Why we need to go back to Mars Joel Levine

I want to talk about 4.6 billion years

of history in 18 minutes that’s 300

million years per minute let’s start

with the first photograph NASA obtained

of planet Mars

this is flyby Mariner 4 it was taken in

1965 when this picture appeared that

well-known scientific journal the New

York Times wrote in its editorial Mars

is uninteresting it’s a dead world NASA

should not spend any time or effort

studying Mars anymore

fortunately our leaders in Washington at

NASA headquarters knew better and we

began a very extensive study of the red

planet one of the key questions in all

of science is there life outside of

Earth

I believe that Mars is the most likely

target for life outside the earth I’m

going to show you in a few minutes some

amazing measurements that suggest there

may be life on Mars but let me start

with the Viking photograph this is a

composite taken by Viking in 1976 Viking

was developed and managed at NASA

Langley Research Center we sent two

orbiters and two Landers in the summer

of 1976 we had four spacecraft around -

around Mars - on the surface an amazing

accomplishment this is the first

photograph taken from the surface of any

planet this is a Viking Lander

photograph of the surface of Mars yes

the red planet is red Mars is half the

size of the earth but because two-thirds

of the earth is covered by water the

land area on Mars is comparable to the

land area on earth so Mars is a pretty

big place even though it’s only it’s

half the size we have obtained

topographic measurements of the surface

of Mars we understand the elevation

differences we know a lot about Mars

Mars has

the largest volcano in the solar system

Olympus Mons Mars has the Grand Canyon

of the solar system Valles Marineris

very very interesting planet Mars has

the largest impact crater in the solar

system Hellas Basin this is 2,000 miles

across if you happen to be on Mars when

this impactor hit it was a really bad

day on Mars

this is Olympus Mons this is bigger than

the state of Arizona volcanoes are

important because volcanoes produce

atmospheres and they produce oceans

we’re looking at Valles Marineris the

largest canyon in the solar system

superimposed on a map of the United

States 3,000 miles across one of the

most intriguing features about Mars the

National Academy of Science says one of

the 10 major mysteries of the space age

is why certain areas of Mars are so

highly magnetized we call this crustal

magnetism there are regions on Mars

where for some reason we don’t

understand why at this point the surface

is very very highly magnetized is there

water on Mars the answer is no there is

no liquid water on the surface of Mars

today but there is intriguing evidence

that suggests that the early history of

Mars there may have been rivers and fast

flowing water today Mars is very very

dry we believe there’s some water in the

polar caps there are polar caps of North

Pole and South Pole here are some recent

images this is from Spirit and

Opportunity these images that show at

one time there was very fast flowing

water on the surface of Mars why is what

are important water is important because

if you want life you have to have water

water is the key ingredient in the

evolution the arch and evolution of life

on a planet here’s some picture of

Antarctica and a picture of Olympus Mons

very similar features glaciers so this

is frozen water this is ice water on

Mars

this is my favorite picture this has

we’ve just taken a few weeks ago it has

not been seen publicly this is European

Space Agency Mars Express image of a

crater on Mars and in the middle of the

crater we have liquid water we have ice

very intriguing photograph we now

believe that in the early history of

Mars which is 4.6 billion years ago 4.6

billion years ago Mars was very

earth-like Mars had rivers Mars had

lakes but more important Mars had

planetary scale oceans we believe that

the oceans were in the northern

hemisphere and this area in blue which

shows a depression of about four miles

was the ancient ocean area on the

surface of Mars where did the oceans

worth of water on Mars go well we have

an idea this is a measurement we

obtained a few years ago from an Mars

orbiting satellite called Odyssey

subsurface water on Mars frozen in the

form of ice and this shows the percent

if it’s a blueish color it means 16

percent by weight 16 percent by weight

of the Interior contains frozen water or

ice so there is a lot of water below the

surface the most intriguing and puzzling

measurement in my opinion we have

obtained of Mars was released earlier

this year in the magazine science and

what we’re looking at is the presence of

the gas methane ch4 in the atmosphere of

Mars and you can see there are three

distinct regions of methane why is

methane important because on earth

almost all 99.9% of the methane is

produced by living systems not little

green men but microscopic lights below

the surface or at the surface we now

have evidence that methane is in the

atmosphere of Mars a gas that on earth

is biogenic in our

produced by living systems these are the

three plumes a b 1 b 2 and this is the

terrain it appears over and we know from

geological studies that these regions

are the oldest regions on Mars in fact

the Earth and Mars of both 4.6 billion

years old the oldest rock on earth is

only 3.6 billion the reason there is a

billion-year history logical

understanding is because of plate

tectonics the the crust of the earth has

been recycled

we have no geological record prior for

the first billion years that record

exists on Mars and this terrain that

we’re looking at dates back to 4.6

billion years when Earth and Mars were

formed it was a Tuesday this is this is

a map that shows where we put our

spacecraft on the surface of Mars here

is Viking one Viking two this is

opportunity this is spirit this is Mars

Pathfinder this is Phoenix we just put

two years ago notice all of our Rovers

on all of our Landers have gone to the

northern hemisphere that’s because the

northern hemisphere is the region of the

ancient ocean basin there aren’t many

craters and that’s because the water

protected the the basin from being

impacted by asteroids of meteorites and

but not look in the southern hemisphere

in the southern hemisphere their impact

craters their uh volcanic craters here

is Hellas Basin a very very different

place geologically look where the

methane is the methane is in a very

rough terrain area what is the best way

to unravel the mysteries of Mars that

exists we asked this question ten years

ago we invited ten of the top Mars

scientists to the Langley Research

Center for two days we addressed on the

board

the major questions that have not been

answered and we spend two days deciding

how to best answer this question and the

result of our meeting was a robotic

rocket-powered airplane we call Ares

it’s Ariel regional scale environmental

surveyor there’s a model of Ares here

this is a 20% scale model this airplane

was designed at the Langley Research

Center if any place in the world can

build an airplane to fly on Mars

it’s the Langley Research Center for

almost a hundred years a leading center

of Aeronautics in the world we fly about

a mile above the surface we cover

hundreds of miles and we fly about 450

miles an hour we can do things that

Rovers can’t do and Landers can’t do we

can fly above mountains volcanoes impact

craters we fly over valleys we can fly

over surface magnetism the polar cap

subsurface water and we can search for

life on Mars but of equal importance as

we fly through the atmosphere of Mars we

transmit that journey the first flight

of an airplane outside of the earth we

transmit those images back to earth and

our goal is to inspire the American

public who’s paying for this mission

through tax dollars but more important

we will inspire the next generation of

scientists technologists engineer and

mathematician and that’s a critical area

of national security and economic

vitality to make sure we produce the

next generation of scientists engineers

mathematicians and technologists this is

what Ares looks like as it flies over

Mars we pre-program it we will fly where

the methane is we will have instruments

aboard the plane that will sample every

three minutes the atmosphere of Mars we

will look for methane as well as other

gases produced by living systems

we will pinpoint where these gases

emanate from because we can measure the

gradient where it comes from and there

we can direct the next mission to land

right in that area how do we transport

an airplane to Mars in two words very

carefully the problem is we don’t fly it

to Mars we put it in a spacecraft and we

send it to Mars the problem is the

spacecraft largest diameter is 9 feet

Ares is 21 feet wings with 21 foot

wingspan 17 feet long how do we get it

to Mars we fold it and we transport it

in a spacecraft and we have it in

something called an aeroshell this is

how we do it and we have a little video

that subscribes rain board 5 4 3 2

this is

this is the spacecraft taking nine

months to get to Mars it enters the

atmosphere of Mars a lot of feeding

frictional eating it’s the babies

applause our parish it opens up to slow

it down the thermal tiles fall off the

airplane is exposed for the atmosphere

for the first time it unfolds

we believe that in a one-hour flight we

can rewrite the textbook on Mars by

making high-resolution measurements of

the atmosphere looking for guests as a

biogenic origin looking for gases of

volcanic origin studying the surface

studying the magnetism on the surface

which we don’t understand as well as

about a dozen other areas practice makes

perfect

how do we know we can do it because we

have tested Ares model several models

and a half a dozen wind tunnels at the

NASA Langley Research Center for eight

years under Mars conditions and of equal

importance is we test Ares in the

Earth’s atmosphere at a hundred thousand

feet which is comparable to the density

and pressure of the atmosphere on Mars

where we’ll fly now a hundred thousand

feet if you fly cross-country to Los

Angeles you fly 37,000 feet we do our

tests at a hundred thousand feet and I

want to show you one of our tests this

is a half scale model this is a

high-altitude helium balloon this is

over Tillamook Oregon we put the folded

airplane on the balloon it took about

three hours to to get up there and then

we release it on command at one hundred

and three thousand feet and we deploy

the airplane and everything works

perfectly and we’ve done high altitude

and low altitude tests just to perfect

this technique we’re ready to go I have

a scale model here but we have a full

scale model in storage at the NASA

Langley Research Center we’re ready to

go all we need is a check from NASA

headquarters to to cover the costs I am

prepared to donate my honorarium for

today’s talk for this mission

there’s actually no one or Orion for

anyone for this thing this is the Aries

team we have about 150 scientists

engineers we’re working with Jet

Propulsion Laboratory Goddard Space

Flight Center Ames Research Center and

half a dozen major universities and

corporations and developing this it’s a

large effort it’s all all Duvall a lead

at NASA Langley Research Center and let

me conclude by saying not too far from

here right down the road in Kitty Hawk

North Carolina a little more than a

hundred years ago history was made when

we had the first powered flight of an

airplane on earth we are on the verge

right now

to make the first flight of an airplane

outside the Earth’s atmosphere we are

prepared to fly the Sun Mars rewrite the

textbook about Mars if you’re interested

in more information we have a website

that describes this exciting and

intriguing mission and why we want to do

it thank you very much