what is SAM going to say?

I just heard an interview on Public Radio about some "interesting data" they are getting from an instrument called SAM on the Mars Rover. They don't want to say what it is because they have to do more research. I wonder what it will be - and how long it will take to announce something. I hope it isn't just another error of some sort.

 

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Maybe by New Year

I don't think it's an error.

The exciting results are coming from an instrument in the rover called SAM. "We're getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting," John Grotzinger, the principal investigator for the rover mission, says during my visit last week to his office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. That's where data from SAM first arrive on Earth. "The science team is busily chewing away on it as it comes down," says Grotzinger.

SAM is a kind of miniature chemistry lab. Put a sample of Martian soil or rock or even air inside SAM, and it will tell you what the sample is made of.

Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something earthshaking. "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good," he says.

Grotzinger can see the pained look on my face as I wait, hoping he'll tell me what the heck he's found, but he's not providing any more information.

So why doesn't Grotzinger want to share his exciting news? The main reason is caution. Grotzinger and his team were almost stung once before. When SAM analyzed an air sample, it looked like there was methane in it, and at least here on Earth, some methane comes from living organisms.

But Grotzinger says they held up announcing the finding because they wanted to be sure they were measuring Martian air, and not air brought along from the rover's launchpad at Cape Canaveral ....

.... Richard Zare, a chemist at Stanford University, appreciates the uncomfortable position John Grotzinger is in. He's been there. In 1996, he was part of a team that reported finding organic compounds in a meteorite from Mars that landed in Antarctica. When the news came out, it caused a huge sensation because finding organic compounds in a Martian rock suggested the possibility at least that there was once life on Mars.

"You're bursting with a feeling that you want to share this information, and it's frustrating when you feel you can't talk about it, "says Zare.

It wasn't scientific caution that kept Zare from announcing his results. It was a rule many scientific journals enforce that says scientists are not allowed to talk about their research until the day it's officially published. Zare had to follow the rules if he wanted his paper to come out.

(Palca)​

We might hear before year's end; Grotzinger told NPR's Joe Palca it should be several weeks before they're ready to talk about it.
____________________

Notes:

Palca, Joe. "Curiosity's tasting soil on Mars, may have big news". National Public Radio. November 20, 2012. KPLU.org. November 20, 2012. http://www.kplu.org/post/curiositys-tasting-soil-mars-may-have-big-news

 

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To me they had many failure , they are afraid to say any thing based on past experience failure

 

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(Insert title here)

It would be hard for me to imagine, though, that Grotzinger is the sort to be itching and dancing like this over what will eventually turn out to be an error. That is, one does not attain such status as principal investigator for an interplanetary droid mission at JPL without a certain amount of respectable scientific discipline.

Plus, if it turns out to be a mistake, he's setting himself up for public embarrassment. "This data is gonna be one for the history books"? I suppose that would be a true statement if it turned out everyone got excited over an historic blunder.

I think they've got something that isn't so much conclusive, but opens the door to conclusive answers. That is, history will not say that this analysis was the moment, but, rather, that the moment eventually came about because of this particular analysis.

And I don't think this will be about water per se. It's about life, but not a living organism. If it was about a living organism, NASA would be shaking apart at the seams, and the rumor mill leaking all over the place.

 

Holy crap! I am really excited, could it be! Just did some searches and this sure sounds like it could be the real deal.

 

It's too bad Carl Sagan isn't with us anymore. He would be yelling "Tell me -- now!!"

 

Have you seen this article? According to it, at this moment NASA scientists are actually "praying" for Curiosity NOT to find water on Mars. And that's because one of the drilling bits used by SAM may have been contaminated with earthly bacteria, which could then contaminate the martian water.

 

Could, but improbable, just leave it exposed to the martian atmosphere and hard UV light for awhile is all that is needed. Its very unlikely curiosity will find water springs that could suck biological back down deep underground where they would have a chance at prospering, and even then they would need to be tough little fuckers that could eck out a living by eating rocks like geobacter or something!

 

If they are so concerned, why are they drilling at all?

 

Ah. to which god are they praying ?
Oh if thy introduce bacteria good in 3.8 billion years we eill have our descendent on Mars and so the angels from the earth are going to visit the pagans on Mars

 

A calculated risk. From what NASA knows so far there are very slim chances of water being found on the Gale Crater. Add to that the pressure generated by the cost associated with carrying the drilling stuff all the way to Mars and you'll probably want to stick to the initial plan.

It would, however, be interesting what the reaction will be if Curiosity indeed finds water on its journey. Would NASA back-off and maybe plan another mission specifically targeted at examining the water?

What kind of surprised me in this story is the fact that NASA engineers thought about pre-mounting a drill only at such a late stage in the mission preparation. I'm also wondering if there's a possibility of just safely discarding the one contaminated drill and use a back-up instead?

Anyway, I can't wait to hear what their historic discovery is all about. Couple more weeks of waiting, I suppose.

 

I was wondering what had become of SAM.
If she is on the Mars Rover, expect trouble.

 

Notes on Potentials

Depending on the bacteria in question, it could be a non-issue; the risk is that the contamination is something that can survive Martian conditions.

That would be the wisest thing to do. Of course, here is also a budgetary issue. I think of the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back when a Star Destroyer deploys several probes, one of which lands on Hoth. True, we can't just be slinging things into space one after another in perpetuity, but I'm of the opinion we should have had the next mission well under development before Curiosity landed. As it is, InSight isn't scheduled to launch until 2016. It would be nice to be sending something out next year, but this sort of thing isn't a high priority in the U.S. IRIS, pushed back to late April, will examine solar wind and the physics of corona-heliosphere interaction. LADEE, slated for August, will survey lunar conditions. These are great missions, but if Curiosity has to back off a water discovery, we're probably not getting another instrument pack to the site until 2018-20, at the earliest; refitting InSight would likely be a very bad idea.

I wonder how those prospects affect the risk analysis.

The late change doesn't surprise me, but the protocol failure does. They're NASA; they should certainly know better.

However, I'm wondering if it would be possible to use the rover's laser to sterilize the bit. If it's possible, Team Curiosity will figure out how to do it.

As much as I want it to be spectacular, I'm also expecting that it will only be spectacular to scientists and enthusiasts. Grotzinger admitted he did tell his wife and daughter what they were working on: "Bethany [daughter] looked at me and said, 'pass the ketchup.' So, not everybody was as excited as I was."

Or, maybe ... well, I don't know. I'm less confident about my earlier statement about water and life. They're not expecting to find water at Gale, but there are signs all around suggesting some sort of liquid flowed there at one point in its history. So I should probably stop speculating and just wait like everyone else.
____________________

Notes:

Palca, Joe. "Curiosity's tasting soil on Mars, may have big news". National Public Radio. November 20, 2012. KPLU.org. November 26, 2012. http://www.kplu.org/post/curiositys-tasting-soil-mars-may-have-big-news

See Also:

NASA pages—

"Consolidated Launch Schedule". Updated November 19, 2012. NASA.gov. November 26, 2012. http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/schedule.html

"InSight". (n.d.) InSight.JPL.NASA.gov. November 26, 2012. http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/home.cfm

"IRIS". (n.d.) Science.NASA.gov. November 26, 2012. http://science.nasa.gov/missions/iris/

"LADEE". (n.d.) NASA.gov. Novmeber 26, 2012. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LADEE/main/ ​

 

Personally i do not care too much, i think nasa are just some sort of show for the public, that we are still doing something. I would say the people behind the scenes have already answered the big question here.

Personally i care not what the thing is they are teasing about.

Like for instance, mankind had been to the moon before 69, and with better technology. Mankind is more advanced than they let on.

So the stuff on mars and nasa is mute for me, what ever they have found out already we will never know.

 

I think you're mistaken on this one. The above quote applies to (Richard) Zare's story (the guy who studied Mars meteorites found in Antarctica years ago) -- at least that's how I understand it from the article mentioned on your first link.

 

On the possibility of "pleasant disappointment"

D'oh!

You are correct. Thank you for the correction.

Now ... now I just don't know what to think!

Oh, wait, I'm not that confused.

I don't know, though. It's just that I have this state of mind I call pleasantly disappointed. It doesn't come up too much, but this is sort of a naked example. I do want what NASA has to be mind-numbingly cool. We need that, to a certain extent, for our society; we need to be really psyched up about something cool and noble. And if what NASA has turns out to be real, but "merely cool in the obscure", I will certainly be pleased, but will also feel silly for having such high expetations, and a little bit disappointed that it was "only that cool". Pleasantly disappointed.

And we're going to have to wait until the stakes are really super-cool, I think, before the contamination question sinks in for the general population.

I'm not sure what I want from NASA on this one. I mean, I have faith in their calculations if the risk analysis says go forward with the potentially contaminated drill bit. But there is no avoiding the underlying ethical question and what it signifies for the incoming results. I cannot not recognize the problem, as such.

They can give me lots of cool stuff with this one, but the really cool stuff treads squarely into the contamination question.

And then there is this almost amusing notion that it really is a first-world problem, that I can be fretting about an expensive robot. Except it's not. It's a question on a scale humanity at large only considers in the most abstract of senses, or, perhaps more likely, not at all. But NASA, at the same time it is looking for a reason to alter the paradigm of human self-perception, could also be on the verge of committing the biggest blunder in human history. And that's a bit mind-bending. It's an interplanetary question. I mean, just how many times have interplanetary questions really come up in the history of the Earth?

But we'll have to see what comes. Maybe the preceding paragraph will turn out to be moot.

 

It is a secrete , They need to generate enthusiasm go get more funding

 

If it's life it'll be a awesome result. Finding evidence of life, right next door in our solar system, will require reevaluating the Drake equation. Cautious is a very good thing. Remember the initial OPERA results.

 

Nonsense.