operations.

 

Cygnus would be the second privately operated spacecraft to visit the station, following SpaceX's Dragon.

 

The demonstration mission is Orbital's last milestone under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, after which the company will begin a $1.1 billion resupply contract.

 

Boeing eyes landing space vehicle on playa

 

Ainslee Wittig - Arizona Range News

 

The Willcox Playa is being considered as a landing site for The Boeing Company's version of a commercial crew transport vehicle, the Crew Space Transportation-100. The CST-100 was developed as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, with help from grants from NASA, to transport cargo and crews to the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit missions.

 

Boeing is one of three American companies (the others are Sierra Nevada Corporation and SpaceX) working with NASA's Commercial Crew Program to develop safe, reliable and cost-effective crew transportation systems during the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, which is intended to make commercial human spaceflight services available for government and commercial customers.

 

Kelly George, Houston area public relations and communications for Boeing's Space Explorations division, said, "We started examining the topology of the Willcox Playa a year ago. Since then, we have been working through our list of criteria to ensure that Willcox and the surrounding infrastructure can meet our needs."

 

"Willcox meets many needs, but we are exploring further details from the state and local authorities," she said Wednesday.

 

George added, "We will select a few primary sites to give us maximum flexibility to land throughout the year. Landing opportunities are driven by many different factors."

 

Alan Baker, director of the Willcox Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture, said, "I was first contacted by George Hayes of Arizona Game and Fish Department last October, because Game and Fish has a spot on the playa (as does the U.S. Army), and they were trying to get people with a stake in this together for a meeting. He said 'someone wants to build a spaceship landing in the Willcox Playa.'"

 

"I honestly thought I was on Candid Camera!" Baker said.

 

"The meeting went well and we've had nothing but positive response from the community," he said, including community members who have some of the items Boeing is asking for in a request for information.

 

Boeing's Martin Linde sent a Request For Information to Fort Huachuca and then to Baker, in order to get the word out to state and county authorities as well as others to see if they might be able to provide some support for the "new Human Space Flight adventure."

 

Linde added, "We also wondered what might be available in Willcox in the form of generators, portable lights, low boy trucks, cranes to lift 15,000 lbs, MEDEVAC helicopter, medical exam space for a Crew of four with their NASA Flight Surgeons, cargo processing area (small warehouse).  If you have ROM (rough estimates) costs or just the name of potential providers, or if we would have to go to Tucson, that would help tremendously.  We appreciate any help that you can provide."

 

Baker said Howard Bethel of Willcox has also been "instrumental in working with Boeing."

 

Bethel told the Range News Thursday that he had done a tour of the Willcox Playa, explaining the  history of its geology and use, for the last two years during the Wings Over Willcox Birding and Nature Festival in January.

 

Bethel was able to talk with Boeing about the bombing and gunnery range during WWII, and its transfer from the Army-Air Force to the Air Force and then back to the Army, and its use as a bombing range with 250- and 500-pound bombs after WWII.

 

"I think they are interested in using the area that is the Electronic Proving Grounds (owned by Fort Huachuca), and they need to know how much more it would take to have that area cleared out. It's an interesting proposal. I can remember back in the 1960s, early in our space program, a photo in Arizona Highways taken from over Baja California and you could see the playa standing out like a sore thumb. There's lots of space out there – enough to accommodate them," Bethel said of the 40-square mile dry lake.

 

Bethel also noted that Willcox has the advantage of major modes of transportation, including the railway, an airport that can support a fairly large plane and Interstate 10, as well as being only 85 miles from Tucson.

 

Chris Ferguson, Boeing Director of Crew and Mission Operations, is working on the landing sites being considered. Ferguson, an astronaut himself, was the Commander of the last Space Shuttle (STS-135) mission for NASA.

 

A decision on landing sites must be made by the end of 2016, as the first CST-100 test flight will launch in late 2016, with the first manned mission planned for early 2017, George said. "We must have several sites available – a primary site and a few contingent sites," she said, as many factors must be taken into consideration during a landing..

 

The Apollo-era design of the CST-100 can accommodate up to seven passengers or a mix of crew and cargo and will transport astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and other low-Earth-orbit destinations, such as the planned Bigelow space station," George said.

 

She added that the CST-100 features "an innovative weldless design and a pressurized vessel that can be reused up to 10 times. The weldless design is much more cost-efficient in that there are no welds to recertify each time it flies."

 

The capsule features Boeing's LED Sky Lighting, which George said creates a "calming effect, with technology that came from Boeing aircraft," as well as tablet technology for crew interfaces.

 

She said the capsule is smaller than space shuttles.

 

"Look at the CST-100 as for a day trip – not a weekend trip. You pack lighter for a day trip. It's a taxi to the ISS."

 

Nasa chief Charles Bolden to visit Beijing

 

South China Morning Post

 

Nasa chief Charles Bolden will visit Beijing next week to take part in an annual gathering of space agency chiefs, although he avoided saying whether he would meet his Chinese counterparts.

 

Direct contact between the two sides is carefully watched by US congressional lawmakers, suspicious that co-operation could give Beijing an opportunity to steal technology.

 

Bolden, the administrator of the American space agency, said in Tokyo yesterday he would visit Beijing on September 27 to attend the last day of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC).

 

"In China we will be meeting with the heads of international partners of the International Space Station [ISS], as well as the heads of some space agencies that don't participate, but with whom we have partnership," he said.

 

Bolden did not respond directly when the South China Morning Post in a media conference call asked about collaboration between US and China in such areas as manned space flights. "We also support any nation that seeks peaceful utilisation of space, and that goes to everyone," he said.

 

The visit would be Bolden's second. In 2010, he led a small delegation to China and spent six days visiting facilities, such as the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, and held discussions with national space authorities.

 

In a statement released after that visit, Bolden said: "I believe that my delegation's visit to China … can form the basis for further dialogue and co-operation in a manner that is consistent with the national interests of both of our countries."

 

But the trip drew criticism from some US lawmakers. The following year, Congress banned the use of federal funds for any collaboration between Nasa and China. The clause was inserted into a spending bill, by congressman Frank Wolf, a Republican from Virginia, who opposed working with any space programme "run by the People's Liberation Army".

 

While Bolden shied away from the topic, Wang Zhaoyao , the director of the national manned space engineering office, told Xinhua on Monday they had started talks and exchanges with the US.

 

China plans to finish construction of its space station by 2020, the same year when the International Space Station is scheduled to be retired.

 

The Chinese space station, although smaller in size, is designed to have 20 pressurised compartments, compared to the ISS's 16, Wang said.

 

After the space station went into operation, the nation would open its door to astronauts from other countries, including to help train them, he said.

 

"Co-operation should be either bilateral or multilateral, with diversified and flexible models based on peace and a win-win co-operation," Wang said.

 

Joint Sino-US efforts to advance space technology, while welcomed by many in the industry, may be some time away.

 

Professor Huang Hai, assistant dean of the School of Astronautics at Beihang University and who plans to attend the IAC next week, said there were no signs the more co-operation would happen any time soon.

 

"In international meetings the US partners are often very careful when speaking to us," he said. "We have lots of things to share, but no one dares to speak. The situation is hurting the development of global space efforts. If China and the United States could join hands, we would reach Mars much sooner."

 

NASA warns its employees that no federal budget deal by Sept. 30 would mean furloughs

 

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

 

NASA warned its 18,000 federal employees this week that some of them will be furloughed if the federal government runs out of money Sept. 30. That warning follows White House instructions to all federal agencies this week to prepare for a spending halt.

 

NASA-watching websites are printing a Sept. 18 memo to NASA workers from David Radzanowski, the space agency's human resources chief. In the memo, Radzanowski says no funding for the 2014 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 "would ... mean that a number of employees would be temporarily furloughed."

 

The memo says nothing directly about the thousands of other employees employed by NASA contracts, but it does say some projects would be put on hold. And there would be no money to fund contracts without a budget.

 

Federal spending for 2014 is caught in a Washington power struggle between Congress and the White House over the Affordable Care Act, sequestration and other spending issues. With no budgets so far, the government's bank accounts run out Sept. 30 if nothing changes. Radzanowski's memo comes on the heels of Sept. 17 White House instructions to all federal agencies to prepare for a spending halt.

 

"The Administration strongly believes that a lapse in funding should not occur," Radzanowski says in the memo. "There is enough time for Congress to prevent a lapse in appropriations, and the Administration is willing to work with Congress to enact a short-term continuing resolution to fund critical government operations and allow Congress the time to complete the full year 2014 appropriations."

 

So, is the government, including NASA, being prudent or alarmist? Or is this simply a heads-up to NASA workers that the situation is real and, as one government workers' union warned its members, it's a good idea to set aside some money just in case the wheels do come off in Washington this month?

 

Friendswood Junior High nurse flies to Russia to see husband leave for Space Station

 

Friendswood Journal

 

Seeing your husband off as he leaves on a trip is what this week holds for Friendswood Junior High nurse Julie Hopkins. But to do this, she had to travel to Russia where her husband will be leaving for the Space Station next week.

 

Fifteen family members and friends set off for Moscow today (Thursday, Sept. 19). Michael Hopkins has been in quarantine there for four weeks but will be able to greet and visit with his wife and family before the blastoff into space.

 

This has been a dream of his and he has spent the last two and one-half years preparing for this trip.

 

"It has seemed like a long time and suddenly it is here," Hopkins said. "I can hardly believe it. We were in Moscow in June but this will be my first visit to Kazakhstan," Julie Hopkins said. "Mike will be strapping himself into the Soyuz rocket September 25 so he can float around in space for the next six months."

 

During the last two years, Hopkins has traveled to Japan, Germany and Canada as well as Russia. All the locations have experiments at the International Space Station (ISS) and he had to know about them and be able to work with them.

 

Hopkins is part of Expedition 38 and will be traveling with Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy, both Russian astronauts. The three are friends and their families have all been together. This will be Kotov's third flight while both Sergey and Mike will be on their first.

 

Expedition 38 will begin with the undocking of Soyuz TMA-09M in Nov. 2013. The three new crew members will arrive aboard Soyuz TMA-11M, which is scheduled to launch Sept. 25 and return in March 2014.

 

Hopkins was selected in July 2009 as one of 14 members of the 20th NASA astronaut class. He graduated from Astronaut Candidate Training, which included scientific and technical briefings, intensive instruction in International Space Station (ISS) systems, Extravehicular Activity (EVA), robotics, physiological training, T-38 flight training and water and wilderness survival training.

 

Hopkins was assigned to the Expedition 38 crew as a flight engineer and is scheduled to fly to the ISS aboard Soyuz 36

 

Hopkins' family and friends will be at the launch in Kazakhstan. Baikonur, Russia's primary space launch facility since the 1950s, is the largest in the world, and supports multiple launches of both manned and unmanned rockets every year. With the U.S. manned space program currently on hold, Baikonur is now the sole launching point for trips to the ISS.

 

The launch can be seen on NASA TV or on live stream NASA TV through the internet. The launch is scheduled for approximately 3:58 pm on the Sept 25 (which will be 3 am on Thursday in Russia), with the hatch opening the same night at approximately 11:58 pm

 

"I am so happy for my husband who is having his dreams come true. The three men going might be from different countries but their dreams and passion for space travel and work are all the same. We think so much of Oleg and Sergey. They are part of our extended family," Julie Hopkins said. "We ask all of our friends and our community to keep Mike in your thoughts and prayers as he lives his dream for six months."

 

The Hopkins have two sons, a freshman and a 7th grader in Friendswood ISD. They live in Friendswood.

 

'Challenger Disaster' coming from Science Channel

 

Hal Boedeker - Orlando Sentinel

 

Science Channel will enter the movie business with "The Challenger Disaster," a depiction of the Presidential Commission's investigation of the space shuttle catastrophe in 1986.

 

The movie will premiere at 9 p.m. EDT, Saturday, Nov. 16.

 

"The Challenger Disaster" focuses on Dr. Richard Feynman, a commission member, and is an adaptation of his book "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" He was an independent voice in exploring what went wrong with Challenger, which exploded over Cape Canaveral 73 seconds into flight.

 

One fascinating bit about the production: The movie shot last year in South Africa.

 

Oscar-winner William Hurt plays Feynman. Bruce Greenwood ("Star Trek") portrays Gen. Donald Kutyna, another commission member.

 

The cast also includes Brian Dennehy as commission Chairman William Rogers; Joanne Whalley ("The Borgias") as Feynman's wife, Gweneth; and Eve Best ("Nurse Jackie") as astronaut Sally Ride.

 

The BBC is co-producing the film with Science Channel. The director is James Hawes ("Doctor Who," "Fanny Hill"). The writer is Kate Gartside ("Mistresses," "Lark Rise To Candleford").

 

Science Channel also will offer "Feynman: The Challenger," a documentary, at 10 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18. Greenwood narrates the hour program.

 

The movie is a huge deal for the channel, said Debbie Myers, general manager and executive vice president of Science Channel.

 

In a statement, she said: "This film is the biggest swing in our network's history. As our first fictional drama, 'The Challenger Disaster' furthers our commitment to bring audiences programming that provokes thought. We're telling the side of the Challenger story that isn't well-known while showing that science is a fascinating, rich, alive world. Our hope is that the audience walks away appreciating the genius of Dr. Feynman and the impact of his accomplishments."

 

What is fictional about the movie? A Science Channel spokeswoman said the movie is based on actual events, but it is a scripted drama.

 

Mark Burnett Pitching New Space-Themed Reality Show

 

Michael Schneider - TVGuide.com

 

Mark Burnett hasn't given up on his space dreams. According to multiple sources, Burnett is pitching a show to networks that would send the winner on one of Virgin Galactic's first suborbital space flights.

 

Insiders say a bidding war among several networks is already underway for the project, which would give an ordinary citizen the chance to fly into space. The winner would take off on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo from Spaceport America in New Mexico — perhaps as soon as next year.

 

Billionaire Sir Richard Branson, who founded Virgin Galactic as part of his Virgin Group, has already said he plans to be on the first flight, with his family, on Dec. 25 this year. The Burnett show is then expected to pit contestants against each other for a chance at a seat on the second flight.

 

Tom Hanks, Ashton Kutcher, Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are among the more than 600 people who have already signed up for a Virgin Galactic flight, which cost $250,000 per seat. That price tag puts a commercial space flight out of reach for most people — which is part of the idea behind the Burnett show.

 

The Virgin Galactic space rides are expected to last around two hours and take passengers up 62 miles above Earth. They'll experience weightlessness and witness the Earth's curve. Virgin Galactic has said that the company's first flights will only come after the passengers' safety is secured. A start date for flights has been pushed back several times, now with a 2014 target.

 

Burnett uncharacteristically declined comment. But it's no secret that the tenacious producer has long hoped to mount a reality show about space, going back to 2000, when he first sold the show Destination Mir to NBC. At the time, the Peacock network agreed to pay Burnett between $35 million and $40 million for Destination Mir, which included the nearly $20 million that Burnett agreed to pay MirCorp — the company that held the lease to Mir.

 

Destination Mir was planned for the 2001-02 TV season, and would have followed a group of Americans as they underwent cosmonaut training at Russia's Star City compound and competed, Survivor-style, for a chance to be sent in a rocket to the former Russian space station. The finale would culminate with the live broadcast of the winner's launch in a Soyuz capsule to Mir.

 

It wasn't meant to be, however. The aging space station was brought down in 2001. Burnett tried again a few years later with the renamed Destination: Space, partnering with the Russian Space Agency and a Russian TV network on a show that would have put someone aboard a Soyuz mission to the International Space Station. But the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster turned U.S. networks off the idea.

 

Separately, in 2002 'N Sync band member Lance Bass famously took flight training in order to board a Russian rocket to the International Space Station. Bass and Destiny Productions hoped to raise the $20 million fee via sponsors and a network deal to chronicle his journey on a reality show. But Moscow nixed the trip when Bass and Destiny failed to come up with the money. Producer Phil Gurin (Oh Sit!) also tried to send someone into space via The Big Mission, which was based on a Swedish TV format.

 

The early 2000s race to mount a space-themed reality show came as American businessman Dennis Tito signed up to become the world's first "space tourist," paying $20 million to spend nearly eight days in orbit via a Russian mission to the International Space Station.

 

Cohn, 88, keeps raking in the aces

 

Mike Bailey - Houston Chronicle

 

 

As the former director of the Johnson Space Center and its first flight director, Christopher Kraft is used to calling important shots. But on Labor Day at Bay Forest Golf Club, Kraft called one more shot.

 

He was playing with longtime colleague and golf partner Marv Cohn as well as Darren Brown. The threesome had arrived at the 17th tee when Kraft told Cohn they were due for an ace.

 

"I said it was about time for one of us to get a hole-in-one," Kraft said. "And he did it."

Sure enough, teeing off second, Cohn launched his 7-iron left of the hole.

 

"It curled back and went in right away," said Kraft, for whom Mission Control is now named.

 

Nonchalant attitude

 

Cohn was almost happier that it won the match he and Kraft were playing against Brown, who is a pretty good golfer. If he seemed a bit jaded, he had reason; it was Cohn's seventh ace overall, and it came at age 88.

 

The hole-in-one was the second he's had in his 80s, but it leaves him one behind his playing partner, Kraft, who has eight. Maybe he just needs another year to catch up. After all, Kraft is 89. Yep, that's right, between the two of them, they have 15 aces.

 

Perhaps even more impressive, however, is their zeal for the game. Cohn, who worked for NASA for 30 years, now plays five times a week. He's been playing since the 1950s. At one time, he was near scratch, and he still carries a 10-handicap. Cohn and Kraft have been playing together for the past 20 years.

 

"It keeps me alive," said Cohn, who underwent a triple bypass on his heart a few years ago and is on his second pacemaker. "Golf's a special game. You have to hit shots, it keeps you thinking, and it's all up to you."

 

Cohn, a former project engineer for the NASA shuttle program, has been married to his wife, Patricia, for 52 years. Five of his aces have come at Bay Forest, with the previous one in 2009. His other two came decades ago in the Chicago area, where he was raised and played at a fairly high level.

 

Learning from a legend

 

Cohn fondly recalls his days at the old Tam O' Shanter Golf Course in Niles, Ill., a historic club that has since been reduced to a nine-hole public course. He played on a six-man club team that won the Greater Chicago area club championship from 1957-59.

 

One of his playing partners was the legendary Martin "Fat Man" Stanovich, a golf hustler compared to none other than billiards' Minnesota Fats. Stanovich was so good, Cohn said, that Sam Snead once turned down a match to play Stanovich, who asked for a stroke a side.

 

"I never saw a better putter in all my life," recalled Cohn, who picked up much of his game from Stanovich. "The greatest thing he had, though, was psychology. He'd start to talk to you, and you would lose the hole."

 

Cohn doesn't play competitively anymore, but he does have a few trophies. He partnered with J.B. Thomas to win several two-man Houston Golf Association events. But these days, the golf is all about the camaraderie and the exercise. In between shots, there's a lot of conversation, particularly about sports.

 

"It's hard for us sometimes," Kraft said with a laugh, "because we're both Astros fans."

 

As for who bought the drinks after Cohn's ace, Kraft and Brown are still waiting.

 

Said Kraft: "Marv's never bought a drink in his life."

 

But Cohn countered: "He just wanted to get home quickly."

 

MEANWHILE ON MARS…

 

Curiosity unable to detect methane on Mars

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

After repeatedly sniffing the thin atmosphere of Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover has not detected any clear signs of methane, contradicting earlier, long-distance observations that indicated the ubiquitous hydrocarbon, a possible by-product of microbial life, was present in measurable quantities.

 

While methane can be produced by non-biological means, the earlier observations had raised hopes in some quarters that Mars might harbor some form of recognizable life to this day.

 

But Curiosity's high-precision measurements would seem to cool those hopes.

 

"This important result will help direct our efforts to examine the possibility of life on Mars," Michael Meyer, NASA's lead scientist for Mars exploration, said in a statement. "It reduces the probability of current methane-producing Martian microbes, but this addresses only one type of microbial metabolism. As we know, there are many types of terrestrial microbes that don't generate methane."

 

Using a tunable laser spectrometer, Curiosity sampled the martian atmosphere six times between October 2012 and June 2013, but was unable to detect any measurable methane. Given the sensitivity of the instrument, any methane in the atmosphere would have to be at concentrations less than 1.3 parts per billion, much less than earlier estimates based on observations from Earth and from Mars orbit.

 

Chris Webster, the lead scientist for the spectrometer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said he was confident Curiosity's measurements were accurate.

 

"It would have been exciting to find methane, but we have high confidence in our measurements, and the progress in expanding knowledge is what's really important," he said in NASA's statement. "We measured repeatedly from Martian spring to late summer, but with no detection of methane."

 

Methane, a molecule made up of one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms, is the most abundant hydrocarbon in the solar system. Remote observations indicated possible concentrations of up to 45 parts per billion in the martian atmosphere.

 

But those observations do not synch up with Curiosity's. The Mars rover could, in theory, detect concentrations amounting to 10 to 20 tons of methane being pumped into the martian atmosphere per year, NASA said in its release. That's 50 million times less than the amount of methane that enters Earth's atmosphere ever year.

 

"Methane is persistent," Sushil Atreya, a researcher at the University of Michigan, said in the NASA news release. "It would last for hundreds of years in the Martian atmosphere.

 

"Without a way to take it out of the atmosphere quicker, our measurements indicate there cannot be much methane being put into the atmosphere by any mechanism, whether biology, geology, or by ultraviolet degradation of organics delivered by the fall of meteorites or interplanetary dust particles."

 

But not everyone has given up hope. Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, told The New York Times that martian life might still exist in sub-surface aquifers.

 

"If it had found methane, that would have been killer," he told the Times. "Yes, it's disappointing in that we didn't get a pony for Christmas. But it doesn't mean there aren't ponies out there."

 

NASA rover finds no hint of methane in Mars air

 

Alicia Chang - Associated Press

 

NASA's Curiosity rover hasn't discovered any signs of methane in the atmosphere of Mars, a finding that does not bode well for the possibility that microbes capable of producing the gas could be living below the planet's surface, scientists said Thursday.

 

Since landing in Gale Crater last year, the car-size rover has gulped Mars air and scanned it with a tiny laser in search of methane. On Earth, most of the gas is a byproduct of life, spewed when animals digest or plants decay.

 

Curiosity lacks the tools to directly hunt for simple life, past or present. But scientists had high hopes that the rover would inhale methane after orbiting spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes detected plumes of the gas several years ago.

 

"If you had microbial life somewhere on Mars that was really healthy and cranking away, you might see some of the signatures of that in the atmosphere," said mission scientist Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

 

During Curiosity's first eight months on the red planet, it sniffed the air during the day and at night as the season changed from spring to summer.

 

"Every time we looked, we never saw it," said Christopher Webster, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who led the research published online in the journal Science.

 

Webster said while the result was "disappointing in many ways," the hunt for the elusive gas continues. While methane is linked to living things, it can also be made by non-biological processes.

 

Mars today is a hostile place - extremely dry and constantly bombarded by radiation. Billions of years ago, the planet boasted a thicker atmosphere and possible lakes. Scientists generally agree that nothing can exist on the Martian surface at present since it's too toxic. If there are living things on Mars, scientists theorize they're likely underground.

 

Just because Curiosity didn't detect methane near its landing site doesn't mean the gas is not present elsewhere on the planet, said Bill Nye, chief executive of the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group.

 

"Suppose you're an alien coming to Earth and you landed in the Four Corners area, would you feel as if you've explored the Earth?" he said.

 

Several years ago, scientists became excited at the prospect of methane-producing microbes after Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center noticed a mysterious belch of methane from three regions in Mars' western hemisphere.

 

Mumma, who had no role in the latest study, said he stood by his observations.

 

Earlier this month, Curiosity reached its first rest stop in its long trek toward Mount Sharp, a mountain rising from Gale Crater near the equator. The rover will take monthly readings of the Martian atmosphere during the road trip, expected to last almost a year.

 

Curiosity previously found evidence of an ancient environment that could have once been suitable for microscopic life. While the latest finding diminishes hope for present-day life, scientists still hope to uncover signs of ancient life by looking for organic compounds at the base of Mount Sharp.

 

NASA Mars rover finds no sign of methane, telltale sign of life

 

Irene Klotz - Reuters

 

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has come up empty-handed in its search for methane in the planet's atmosphere, a gas that on Earth is a strong indicator of life, officials said on Thursday.

 

The rover landed on Mars in August 2012 to determine whether the planet most like Earth in the solar system has or ever had the chemistry and conditions to support microbial life.

 

Over the past decade, scientists using Mars orbiters and telescopes on Earth have reported plumes of methane in the Martian atmosphere.

 

The gas breaks down in sunlight, so its presence on Mars indicated that either biological activity or a recent geologic event was responsible for its release.

 

The gas, which lasts about 300 years in Earth's atmosphere, could be expected to stick around for 200 years on Mars. But Curiosity's findings, compiled over eight months, indicate that the methane may have virtually disappeared in a matter of years.

 

Based on the previous observations, scientists had expected to find about six times more methane in the atmosphere than the negligible amounts Curiosity found.

 

"There's a discrepancy," lead research Christopher Webster, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told Reuters. "Suddenly the whole interpretation of earlier observations is stuck."

 

Webster said it is possible but unlikely that the lack of methane is particular to Curiosity's landing site, a giant basin near the planet's equator.

 

Once methane is released from the surface, scientists believe it would spread fairly quickly through the planet's thin atmosphere.

 

"It's disappointing, of course," Webster said. "We would have liked to get there and find lots of methane."

 

The search is not over. Curiosity will continue to take air samples and test for methane as it continues its geology mission.

 

Scientists also plan another round of observations with Earth-based telescopes next year.

 

The research appears this week in the journal Science.

 

 

Mars Has Too Little Methane to Support Life, Study Finds

 

Elizabeth Lopatto - Bloomberg News

 

Methane, which results from the decay of organic matter, wasn't detected on Mars, suggesting the planet probably doesn't support living microbes, according to new readings from the Curiosity rover.

 

The craft has identified no methane on its sensors, and the greatest amount of the gas that may exist in the atmosphere is about 1.3 parts per billion, about six times lower than previous estimates made by earth-bound telescopes and orbiting satellites, according to a paper released today in the journal Science.

 

Earth has about 1,800 parts per billion of methane in the atmosphere, said Chris Webster, a study author and the director of the microdevices lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The gas is mostly the result of the decay of organic matter, and a signal of biology. Higher readings of methane on Mars taken from Earth and orbiting satellites raised hopes that microbes might lie beneath the Martian surface, Webster said.

 

"There aren't significant amounts of methane, so that paints a whole different picture," Webster said. "We can say that there isn't significant microbial activity."

 

That doesn't rule out the possibility that some microbes don't produce methane, Webster said. The reading also doesn't mean that life forms have never existed on Mars, he said.

 

"Curiosity established that it was a habitable world about a billion or less years ago, with water flowing and energy --the right ingredients for simple life forms," Webster said.

 

Earlier Observations

Some previous readings found plumes of methane, which appear to have dispersed, with as much as 45 parts per billion, Webster said. Another report, from an orbiter, said that it detected 10 parts per billion, plus or minus 5. Some scientists have criticizing the methods used to make those readings.

 

"That's in part because they're very difficult observations," Webster said. The sensor on Curiosity is more sensitive and doesn't have to be read through Earth's dense atmosphere, he said.

 

Though Curiosity is measuring in only one place, the atmosphere on Mars mixes and turns over every few months, Webster said. So if there were a plume somewhere, it would mix to form the background atmosphere being analyzed by Curiosity.

 

Life on Mars? Well, Maybe Not

 

Kenneth Chang – New York Times

 

In findings that are as scientifically significant as they are crushing to the popular imagination, NASA reported Thursday that its Mars rover, Curiosity, has deflated hopes that life could be thriving on Mars today.

 

The conclusion, published in the journal Science, comes from the fact that Curiosity has been looking for methane, a gas that is considered a possible calling card of microbes, and has so far found none of it. While the absence of methane does not rule out the possibility of present-day life on Mars — there are plenty of microbes, on Earth at least, that do not produce methane — it does return the idea to the realm of pure speculation without any hopeful data to back it up.

 

The history of human fascination with the possibility of life on Mars is rich, encompassing myriad works of science fiction, Percival Lowell's quixotic efforts to map what turned out to be imaginary canals, Orson Welles's panic-inducing 1938 "War of the Worlds" radio play, and of course Bugs Bunny's nemesis, Marvin the Martian.

 

But Marvin apparently did not emit enough methane for Curiosity's sensitive instruments to find him.

 

"You don't have direct evidence that there is microbial process going on," said Sushil K. Atreya, a professor of atmospheric and space science at the University of Michigan and a member of the science team.

 

But NASA scientists are going strictly by their data, and they are leery about drawing broader implications to the question once posed by David Bowie, "Is there life on Mars?" John P. Grotzinger, the project scientist for the Curiosity mission, would go only so far as to say that the lack of this gas "does diminish" the possibility of methane-exhaling creatures going about their business on Mars.

 

"It would have been great if we got methane," Dr. Atreya said. "It just isn't there."

 

Curiosity, which has been trundling across the planet for a little over a year, made measurements from Martian spring to late summer, coming up empty for methane.

 

Scientists have long thought that Mars, warm and wet in its early years, could have been hospitable for life, and the new findings do not mean that it was not. But that was about three and a half billion years ago. Methane molecules break apart over a few centuries — victims of the Sun's ultraviolet light and of chemical reactions in the atmosphere — so any methane in the air from primordial times would have disappeared long ago.

 

That is why reports of huge plumes of methane rising over Mars in 2003 fueled fresh hopes for Martian microbes. Those findings, based on data from telescopes on Earth and a spacecraft orbiting Mars, set off a surge of speculation and scientific interest.

 

On Earth, most of the methane comes from micro-organisms known as methanogens, but the gas is also produced without living organisms, in hydrothermal vents. Either possibility would be a surprising result for Mars.

 

After the 2003 methane readings, "a lot people got excited and started working on it," said Christopher R. Webster of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the lead author of the paper in Science. "It was a very important result, because of the magnitude of methane." The fresh data from Curiosity brings the earlier claims into question.

 

Not everyone is daunted. Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, a nonprofit group dedicated to the planet's exploration and settlement, said he was still convinced that Martian life was waiting to be discovered in underground aquifers.

 

"If it had found methane, that would have been killer," Dr. Zubrin said, referring to Curiosity. "Yes, it's disappointing in that we didn't get a pony for Christmas. But it doesn't mean there aren't ponies out there."

 

One of the scientists who found the methane plumes in 2003, Michael J. Mumma, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in an interview this week he was certain that his earlier measurements were still valid. He said he now believed that methane on Mars was episodic — released in large plumes and then quickly destroyed. He suggested, half-jokingly, that there could be huge colonies of methane-eating microbes on Mars that eliminated the gas from the air.

 

Dr. Mumma acknowledged that he could not identify any phenomena that would explain why methane plumes spurted out that year but not more recently, or how methane could be destroyed much more quickly on Mars than on Earth.

 

"Mars may not be operating the same way," he said. "It's a puzzle."

 

Dr. Atreya of the Curiosity team said he originally thought that highly reactive chemicals on the Martian surface could be destroying methane, as Dr. Mumma envisioned. But "that's not panning out," Dr. Atreya said.

 

A simpler explanation would be that there was never much in the way of methane — or microbes — on Mars.

 

Kim Stanley Robinson, a science fiction author, wrote three novels in the 1990s about the colonization of Mars by people from Earth, which in his version of things begins in 2026. Except for one conversation between two scientists, he completely leaves out the possibility of indigenous Martian microbes.

 

"In my Mars trilogy, I assumed what everyone assumed back then, which was that it was a dead rock," Mr. Robinson said by e-mail on Thursday. "Actually, it would be very problematic to write that book today."

 

These days there are plans, on paper, to send humans to Mars in roughly Mr. Robinson's time frame. One of them, a private effort called Mars One, which has yet to prove it has the technology to achieve its goals, has nevertheless attracted hundreds of thousands of people to apply for a one-way trip, which theoretically would arrive in 2023.

 

Mars is smaller than Earth and would have cooled off sooner after the formation of the solar system. Some scientists have even suggested that all life on Earth could be descended from Martian microbes that were carried here embedded within meteorites. As the surface of Mars turned cold and dry and most of the air dispersed to space, microbes could have migrated underground and persisted, the thinking goes.

 

To pursue the methane mystery, Curiosity was outfitted with an instrument that can measure minute quantities of methane and other gases. The first measurements by Curiosity last fall showed a definite signal from methane. "When we saw it for it for the first time, we went 'Oh, my gosh,' " Dr. Webster said.

 

But that turned out to be from residual air from Earth carried all the way to Mars. Once the Earth air was pumped away, the methane readings disappeared, too. Last November, the scientists reported an upper limit of 6 parts per billion. Now they have pushed that down to 1.3 parts per billion and expect to improve their precision by at least another factor of 10 in the coming months.

 

As exciting as it is to see the beautiful full-color pictures of the Martian landscape that Curiosity sends back, it is the tantalizing prospect of creatures living on a neighboring planet that fuels public interest the most, space enthusiasts say.

 

"That's the mythology," said Seth Shostak, an astronomer with the Seti Institute in Mountain View, Calif., which searches for intelligent life in the universe. "Mars is about life, not geology, as interesting as that is. That's the triumph of hope over measurement, and maybe it is."

 

In a month, India is to launch a Mars orbiter that also has a methane-measuring instrument to look for the gas from orbit. "They may be disappointed when they try to create maps of methane," Dr. Webster said.

 

How much methane on Mars? Zero. Findings a setback in search for life

 

Scott Gold - Los Angeles Times

 

The most high-fidelity search for methane on Mars has turned up none, a result that significantly reduces the chances of finding microbial life on the Red Planet.

 

The highly awaited results of tests conducted by NASA's Curiosity rover do not completely rule out the possibility that something is alive on Mars, researchers said. But the findings, published online Thursday by the journal Science, strongly suggest that Mars is barren.

 

"We're very confident in this result," said study leader Christopher R. Webster, who oversees the development of planetary science instruments at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. "It's a very robust measurement."

 

Last year, Curiosity released an initial batch of test results showing methane levels on Mars of no more than five parts per billion. That announcement deflated scientists across the globe, who had hoped for higher and more electrifying numbers.

 

Thursday's report on the most sensitive methane tests ever conducted on Mars — six atmospheric samples measured from last fall to this summer — was even more definitive. Even stretching statistical error to its end point, the scientists concluded that there is no more than 1.3 parts per billion of methane in the Martian atmosphere. But the practical result was zero.

 

"We have not detected methane," Webster said. The tests, he said, indicate "a low probability that there is ongoing microbial activity today."

 

What's more, scientists said, Mars is efficient at distributing gases like methane evenly across its surface. That means Curiosity was not just testing methane levels in Gale Crater, the geological feature just south of the equator where the rover is doing its work.

 

The results, Webster said, "are representative of the atmosphere as a whole."

 

But the possible existence of methane of Mars speaks to arguably the largest single question that science seeks to answer: Is there life beyond Earth today?

 

Curiosity has sent home a trove of geological evidence suggesting that Mars — which used to be wet and warm like Earth — once fostered a habitable environment. Indeed, the very first rock the rover drilled from beneath the Martian surface contained hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and other key building blocks of life.

 

But discovering even a fraction of Earth's methane on Mars could suggest that it is capable of harboring life now, not billions of years ago.

 

Methane seeps out of some of the most "alive" places on Earth — termite colonies, swamps, cow pastures. Earth's atmosphere contains more than 1,700 parts methane per billion, and 90% of it is produced by something biological.

 

Mars rock yields building blocks of life

 

"But we've been doing this almost a year now, and it's not budging," said Sushil K. Atreya, director of the Planetary Space Laboratory at the University of Michigan and a leading Curiosity scientist. "It's a little disheartening. If there were a lot of methane, it would imply a lot of things. It opens up the possibility of life."

 

Over the years, the search for methane on Mars has been provocative and maddeningly inconsistent. And in certain corners of science, the invisible and fairly innocuous gas is downright divisive.

 

In 2004, the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter reported methane in the Martian atmosphere at 10 parts per billion, an announcement that sent a jolt through the scientific community. Around the same time, scientists said they had used ground-based instruments on Earth to detect numerous "plumes" of methane on Mars, one of which contained a whopping 21,000 tons of the gas.

 

But questions have dogged those results ever since.

 

Skeptics claimed that the instruments aboard Mars Express were clouded by other elements in the Martian atmosphere, and that large amounts of methane in Earth's atmosphere might have tainted the measurements that purported to have discovered the "plume."

 

If the plume was real, "it should still have been there," said Paul Mahaffy, a leading Curiosity scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

 

"The bottom line is that we've had the ability to look over the better part of a year," said Mahaffy, a coauthor of the new report in Science. "We're just not seeing methane."

 

The search for methane on Mars, however, is not over, "and this does not rule out the possibility of life," Atreya said.

 

There are, for instance, "many types of terrestrial microbes that don't generate methane," said Michael Meyer, NASA's lead scientist for Mars exploration and an expert in the field known as astrobiology.

 

What's more, scientists have theorized that methane vanishes more quickly on Mars than it does on Earth. Some researchers, for instance, have argued that methane decays quickly when it encounters Martian soil. Others believe that the dust devils that frequently scour the surface of Mars create strong electrical fields that can zap the gas away.

 

"That's plausible," Mahaffy said.

 

So the hunt continues. In 2014, Curiosity will likely receive new software that would allow it to search for methane in even higher fidelity than parts per billion.

 

Detecting trace amounts of methane would be one thing, but perhaps more importantly, it could allow Curiosity to show that those levels are changing. Proving that the levels vary could open the door, once again, to the possibility that there is a current source of methane on Mars.

 

Curiosity will get some help in 2016, when the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is expected to reach the Red Planet. That craft, a joint project of the European and Russian space agencies, will scour the surface of Mars for methane — and if it finds it, will attempt to determine whether it is biological or geological in origin.

 

"The intriguing methane story continues," Mahaffy said. "We're still very motivated to keep looking. Methane seems to be a little elusive."

 

Life on Mars? New Doubts Emerge

Curiosity fails to detect Methane, which would have suggested existence of microbes

 

Robert Lee Hotz - Wall Street Journal

 

NASA scientists seeking methane on Mars—a potential biomarker of life on the red planet—are running on empty.

 

Researchers using an unusually sensitive gas detector aboard the Mars Curiosity robot rover reported in Science Thursday that they can't find any methane in the thin Martian air, dealing a blow to hopes that life today might be lurking in the soil of the cold, arid world.

 

More Mars probes, including India's first mission to the planet and a $1 billion European effort with Russia, are poised to search for methane there in the years ahead. In light of the new finding, some researchers now doubt these efforts will find any evidence of the life-related gas.

 

Since 2003, astronomers using Earth-based telescopes and readings from a European satellite orbiting Mars have reported detecting periodic plumes of methane on Mars—up to 50 parts per billion in the air. Although often challenged by other researchers, those readings raised expectations among astrobiologists that microbes might be at work on the planet.

 

"Methane on Mars would be an exciting find because most of the methane on Earth comes from life-related processes," such as microbial activity or organic decay, said planetary scientist Malynda Chizek at New Mexico State University who studies the planet's atmosphere. "Everyone wants to be the one who discovers life on Mars."

 

Upon the first close inspection at ground level on Mars, however, the crucial gas was nowhere to be found, the Curiosity scientists said Thursday.

 

"Today there is very little or no methane; therefore, very little or no microbial activity from methane-producing microbes," said Christopher R. Webster at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Dr. Webster leads the team that is periodically sampling the Martian air with a sensor aboard the rover called the Tunable Laser Spectrometer, an instrument specially designed for measuring the gas on Mars.

 

Dr. Webster and his colleagues conducted six tests in the past eight months as the rover traversed an area called Gale Crater, seeking for traces of methane in the air down to 1.3 parts-per-billion by volume. There may have been methane-producing life on Mars in the distant past, but most likely not now, they said.

 

"There is a puzzle here," said astrobiologist Michael Mumma at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. He is among those who detected the gas on Mars using Earth-based infrared telescopes. "We stand confident in our own data."

 

Several researchers not involved in the Curiosity project said they would suspend judgment until tests can be conducted that encompass the entire planet, not just the 96-mile-wide Gale Crater, where the Curiosity rover is located. The Curiosity scientists, however, said the systematic sampling there is representative of the entire atmosphere.

 

"We will look at the entire planet," said Olivier Witasse, project scientist for the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission scheduled for launch in 2016. "If there is methane somewhere on Mars, we should see it."

 

Curiosity Finds No Sign Of Methane On Mars

 

Alex Knapp - Forbes

 

NASA has announced today that after conducting extensive tests, the Mars rover Curiosity hasn't found any sign of methane in the Martian atmosphere. This comports with preliminary findings made by the rover last November, in which no methane was found either, but nevertheless makes it less likely that life currently exists on Mars.

 

Between October of 2012 and June of this year, Curiosity made six different analyses of the Martian atmosphere. The atmospheric samples were tested with the rover's Tunable Laser Spectrometer, an extremely sensitive instrument capable of detecting methane up to 1 part per billion. There are, however, methods to get the instrument to detect it at even lower concentrations, which is something that the rovers team will be trying soon.

 

This finding comes as something of a surprise, however, as earlier studies of the Martian atmosphere from orbit had showed signs indicating that much higher concentrations of methane existed in the atmosphere, which had led some scientists to suspect that it might be of biological origin. That's because here on Earth, lots of different species produce methane.

 

"It would have been exciting to find methane, but we have high confidence in our measurements, and the progress in expanding knowledge is what's really important," NASA scientist Chris Webster said in a press release.

 

Of course, while a finding of no methane makes it less likely that life exists on Mars today, it by no means completely rules out the possibility. As Curiosity herself tweeted out after the news was released:

 

Lack of methane doesn't mean Mars never supported life. Plenty of Earth organisms don't produce the gas.

 

NASA scientist Michael Meyer adds "this addresses only one type of microbial metabolism. As we know, there are many types of terrestrial microbes that don't generate methane."

 

The lack of methane also doesn't mean much regarding the question of whether life existed on Mars millions of years ago, even if there's no life on the planet now. In its time on Mars, Curiosity has found several indications that Mars was once habitable, with flowing water on its surface.

 

Additionally, as we've discovered here on Earth, life has a way of finding itself into some of the most extreme circumstances, from hot ocean plumes to buried beneath lakes covered by glaciers. NASA's next Mars missions will carry with them even more tools to seek out such new life.

 

In the meantime, Curiosity keeps making her way across Mars, learning new things every day about our planetary neighbor.

 

Slithering Snake Robots on Mars Could Aid Future Rovers

 

Elizabeth Howell - Space.com

 

Mechanical "snake robots" could boost the scientific output of next-generation Mars rovers and get them out of jams from time to time, researchers say.

 

Small, serpentine robots could help Mars rovers collect soil samples from crevices beneath rocks and other hard-to-reach places, and they could pull their wheeled siblings to safety if the bigger vehicles get bogged down in soft sand.

 

The snake would ride along with the rover, accessing its power source via a cable.

 

"The connection between the robot and the rover also means that the snake robot will be able to assist the vehicle if the latter gets stuck," said Pål Liljebäck, a researcher with the Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research in Norway, or SINTEF.

 

"In such a situation, the robot could lower itself to the ground and coil itself around a rock, enabling the rover to pull itself loose by means of the cable winch, which the rover would normally use to pull the snake robot towards the rover," Liljebäck said in a statement.

 

Such a backup may have been able to save NASA's Spirit rover, which got stuck in 2009 after exploring the Red Planet for five years. Unable to point its solar panels toward the sun over the Martian winter, Spirit stopped communicating with Earth in 2010 and was declared dead a year later.

 

SINTEF, with assistance from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, is currently conducting a 500,000 Norwegian krone (US $84,700) feasibility study for the "snake robot" technology.

 

SINTEF researchers envision a Mars rover carrying the snake much of the time, dropping the smaller robot at soil-collection sites or other areas of scientific interest. The rover could then analyze the snake-snagged soil or set it aside for transportation back to Earth. 

 

The snake could fit atop or underneath the rover, as long as the wheeled vehicle were outfitted with some sort of hoisting mechanism to pick it up. But there are other possibilities as well.

 

"One option is to make the robot into one of the vehicle's arms, with the ability to disconnect and reconnect itself, so that it can be lowered to the ground, where it can crawl about independently," said Aksel Transeth, also of SINTEF.

 

The European Space Agency expects to receive a more specific proposal in December from the researchers. There's no word yet, however, on when the snake could crawl on Mars. ESA is planning a Red Planet rover to launch in 2018 as part of the ExoMars mission.

 

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