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Reno Professor Hopes for Red-Letter Day on Mars

Posted on: Monday, 13 March 2006, 06:00 CST

By Ed Vogel

By ED VOGEL

REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY - Wendy Calvin, a University of Nevada, Reno, geological sciences professor, will hold her breath about 1:24 p.m. today, when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is set to fly into the gravitational pull of the Red Planet.

At that time, NASA engineers are to fire thrusters on the satellite so that it can begin to orbit Mars. Calvin has the task of interpreting data sent back to Earth by one of the Orbiter's cameras.

She knows well what happened in 1999 on a similar mission. The satellite burned up when it crashed into Mars.

"It will be suspenseful," Calvin said. "I'll be crossing my fingers. It don't understand all the timing, but they will be doing a couple of slow-down burns and then an orbit-entry burn."

The satellite was launched last August from Cape Canaveral and embarked on a 300 million-mile journey to Mars.

Costs of the mission, which is supposed to last five years, have been put at $720 million.

If the "burn-down" is successful, the engineers will spend the next six months trying to maneuver the satellite so that it makes a circular orbit about 160 miles above Mars. Then people such as Calvin can study the data sent back from six cameras, one of which is the most powerful telescopic camera ever sent into space. The camera can reveal details of rocks the size of a small desk. It also should be able to detect the Spirit and Opportunity rovers that have been on the Martian surface since 2003. Calvin also worked on the rover projects.

The goal of the mission is to investigate whether there is water on Mars today and where it was deposited in the past. With that information, scientists hope to determine whether Mars supported life.

"We want to get the global distribution of water (on Mars) and then go to places where water stayed the longest and where life got its start," Calvin said. "It is a decade-long plan, at least. There is water and has been water historically on Mars. This will refine where it is."

But she emphasized that the kind of life she figures existed on Mars was bacteria, not plant life or anything as advanced as animal or human life.

"The Earth was thought of as the only inhabited planet in our solar system," she said. "Mars is dead now, but it may have had life. There is a potential for life in a myriad of places. Water is the primary requirement for life."

She envisions the day when humans will visit Mars but figures that is 100 years away and will require a major financial commitment from the United States or a group of nations.

Though she will travel to the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif., for some of the work on the Mars project, Calvin can do much of her work interpreting images over the Internet.

"I can use Internet technology to transfer data and make occasional trips," she said. "It is a lot less expensive, and I can even do it at home."

Instruments on the satellite will zoom in on Mars' surface, analyze minerals, look for subsurface water, dust and water in the atmosphere and monitor daily weather. The orbiter can return data to Earth at about 10 times the rate of any previous Mars mission.

She added that many of the images will be made available to the public over NASA's Web site, www.nasa.gov.

Calvin, 44, has had roles in U.S. space exploration missions since 1988. Since 2000, she has been an associate research professor at the Arthur Brant Laboratory for Exploration Geophysics at UNR. The lab is part of the Mackey School of Earth Science and Engineering.

She specializes in infrared spectroscopy, study of water, ice and minerals and how they affect chemical processes occurring in space.

As a child, Calvin remembers being good at math and science, but not being particularly interested in space.

She holds a doctorate in geophysics from the University of Colorado and undergraduate and graduate degrees in math and physics from the University of Denver.

Although she is based at UNR, Calvin's entire salary comes from the grants she can secure working on projects such as the Mars mission.

"I don't have a state-funded position," she said. "I am teaching, but I don't have to teach. If I don't get grants, I could be in trouble."

Source: Las Vegas Review - Journal

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