Thinking About Mars

One step in the elimination of that disconnect took place on October 1-3, when over one hundred people gathered on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the "Mars Week" conference. Sponsored by the "Think Mars" student group, which has created an innovative plan for a "semi-commercial" human Mars mission, the conference brought together experts to talk about the whys and hows of Martian exploration.

Why Go?
One of the most exciting reasons why to go to Mars has centered on the possibility that the planet once harbored -- or might still harbor today -- life. Everett Gibson, a leading member of a team of scientists in the center of the debate regarding evidence for life in ALH 84001, believes that life still exists on Mars today.

Gibson reviewed the several lines of evidence that he says supports his group's conclusion that the meteorite contains evidence of primitive, ancient life on Mars, including tiny features that appear to be nanofossils like those seen in some terrestrial rocks. He then went to two other Martian meteorites, Nakhla and Shergotty. These meteorites are much younger than the 4-billion-year-old ALH 84001 -- Shergotty is only about 165 million years old -- yet these meteorites also contain features that closely resemble nanofossils.

If those features do turn out to be evidence of life, then it would mean that life existed on Mars from 4 billion years ago, when ALH 84001 was formed, until 165 million years ago. Since Mars has not been subjected to any major global catastrophes since then, Gibson said this would mean that life would exist on Mars to this day in some protected niche.

There are plenty of other scientific reasons to explore Mars, as explained by MIT planetary scientist Maria Zuber. The discovery of a relic magnetic field over portions of the planet has been the "major surprise" of the Mars Global Surveyor mission to date, she said, although there have been a bevy of other discoveries dealing with the geology and topography of the surface.

She noted that those looking for evidence of past oceans on Mars should look in the northern hemisphere, given the asymmetric topography of the planet, but the discovery of channels extending farther north into the putative ocean basin than earlier known suggests that early Mars may have had a network of channels, rather than a continuous, deep ocean.

However, scientific arguments are neither the only reason to support going to Mars nor necessarily the most important reason. Outlining the philosophy described in his latest book, Robert Zubrin said humanity needs new frontiers like Mars to continue to stimulate human civilization. Without them, he warned, "we are doomed to be inhabitants of our society, not the makers."

Go How?
Arguments in favor of human exploration of Mars lose their appeal if there's no feasible way to go there. Fortunately, there is no shortage of proposals for such missions, ranging from the grandiose -- and insanely expensive -- Space Exploration Initiative proposals of a decade ago to much less expensive proposals like Mars Direct (which Zubrin discussed at Mars Week) and variations.

There is still room for other ideas, though. Astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz discussed his concept, called VASIMR, a constant-thrust engine that ionizes hydrogen and accelerates it out the back with a magnetic field. Such an engine could be used on a spacecraft that can travel from Earth to Mars in as little as 90 days, about half the best proposals for spacecraft injected on Mars-bound trajectories by ordinary rockets.

VASIMR is more than just a paper study. Chang-Diaz and his team of researchers at the Johnson Space Center have been working on a number of small-scale designs. They hope to fly a version of the VASIMR engine on a spacecraft called the Radiation and Technology Demonstrator (RTD), scheduled for launch in 2004.

Once you get to Mars, what will you do and how will you live? These are questions being answered by researchers who spend parts of the last several summers on Devon Island, an uninhabited piece of the Canadian arctic that closely resembles the Martian landscape.

Scientists such as Pascal Lee of NASA's Ames Research Center have spent parts of the last few summers at Haughton Crater, an impact crater formed 23 million years ago. Soon, he said, their temporary tent homes will be supplanted by the Mars Arctic Research Station (MARS), a larger facility in the form of Mars lander spacecraft. MARS is being sponsored and built by the Mars Society, and should be ready by next summer.

Think Mars
These answers to "why" and "how" still leave unanswered arguably the most important question: "how to you pay for it?" One solution to that problem, one that involves "substantial" private investment, was at the core of the conference; in fact, it was the reason the conference took place to begin with.

Think Mars grew out of a NASA student competition that started a year ago. Called "NASA Means Business", the content challenged students to develop a business plan for a human mission to Mars. A team of MIT and Harvard students developed such a plan, and was one of a half-dozen winning teams.

Not content to stop with the end of the competition, the Think Mars team, which grew to dozens of contributors at the two universities and elsewhere, fleshed out the business plan even further, talking with major players within NASA, Congress, and the aerospace industry. Another aspect of the group's efforts was the Mars Week conference.

The Think Mars business plan focuses on finding the money for human Mars missions, not the technical details of the mission itself. The plan identifies a number of commercial sources of revenue to fund a mission, from Olympic-style sponsorship to selling crew slots on the mission itself. These funds would not necessarily pay for the mission in total, but could "significantly offset" total costs, according to Think Mars business plan manager Kevin Leclaire.

The Think Mars leaders believe that this plan can establish a partnership between the public and private sectors that can lower the costs of the mission to the participating governments while increasing public and political support.

There are still plenty of risks to such a project, ranging from the high cost of capital to uncertain regulations to the necessity of establishing credibility, but Think Mars leaders believe they have made a good first step. They acknowledge the need to do additional work identifying markets, products, services, and financing issues, among many other things.

It's a step in the right direction, although Robert Zubrin noted that all this talk about Mars should not be construed as the ultimate goal for space exploration and settlement. "Mars is not the destination," he said. "It's the direction."

Jeff Foust is editor of SpaceViews.