Blogs/Robert Walker/Will First Mars Astronauts Stay In Orbit - Tele-operating Sterile Rovers - To Protect Earth And Mars From Colliding Biospheres: Difference between revisions

Mars is extraordinarily cold and dry, like our most arid deserts. Harsh but possibly not totally lifeless. There is a chance of life there, hidden away perhaps in thin layers of brines just a couple of centimeters below the surface, or as spores within the dust. Our astronauts will be covered in microbes from Earth too and our habitats filled with life. What happens when life mixes together from these two biospheres? This might be their first meeting for billions of years, or the first time ever, as astrobiologists haven't yet ruled out the possibility that Martian life is independently evolved. And if the more optimistic projections of Elon Musk, some NASA enthusiasts, and Bill Nye and others are fulfilled, then this encounter may happen as soon as the 2030s, perhaps sooner. Are we ready for it?

 

Human bodies are wonderful microbe incubators, with [http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533.t001 ten to a hundred billion foreign microbes on our skin], and it takes only a month [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26865/ from when a cell is born in the basal layer to when it is shed,] carrying any foreign microbes away with it. That’s right, the entire surface of our skin is slowly shed, flake by flake, around once a month. Every single second we emit larger biological particles by the tens of thousands, and tiny sub micron ones by the hundreds of thousands (see [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bin_Zhao/publication/273451233_Measuring_short-term_emission_rate_of_particles_in_the_personal_cloud_with_different_clothes_and_activity_intensities_in_a_sealed_chamber/links/550243d90cf231de076de914/Measuring-short-term-emission-rate-of-particles-in-the-personal-cloud-with-different-clothes-and-activity-intensities-in-a-sealed-chamber.pdf figure 7 of this paper]). These constantly carry our tiny passengers away into the air around us in our [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/you-produce-microbial-cloud-can-act-invisible-fingerprint-180956698/ personal microbial clouds].

 

[https://www.youtube.com/embed/2_ib7Z4bmrg (Click to watch on YouTube)]

 

The only comparison study I know of, HERRO, found that a mission by a crew of six in orbit around Mars, teleoperating rovers on the surface, does [https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20130011281.pdf as much science as three missions of the same size to the surface] for far less cost. They also found that they can use their telerobots to explore anywhere on Mars, including the hard to access polar regions. These regions of Mars are not likely to see a human landing for a long time, because of long continuous periods of darkness, and a thick extra layer of dry ice every winter. HERRO’s carefully chosen orbit lets the astronauts tele-operate rovers over the entire surface of Mars with almost no time delay, for hours at a time for each location (it skims the sunlit side of Mars twice a day every Martian day, visiting opposite hemispheres, always in sunshine, and flies close to both poles twice a day too, giving global coverage).

 

 

<blockquote>Image: A teleoperated Centaur-style robot on Mars. Carter Emmart/NASA Ames Research Center - from [https://web.archive.org/web/20150228142403/http://www.wired.com:80/2012/11/telerobotic-exploration/all Almost Being There: Why the Future of Space Exploration Is Not What You Think]

This shows how you get into this orbit - just directly from the Earth-Mars transfer orbit.

 

 

'''Note the light speed time delay is minimal.'''<span data-offset-key="clkrg-0-0"><span data-text="true"> The Moon is 1.3 light seconds away and so telepresence of robots on the Moon from Earth would require ways to handle a large time delay (which is not impossible, after all with 1970s technology the Russians drove Voskhod 2 in a few months as far as Opportunity drove in a decade). </span></span>

This approach is safe, practical, seems likely to do most science return for the least cost and also is the only reasonably sure way to protect both any native Martian life and the environment of Earth. It was highlighted in the NASA Telerobotics symposium for its planetary protection credentials, and as a fast effective way to do the science.

 

 

<blockquote>[https://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/telerobotics-could-help-humanity-explore-space/ Telerobotics Could Help Humanity Explore Space] Credit NASA / GSFC. ''"Safely tucked inside orbiting habitat, space explorers use telepresence to operate machinery on Mars, even lobbing a sample of the Red Planet to the outpost for detailed study."'' - I've added the HERRO image of a tele-operated Centaur as an insert.<br />

The HERRO comparison was a small scale study and from nearly a decade ago. It would be good to have a more detailed study of the same sort, and based on the latest technology, but I think it is likely to come to the same conclusion, that it is faster for astronauts to explore Mars from orbit, for less cost, and with better science return. See the section '''[http://www.science20.com/robert_walker/will_first_mars_astronauts_have_to_stay_in_orbit_teleoperating_sterile_surface_rovers_to_prevent_collidng#zzee_link_57_1527369586 Need for an updated comparison study] (below)'''

 

 

Sometimes people will say that this is just not part of human nature, to orbit Mars but never land. Won't it be hard to recruit a crew for such a mission? However, the Apollo 10 astronauts went to the Moon, flew around it many times, undocked, flew all the way down to the surface just short of a landing, and then returned to orbit. In the process they turned up a bug that could have killed them all if they had landed. People are able to orbit and not land even with the capability to do so, if that is what the situation indicates. And of course in each Apollo mission the command module pilot remained in orbit while his two companions were on the surface. That was the same situation, flew all the way to the Moon, orbited it several times, his companions landed but he didn't and then he returns to Earth. No complaints about this from Michael Collins, command module pilot for Apollo 11 :). He enjoyed his quiet time in orbit especially when he was on the far side of the Moon cut off from mission control for about 55 minutes at a time.

 

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynac8iSpywY (Click to watch on YouTube)]

Well the Apollo lunar astronauts showed vividly how this can happen, when they got covered in fine clinging dust during their EVA’s on the lunar surface. Gene Cernan got particularly dirty in this way, due to an incident with a broken fender, but they all got covered in dust.

 

 

<blockquote>Gene Cernan covered in dust on the lunar surface. How did he get like that? He accidentally snapped off a fender on the lunar rover with the result that it sprayed “rooster tails” of dust all over him. He fixed it with duct tape, but that didn’t last long, and it came off again. Eventually they fixed it more permanently with duct tape this time reinforced with curled up maps. See [https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/duct-tape-auto-repair-moon Duct Tape Auto Repair on the Moon]

Here he is inside the lunar module.

 

 

And later once he took off his spacesuit:

 

 

Mars has dust as well, and the dust there is particularly fine, as fine as cigarette ash. Its winds loft clouds of this fine dust high into the atmosphere; dust clouds so thick that they can block out 99% of direct sunlight at times.

There are large quantities of fine dust in the Martian atmosphere all the time, even when it seems clear. This is what causes the blue sunsets and sunrises.

 

 

<blockquote>Curiosity photographed this sunset from Gale Crater on April 15, 2015. The sequence spans 6 minutes 51 seconds, using the leftmost camera of its Mastcam. The sunset is blue because the fine dust that’s always suspended in the Martian atmosphere absorbs red light. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech [https://www.universetoday.com/120353/what-makes-mars-sunsets-different-from-earths/ What Makes Mars Sunsets Different from Earth's? - Universe Today]

There are a few others that agree with him and a few years back it got some extra support when Joseph Miller, an expert in the day / night rhythms of life (circadian rhythms) got hold of the raw Viking data (a story in its own right, with some great detective work by its curators) and analysed them again and found that they were offset by a massive '''''two hours''''' from the temperature cycle. According to Joseph Miller, chemistry can only explain an offset of about '''''twenty minutes.'''''

 

 

<blockquote>We have day / night rhythms when we sleep at night and eat during the day. Well microbes do too. These are called circadian rhythms and these patterns were discovered many years later in the Viking labeled release data. The interesting thing is that they are significantly offset from the temperature variations, which to an expert on circadian rhythms who spotted this, strongly suggested that these rhythms come from life rather than non life processes.<br />

This idea that Viking could have detected life already also got a boost with modern discoveries and ideas leading to the possibility that there could be habitats for life almost anywhere on Mars. And - I don't know if anyone else is making this connection, but later on I'll mention that the discovery by Curiosity of cold brines that may be too cold for life 2 cms below the surface - well it still might have Martian life in it. If so life could be rather abundant on Mars. If you are looking for a reason why Viking might have found it so easily, well, that could be one way to explain it. The Viking trenches were quite deep, could they have dug up some life from these layers of brines? Or just spores in the dust blown from a nearby brine with life in it? Levin himself has suggested that there may be layers of humidity trapped near the surface as the frosts melt in the early morning by overlying layers of cold air above the warming surface, leading to possibilities of high humidity briefly at a reasonable temperature for life. Chris McKay has agreed that this could be a possible way to improve habitability of the surface. For their idea, with Chris McKay's comments on it see [https://nai.nasa.gov/articles/2001/3/26/can-liquid-water-exist-on-present-day-mars/ Can Liquid Water Exist on Present-Day Mars?]

 

 

<blockquote>[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mars_Viking_11d128.png Trenches dug by Viking 1, first trenches dug on Mars]. Did it find life in the 1970s? Gilbert Levin thinks it might have and Joseph Miller, an expert in circadian rhythms, has come around to the same view and supports him in this due to some anomalies such as the 2 hours offset from temperatures. Gilbert Levin wants to send an update of his instrument to Mars which he designed soon after the confusing results from Viking in the 1970s, but with a shift of focus of NASA towards searching for habitability instead of life, we haven't sent any instruments specifically to search for life since then. So, his experiment results remain ambiguous for now with some saying that it may have found life, probably most Mars scientists pretty sure it didn't, and no way to come to a final decision until whenever we send an in situ bio detection suite of instruments to Mars with the ability to dig trenches and repeat the experiment.</blockquote>

He also talks about the need to prepare, before doing expensive things and talks about sending humans to the moons of Mars before going to Mars.

 

[https://www.youtube.com/embed/vt7N16z23VI (Click to watch on YouTube)]

 

Although the Martian air is very dry in the daytime, at night it gets so cold that the relative humidity goes right up. So much so that it can form frost layers, though it needs a bit of help from dry ice to get the ice out of the atmosphere:

 

 

<blockquote>Martian frosts photographed by Viking -the light coloured material. It’s probably only about a thousandth of an inch thick. There is little by way of water vapour in the atmosphere but at night the air becomes so cold that the relative humidity becomes high.

You crawl in through a hatch in the back of the spacesuit which remains attached to the outside of the habitat until the suit is disconnected

 

 

<blockquote>You enter / exit a suit port through the back of the spacesuit like this. The airlock consists of two plates that trap a cubic foot or so of air in between the back of the spacesuit and the interior of the habitat or rover. Figure from [https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20080014281.pdf this NASA presentation.]

Just as they never check the atmosphere, our science fiction heroes and heroines in shows like Star Trek never check whether the biology is compatible either. That is unless it is necessary for it to be harmful for a plot point.

 

 

<blockquote>The heroes and heroines of Star Trek landing on a planet, by teleporting. They never need to give any thought to their microbial companions. Nor do they need to worry what microbes on the planet might do to them.

If you had the idea of doing it just for the prestige of being first to land on Mars, the prospect of future headlines like this might give you pause for thought:

 

 

<blockquote>(Photograph is Hubble's photograph of a [http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast11oct_2/ Global Mars dust storm from 2001] )

In more detail, Mars has almost no oxygen, which changes how microbes behave. What she is talking about there is anaerobic oxidation of methane, which leads to the formation of calcium carbonate in anoxic conditions . It's done by a consortium of methane oxidising and sulfate reducing bacteria. See summary here in wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcite#Formation_processes Calcite - formation process] - which links to [https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8020 this technical paper] which goes into more detail.

</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Calcite-20188.jpg Calcite] - calcium carbonate. In the anoxic conditions on Mars, in presence of methane, a combination of methane oxidizing and sulfate reducing microbes can cause calcite to form and so, basically, could turn underground aquifers on Mars into cement. Cassie Conley’s example of one way that accidentally introduced microbes could have unpredictable effects on Mars.

So, the idea is to send a suite of several such instruments. If many of them detect life you can be pretty sure it is there. And if they don’t, a null result is also of great interest for the search for life. Indeed, discovery of pre-biotic chemistry is also interesting, especially if there is no life in an apparently habitable brine on Mars.

 

 

If you shine laser light at the sample (not zap it, just gently light shining on it) - can give some information right away through [http://exploration.esa.int/mars/45103-rover-instruments/?fbodylongid=2130 Raman spectrometry]. This technique works by analyzing a tiny fraction of the light (1 in 10 million) that interacts with the surface as it bounces back.

Mars 2020 and ExoMars both will use this method.

 

 

* [http://exploration.esa.int/mars/45103-rover-instruments/?fbodylongid=2132 Tiny ovens to heat up the sample until it gives off gas, and then analyse the gases (Mars Organic Molecule Analyser)], the largest instrument on ExoMars.<br />

* [http://web.archive.org/web/20140329222237/http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/5325/searching-for-organics-in-a-nibble-of-soil Astrobionibbler] - similar idea to [http://astrobiology.berkeley.edu/PDFs_articles/08UreyAstrobio.pdf UREY], which was approved for ExoMars but descoped. Exquisitively sensitive, able to detect a single amino acid in a gram of soil, uses pressurized super heated water to extract organics which it then labels with fluorescent dyes to identify the amino acids, using microfluidic channels in a "lab on a chip". Now reduced to a target mass of only 2.5 kg for a complete end to end system with a drill doing its own sample collection, to avoid cross contamination with other instruments. For details of how it works, see [http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/searching-for-organics-in-a-nibble-of-soil/ Searching for organics in a nibble of soil].

 

 

These can detect life even if it doesn't use any recognized form of conventional life chemistry. The life only has to metabolize - “eat something” - doesn’t have to have to reproduce. That makes a big difference as the microbes might take months to reproduce if they are cold loving, and only 1% of microbes on Earth can be cultivated anyway - it may be harder to cultivate Martian life if anything.

* [http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/marsconcepts2012/pdf/4319.pdf Levin’s idea of chiral labeled release], where he has refined it so you feed the medium with a chiral solution with only one isomer of each amino acid. If carbon dioxide or methane is given off when you feed it one isomer and not with the other, that would be a reasonably strong indication of life.

 

 

* [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6187064/ Miniaturized scanning electron microscope]. This can’t detect whether it is life or not, but is useful along with the others for examining tiny structures. It is able to do chemical analysis as well as imaging.

 

 

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raman_spectroscopy#Microspectroscopy Raman microspectroscopy]. Combines an optical microscope with a laser shining light on the same microscopic cell observed by the microscope and the scattered light is analyzed as for normal raman microscopy.

Very promising but in a paper [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.659.5590&rep=rep1&type=pdf "Implications for the search for biomarkers on Mars" (page 3219),] the authors found that focusing on microbial colonies can be difficult and time consuming, needing precise work, even when the microbes were common enough so that you could see them as a "clear greenish zone on the macroscopic scale.

 

 

This can measure the forces between molecules and properties of cell walls such as elasticity, hardness etc (page 4-26 of [http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/docs/Europa_Lander_SDT_Report_2016.pdf Europa lander report]). This is mature space technology that has flown on the Phoenix mission to Mars and the Rosetta mission, though it's not been used to search for life.

 

 

See this paper: [http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ast.2015.1376 Microbial Morphology and Motility as Biosignatures for Outer Planet Missions]

The main problem again is focusing on them to find them. There is a solution though, holographic (interferometric) microscopy. Diffraction limited, but you do the focusing after capturing the light, digitally. No mechanical moving parts, and it can be operated without user input to focus the microscope. The authors of this paper: [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0147700 A Submersible, Off-Axis Holographic Microscope] have developed such an instrument with 800 nm resolution which can be used underwater. They were able to observe active prokaryotes in sea ice.

 

 

This again is from [http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ast.2015.1376 Microbial Morphology and Motility as Biosignatures for Outer Planet Missions]. Shine UV light on the microbe and see if it shines with visible light. All microbes do this to some extent and some pigments, especially chlorophyll, absorb UV and emit strongly in visible light.

You can also use fluorescent dyes that attach to nucleic acids, lipids, cell walls, and other biosignatures. The dyes may be unstable at high or low temperatures and are complex organics, introducing those to another planet could have planetary protection issues (teaching native life “new tricks”)

 

 

This technique is mentioned in [https://www.nap.edu/read/11937/chapter/7#72 "An Astrobiology Strategy for the Exploration of Mars ", page 72].

This gives optical images that are higher resolution than 0.2 microns, below the diffraction limit, using evanescent waves. The detector has to be very close to the object being observed, at a distance less than the wavelength of the light. This is [http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2014.1207 an example of its use for fossil microscopy combined with Raman microspectroscopy].

 

 

DNA sequencers have shrunk more than any other instrument in the list. Once filled entire laboratories. Now small enough to send on a spaceship. The focus so far is on DNA but it's possible to sequence RNA based life too- so long as it uses the same bases as on Earth. Sequencing for life based on other non standard bases is also possible but work in progress, see [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher_Carr16/publication/310327650_Towards_In_Situ_Sequencing_for_Life_Detection/links/58c0a2f192851c2adfeb27f8/Towards-In-Situ-Sequencing-for-Life-Detection.pdf the paper for the techy details].

(A trimmed version of my more detailed descriptions here: [http://robertinventor.com/booklets/If_humans_touch_Mars.htm#zzee_link_117_1483025424 In situ instrument capabilities (i]n Touch Mars?)

 

 

Once you have unambiguous biosignatures you can return samples to orbit and then they can analyze them in telerobotically operated facilities. It is a case of doing it that way because you have to, until you know what is there.

Imagine the view! From space Mars looks quite home-like, and the telerobotics will let you experience the Martian surface more directly than you could with spacecraft. You'll be able to touch and see things on the surface without the spacesuit in your way and with enhanced vision, and adjust the colours to show a blue sky also if you like. It's like being in the ISS, but orbiting another planet.

 

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/picture-galleries/8967979/A-year-in-space-30-pictures-of-Earth-taken-from-the-International-Space-Station-in-2011.html?image=9 12th April 2011: International Space Station astronaut Cady Coleman takes pictures of the Earth from inside the cupola viewing window.]- I've "photoshopped" in [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mars_23_aug_2003_hubble.jpg Hubble's photograph of Mars from 2003] to give an impression of the view of an astronaut exploring Mars from orbit.

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Elon Musk’s “Starman” wore an IVA suit when he launched the red Tesla in roughly the direction of Mars orbit.

 

 

<blockquote>SpaceX’s IVA suit

To make this possible, they use pure oxygen, which lets humans breathe and be comfortable at a much lower pressure of 30% of air pressure at sea level on Earth. However, they don't want to keep the entire ISS at such a low pressure, as a pure oxygen atmosphere is a fire risk. Given those decisions, the only solution is for the crew who are doing the EVA to adjust to the lower pressure for every EVA, which they do by this procedure which they call "camping out" or sleeping overnight in the airlock. They have to do this slowly or they risk suffering from “bends” as the nitrogen they breathed in dissolves out as gas bubbles in their blood, a potentially serious effect.

 

 

<blockquote>Piers Sellers (left) and David Wolf using pre-breathe exercises to purge their blood of nitrogen to prevent "bends" as they adjust to a third of Earth's atmosphere and a pure oxygen environment. This is done the day before the EVA and they "camp out" overnight in the airlock ready to exit for their EVA the next day. This photo was taken during the STS-112 mission on 10 October 2002. (Image: NASA). For details see [http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/celsius/infokit/english/05_EVASupportInfo.pdf page 4 of this article].

They would definitely die in an incident like that on a mission to Mars, swinging back to Earth over a year later rather than a few days later.

 

 

<blockquote>The Apollo 13 oxygen tank explosion happened two days into their mission. They swung past the Moon and returned to Earth in a little under 4 days. If something like this happened to an outward bound Mars mission, it would be well over a year before they could swing past Mars and return to Earth. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Apollo_13_timeline.svg Apollo 13 timeline]

And there is much they can explore in orbit around Mars, as well as the planet, its two moons, Phobos and Deimos. And actually Phobos may contribute to our understanding of early Mars. It is thought to have many meteorites in its regolith that got there within hours or minutes of leaving the surface of early Mars.

 

 

<blockquote>[https://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2013/11/phobos A sample-return mission to Phobos would return material both from Phobos and from Mars. Credit][https://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2013/11/phobos '': NASA'']

As it turns out, rather a lot of the Martian surface material can end up on Phobos after a meteorite impact.

 

 

Shows trajectories of debris from an impact on Mars and the orbits of Mars's two moon's, Phobos (innermost moon) and Deimos

You can read my Touch Mars? book free online here:

 

 

[http://robertinventor.com/booklets/If_humans_touch_Mars.htm Touch Mars? Europa? Enceladus? Or a tale of Missteps?] (equivalent to 1938 printed pages in a single web page, takes a while to load).

My other books, which cover human exploration as well as planetary protection, and explore the case for going to the Moon first (for humans), are:

 

 

* [http://robertinventor.com/booklets/Online-Case-for-Moon.htm Case For Moon First: Gateway to Entire Solar System - Open Ended Exploration, Planetary Protection at its Heart] - and [https://www.amazon.com/Case-Moon-First-Exploration-Protection-ebook/dp/B01E0U0HWQ on kindle] - which as the name suggests explores the Case for going to the Moon first in detail, as its main focus.

 

 

* [http://robertinventor.com/booklets/Online-If-You-Love-Science.htm MOON FIRST Why Humans on Mars Right Now Are Bad for Science] - and [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MF7JJK8/ on kindle].<br />