Astronaut for Hire

I just returned from California where I participated in a NASA InSight Science Team meeting. InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is NASA’s first dedicated geophysical mission to Mars. Keep reading to learn more! A key goal of planetary science is to understand the formation and evolution of the planets, which means we need to know what they are made of. Geology, geochemistry, geodesy, and geophysics are tools that we can use to get at questions associated with the structure and composition of planetary interiors. Previous and current Mars missions have utilized all of these approaches except geophysics, which is the only technique that can give direct measurements about what is beneath the surface. InSight will help us determine the size, composition, and state of the crust, mantle, and core while also measuring the thermal state of the interior and level of seismic activity on Mars. Watch the video below to learn more abou...

Originally posted on 6/28/2013 Permafrost is frozen ground that forms where the subsurface mean annual temperature is colder than the freezing point of water. It should come as no surprise that permafrost underlies most of the Arctic and Antarctic regions on Earth. However, even close to the Equator, if you climb high enough in elevation, it will get cold enough for permafrost to form. The peaks of several mountains in tropical regions around the globe have permafrost, and one of them is in my backyard atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii. I went there last week to help conduct a geophysical field survey to study Hawaii's frozen feature and gain some insights about low latitude permafrost on Mars . University of Hawaii meteorologist Dr. Alfred Woodcock first discovered permafrost on the north-facing slope of the Mauna Kea summit crater Pu'u Wekiu in 1969 (elevation 4,200 meters) and returned several times to study it throughout the early 1970's. He found that even though t...

What would you do in your last week on Earth before embarking on an extended voyage to Mars? You would probably spend it taking care of last minute packing, studying up on your destination, eating good meals, and enjoying your remaining time with family and friends. That’s exactly what the crew of the 2013 HI-SEAS mission did during the past week, which I had privilege of sharing with them. Today they locked themselves away in a remote habitat on Mauna Loa to simulate a four-month stay on Mars. As I’ve mentioned before , HI-SEAS stands for Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation . That mouthful just means that Hawaii offers an environment analogous to that found on Mars or the Moon. HI-SEAS is the brainchild of fellow Hawaii resident and FMARS + MDRS alumnus, Dr. Kim Binsted . On her 2007 FMARS mission in the Arctic, she became interested in questions surrounding the culinary and psychological aspects of locking a crew away for months at a time. Teaming up with Cor...

As the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity start to wind down their immensely successful 8+ year mission , NASA's newest and most capable robotic planetary mission the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, dubbed 'Curiosity', has safely landed on the surface of the Red Planet. Packed with ten science instruments to explore geology and detect the building blocks of life, Curiosity is a six-wheeled radioisotope-powered vehicle about the size of a car. On the way down, its Mars Descent Imager ( MARDI ) impressively captured the rover's descending the surface in this time lapse video  and high-resolution image . Even more remarkable was the fact that the  HiRISE camera in orbit snapped a photograph of the rover and its parachute during their descent and later found the discarded heat shield, parachute, and sky crane in their final resting places on the martian surface. The sky crane , by the way, was the most unusual and risky part of this mission...

Imagine giving up 520 days of your life to spend in isolation with five other people confined inside a cramped cylinder about the size of a semi trailer pretending you're on a mission to Mars. That's what the intrepid crew of the Mars500 Project just did. During the 74-weeks of their mission, which included a simulated roundtrip journey to Mars complete with a short  surface excursion , the crew carried out more than 100 experiments to assess the effects of isolation on their psychological and physiological well being. The international crew ranges from ages 27 to 38 and is comprised of three Russians (Alexey Sityev, Sukhrob Kamolov,Alexander Smoleevskiy "Siev"), two Europeans (Romain Charles of France, Diego Urbina of Italy-Colombia), and one Chinese national (Wang Yue). They "landed" on Earth at 14:00 Moscow time (10:00 GMT) today when the hatch to their sealed habitat at the  Institute of Biomedical Problems  (IMBP) was opened for the first time si...

Dr. Robert Zubrin , President & Founder of The Mars Society , recently gave an address at the University of Washington on his Mars Direct plan to send humans to the Red Planet within a decade. A superbly edited version of segments of his presentation combined with a conversational style interview and other footage is available in two parts for your viewing pleasure: Part 1 Part 2 I highly recommend watching these videos. It'll be 19 minutes well-spent. Zubrin is an engaging and inspiring advocate of human Mars exploration and offers piercing criticism of the way the USA has handled the goals of its human space program since the Apollo program. His central thesis is that with the right motivation and resources, we can get to Mars within a decade. We don't have to wait for future advanced technologies to be developed, and in fact strategies relying upon such technologies are used more as excuses not to go to Mars than as enabling such a journey. After all, N...

Reid Stowe Imagine spending 1152 days at sea with no land in site, living off only the provisions you brought with you. That's just what adventurer Reid Stowe did from April 2007 to June 2010 when he drifted the seas in his 70-foot schooner on an expedition called the " Mars Ocean Odyssey " with the bold intention of demonstrating how a small crew could handle the isolation on a trip to Mars. Stowe's record-breaking voyage roughly simulated the duration of an opposition-class mission to Mars, which is the most favored scenario for most Mars mission planners. After 244 days in isolation, the Mars500 crew went into virtual orbit around Mars this week, which signifies the near halfway point of their simulated conjunction-class Mars mission. They will "land" on the surface on February 12 in what is sure to be an exciting event. Both the Stowe and Mars500 missions can teach us a great deal about the psychological factors crews will face when undergo...

This is for all of you Mars lovers out there. The Symphony of Science has released a video titled "The Case for Mars" . It puts to music many of the memorable speeches made by Robert Zubrin , Carl Sagan , Brian Cox , and Penelope Boston on the topic of Mars exploration. Footage used in the video comes from Sagan's Cosmos series, The Mars Underground documentary, and the BBC's Wonders of the Solar System documentary. The inspirational, melodic video also features footage of people conducting EVAs at the Mars Desert Research Station , which is accepting applications now. Throughout the video, Zubrin is heard saying, "It shouldn't be humans to Mars in 50 years. It should be humans to Mars in 10." I can't say I disagree. The Symphony of Science is a musical project designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form. You can see the rest of their videos here .

What is gravity like on the Mars compared to the Moon or an asteroid? See for yourself in this really cool video made by Astronaut Chris Hadfield and crewmates on the NEEMO-14 mission at the NOAA Aquarius Reef Base . If you're curious to learn more about the underwater habitat, check out the NEEMO-14 overview video and video tour of Aquarius too. For more great information on the NEEMO-14 mission, check out their Flickr photos , YouTube videos , Twitter profile , Facebook page , and mission support blog . Stay turned for a future post with more on aquanaut opportunities!

A funny thing happened on my way to Mars. I went to North Dakota. Nearly three years ago, I began my studies in the Space Studies Department at the University of North Dakota ( UND ). Since then, I've been working towards earning a MS degree in Space Studies by taking a steady stream of one or two courses at a time. The interdisciplinary distance education program has been both immensely rewarding and challenging. A lot has happened in my life along the way, including the birth of my son , my NASA astronaut application , the FMARS and MDRS expeditions to analog Mars, and most recently the founding of Astronauts4Hire . Last week, I participated in the UND Capstone experience.  This was my first time on the UND campus, and I was very impressed with the School of Aerospace facilities. It was a little surreal to finally meet my professors in person since I felt like I already knew them pretty well after watching their lecture videos and corresponding with them for all thi...

Last week I attended the 12th annual Earth & Space 2010 conference .  The American Society of Civil Engineers ( ASCE ) sponsors the biennial meeting to bring together experts from a variety of disciplines to discuss exploration, engineering, construction, and operations in challenging environments both on Earth and throughout the solar system.  Civil engineering holds the key to solving many of the challenges needed to create sustainable outposts in hostile environments including providing power, mitigating low gravity and dust, protecting against radiation, using local resources, exploring the subsurface, and much more. The meeting was held at the Sheraton Waikiki hotel, which offered breathtaking views of the ocean, as shown from the window in the meeting facility here.  Tracks in the conference dealt with lunar and martian regolith materials, sustainable development, intelligent sensors, aerospace vehicle control, offshore wind turbines, fluid dynamics and he...

In addition to the excitement from the Chile tsunami , this week is also host to the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in The Woodlands, Texas.  Back in 2004, I attended the LPSC meeting, which is the world's premier gathering of planetary scientists, and I am happy to have a contribution to this year's LPSC.  On Thursday, I will be virtually presenting research findings from the geophysics projects I did at FMARS and MDRS , including the seismic station installation , electromagnetic survey , and seismic refraction survey .  I say virtually because I unfortunately won't be there in person; instead a colleague will present the poster for me.  You can read my 2-page abstract online or see the full poster below: LPSC 2010 Poster

What are you doing for Valentine's Day? How about a romantic getaway to breathtaking canyons on Mars? You won't even need your passport. The National Geographic Channel's 3-day, 6-part mini series A Traveler's Guide to the Planets starts tomorrow February 14. Each one hour episode will feature stunning images and the latest animations up close and personal with our planetary neighbors.  Below is the schedule for the NGC mini series event and a video clip from the Mars episode: Sunday Feb 14: Saturn 9pm ET/PT, Jupiter 10pm ET/PT Monday Feb 15: Mars 9pm ET/PT, Venus and Mercury 10pm ET/PT Tuesday Feb 16: Neptune and Uranus 9pm ET/PT, Pluto and Beyond 10pm ET/PT The series also includes interviews with NASA experts in planetary analog environments that provide valuable insights into what a trip to another planet might be like. For example, here is what Steve Squyres has to say about Mars: "Would I like to go to Mars? Oh in a heart beat. Absolute...

Let's face it. Until the cost of spaceflight significantly decreases, only a few highly qualified and lucky people will be selected as astronauts to fly in space. But that doesn't mean they have to have all of the fun. Here are some free space simulators you can download to hone your skills. Some are targeted at students for educational purposes, some are just for fun, and others are real research tools used by NASA. ORBITER ORBITER is a free flight simulator that goes beyond the confines of Earth's atmosphere. Launch the Space Shuttle from Kennedy Space Center to deploy a satellite, rendezvous with the International Space Station or take the futuristic Delta-glider for a tour through the solar system. Many addons that expand the simulator's capabilities are available. ( Windows only)   

The big news yesterday was NASA's annoucement that LCROSS definitely exhumed water in its October 9 impact into the Moon. That's good news because it confirms the presence of water on our closest neighbor. This means we have a ready source of hydrogen, oxygen, and water for rocket fuel and life support. It makes the prospect of establishing a permanent human base on the Moon much more feasible. Almost every space blog seems to have written something about this landmark discovery, so I won't repeat it here (The New York Times had a nice article.) Congratulations to the LCROSS team! One day in the hopefully not-too-distant future we'll have a permanent research base on the Moon, but it'll likely be operated much like McMurdo Station, Antarctica is here on Earth. It'll require frequent resupply of life's necessities, and in the event of emergencies, people can leave. The Moon will probably never support a large human civilization, but Mars could be...

A few days ago, the Augustine Commission released its Summary Report ( pdf , html ) reviewing the U.S. human spaceflight program. In a nutshell, they recommend that NASA needs $3 billion more annually to maintain its planned human space exploration program and that the gap in U.S. human launch capability will be at least seven years. The first two sentences of the 12-page document set the ominous mood: The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources. With this bleak budget outlook and the reality that 19 new AsCans are now in training at NASA , CSA , ESA , and JAXA , the space agencies are not likely to be taking any additional recruits in the foreseeable future. What does this mean for Astronaut Hopefuls (AsHos) like you and me? First, let's review the report.

40 years ago yesterday Apollo 11 blasted off from Earth on its way to its historic July 20 landing on the Moon. NASA has a big celebration campaign underway in honor of the anniversary. They recently released very nice partially restored Apollo 11 video footage in HD. One of the interesting things NASA is doing to commemorate the anniversary is replaying the mission audio in real time just as it was recorded from July 16-24, 1969. The NASA Apollo 40th website has all kinds of other goodies like lost audio and transcripts that are worth checking out too. For more blast from the past nostalgia with a modern twist, the website "We Choose the Moon" is also broadcasting the mission audio with other rich multimedia treats, including "live" twitter transmissions from the Apollo CapCom , spacecraft , and lander . I have ambivalent feelings about the Apollo 40th anniversary. One one hand, I think this celebration to commemorate one of humanity's most signif...

Buzz Aldrin wrote a very moving commentary today on CNN.com that I just had to reproduce for this blog's readers. It's all about how our space program, while achieving great things in the 40 years since Apollo, has failed to inspire the public with a worthy goal. Aldrin argues convincingly that the space program's focus should be "homesteading Mars," and I wholeheartedly agree. How we can get to Mars using existing technology and a scant few tens of billions of dollars is the subject of Robert Zubrin's seminal book The Case for Mars , which also happens to be the guiding inspiration to all of The Mars Society 's activities, including FMARS . I'll let Aldrin's words speak for themselves below:

While I was preparing a post on my experiences as a Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) CapCom ( Capsule Communicator ) during the past four months , I received some wonderful (also Mars Society related) news that I decided to share instead. I'm going to Mars! Well, not the real Mars (yet). I've been selected as a crewmember for this summer's month-long field expedition to the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) on Devon Island in the Canadian arctic. This largest uninhabited island on Earth also happens to be a hotbed for Mars analog research , with both FMARS and the Haughton-Mars Project calling the island home. These stations are important laboratories simulating how to live and work on Mars. NASA has even tested prototype lunar rovers there .

The question whether liquid water can exist on the surface of Mars may have been answered by the Phoenix Mars Mission . A study by Nilton Renno and 21 coauthors will be presented at the upcoming Lunar and Planetary Science Conference near Houston. Their abstract outlines the thermodynamics why liquid water can exist at the surface under the right conditions and shows a series of images that seem to be water drops on the Phoenix lander. Regular water cannot exist on the surface of Mars due to the low temperature and atmospheric pressure. If you placed a glass of water on Mars, it would immediately sublimate into the atmosphere and vanish. However, the presence of salts in the water can depress the freezing point temperature and reduce the vapor pressure of the solution. The concentration of salt that produces the lowest freezing temperature is called a eutectic mixture. For some saline solutions, the eutectic can be as low or lower than 200 K (-73 C), which is near the surf...