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Projects: Red Rover Goes to MarsStudent Astronaut Dàvid TurcziSpirit Sol 34 / Opportunity Sol 13
Friday, February 6, 2004 The first word that came to my mind is “incredible”. I am here, in a small room on the 8th floor of a building in Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, at the Red Rover Goes to Mars office. Although now I’ve been in the USA for a few days, and at last the real feeling struck me today. The interesting part of the day started at 12:30, when I had to show up with
my family at the office of the Planetary Society. I was very excited, didn’t
know what to expect, but then I saw the house, and I felt that that’s
it, I’m on the way... Inside, I met the currently on-duty Student Astronauts, Janice and Maciek, and Saatvik, my pair in the Student Astronaut group, and I was introduced to Louis Friedman, the executive director of the Society, and then to other people from TPS, including Emily. After the basic orientation (which was held in the project operations of the Cosmos 1 Solar Sail) we (Saatvik & I) jumped into Emily’s car and headed to JPL!!! While I tried to work out the shock of being here, all five of us got to our office, and then set out to the gift shop of JPL, where I just looked around, since I successfully managed to leave my money with dad. The next thing on our schedule was the Science Context Meeting, only to find out, that it was postponed to a later point. So we settled into the office, and take out the things that Saatvik and I brought to decorate the office (I brought a Rubic’s Cube). Then we went to the In-situ Instrument Laboratory, where we actually watched the scientists testing a working rover trying to get up on a 25% slope, while making a trench with its wheels. One of the guys had a big emergency control to use in a case of a dangerous sequence, and that control looked exactly like a big detonator button, so there was a lot of joking about blowing up the Opportunity... :) After this, we had a tour of the building we were in, we visited an empty meeting room, the wall of a big orbital image where everyone guessed on the landing location of Opportunity (by the way, one of the earlier Student Astronauts came second closest) , the ice cream container :), the cargo lift :), and then to the meeting room of Spirit, where we divided into pairs and first Maciek and I had the chance to talk with one of the scientists in the Atmospheric Science Team about measuring the temperature of the atmosphere with the Mini-TES. Then the Science Context Meeting finally began, and it was about the ideas for longer agendas, for example they brought up a plan to get to the rim of the crater by sol 60. The head of the RAT Team, Steve Gorevan talked about that they gave a go for RATting Adirondack, and the process was being undertaken. It was a bit funny, when later on during the meeting this man fell asleep, the man who woke him up was no one else than the just arriving Steve Squyres, the Principal Investigator of the whole Mars Exploration Rover stuff, the big boss around here. After the meeting we again had a chance to walk around and talk to a few scientists, so I met Geoffrey Landis, about the dust accumulation on the solar panels, the possible ways of falling peaks of energy in the panels (it’s very small, but still has a long-term impact in the total energy of the rover), and about measuring the connection between the loss of power and the amount of dust. After we were all done down at the meeting room, we came back to the office and Maciek briefed me on the image processing things about the MarsDial, calibrating, counting, and performing measurements for the dust project. Maciek was a good teacher, He explained to me all the counting part of the process very well, and through this, I even understood a few of the real scientific issues behind it. After all that we went down to the Science Downlink Assessment meeting, where the scientists first talked through the instruments, stating that the Spirit is completely healthy, and then a scientist named Scott Maxwell showed us a very nice 3d animation of the Spirit, performing its final measurements on Adirondack, backing from it and then heading towards White Boat. There was a small argument whether they should back out completely, take measurements and then head forward, or back a little, go forward, and look back, and finally for scientific purposes, they’ve chosen the first one. Then we had a few presentations about plans by different teams, a few extra plans by the Atmospheric team, and then one of the leading engineers rushed in, announced that the RAT was successfully used for more than 2 and a half hours, and explained the limits of next sol’s planning. After this, John Grant, today’s Science Operations Working Group (SOWG) Chair asked everybody to prepare their plans for the SOWG meeting, and declared the meeting closed. Now here I am back at the office, writing this journal, and preparing myself for the meeting, which will begin any moment now, and where they will finally decide the next sol’s schedule for Spirit, as well as assign all the priorities. It going to be a big argument, since they want to do driving and science tomorrow as well, and nearly every group has different interests. Although I am very tired, I am looking forward to the next day of this wonderful experience. Spirit Sol 35 / Opportunity Sol 14Saturday , February 7, 2004 Today was an interesting for me even outside of the Mission Operations, because this morning we (my family & I) set out to Pasadena, in a search for a music store, since I was promised, that I can get a new guitar, while we’re in the USA. It’s a pretty tough job for me, since I’m left handed. But after all, in a shop twice as big as the biggest guitar shop I have ever seen, we found one single lefty electro-acoustic guitar, maybe the nicest I have ever touched. We got it! So, I was very tuned up today, as we approached the JPL with Saatvik and Janice (Maciek was in Palm Springs with a Polish scientist who works in JPL), we were all very excited and happy, although it was Janice’s (and Maciek’s) last day with us on RRGTM. We had to wait a bit at the pickup place, because we arrived a bit early. Then Joe, our mentor arrived and we set out for the office, set up the computers to the net, and started to work on the MarsDial images. Saatvik and I had many images calibrated. We noticed that the catalog of the processed images was behind, so we decided to improve it with a few sols. But by the time we got to it, we had to go to the Science Context Meeting. Mainly, the whole Science Context Meeting was about the long-term plans for getting to the rim and the planning of the stops along with it. After the meeting we stayed and listened to the rover’s driver-planners creating the a possible route from White Boat to Outer Rim, when one of the leads rushed in, announcing, that the first segment of the long drive can be longer, so they can create plans that go farther!!! One plan is a shortcut to a group of medium sized rocks, currently unofficially called “Stone Council” (actually, the name is pretty cool, it really looks like stones sitting around a council chamber), and it was very exciting to see first-hand, where the background decisions are being considered. Back in the office (after the routine ice cream), we started writing these journals, but we had a little (a big… J) break, when we found a few common things in our musical taste (especially with Saatvik and Joe); and everybody started playing some mp3s from his computer… Now I’m sitting in the Downlink Assessment, and it’s nearly over, so I guess this is the end of another tiring, but still excitig day here on RRGTM. It’s too bad Janice & Maciek won’t be here tomorrow, but still, the fun will continue. Spirit Sol 36 / Opportunity Sol 15Sunday , February 8, 2004 This morning we had a nice trip down to Long Beach, to see the Pacific Ocean, and while we were there we visited the site of the Queen Mary (we didn’t have time to go inside), and the Aquarium of the Pacific. It was incredible and amazing, and it was a fun thing to see below into the ocean, after seeing so much of above! As soon as we got home, and I had a chance to rest a little, I started to play and practice with the guitar I mentioned yesterday, but of course, at times like this time flies by, so I soon had to prepare to leave. But soon, I found out that it was again more than worthwhile to come, since we were looking forward to another eventful day in Mission Operations. In the little time we had until the beginning of the Science Context Meeting, Saatvik & I spent working with all the little remaining raw images from earlier sols of Spirit’s mission, mainly before the anomaly. It’s a very good feeling to know, that we are advancing very well with the given task, and it’s truly fun to work with these images. We were a bit late for the meeting, because we were sunk in our tasks, but as we rushed in and found some chairs, the interesting part had just begun. The first armchair I grabbed was a cracked one, so I nearly fell back, but I managed to survive with a small shock, and a quick chair-change. The meeting itself was scientifically very amazing, they were discussing the further plans after they hopefully reached White Boat (we will know that in a few moments in the Downlink Assessment), and the Geology and the Long Term Planing (LTP) groups explained ideas for future drives, and now it was good to see that they mostly agreed on everything. And the big fun was when the LTP scientist said unofficial names for the possible targets. Joe and I really laughed, because the scientists’ have great tastes for naming. After the meeting ended, Saatvik and I went forward to one of the main LTP scientists, Jack Farmer and asked him a few questions about their plan and its connections to the big plan from yesterday (the 3 day driving, 3 day local scientific activities), and we were told, that these are all one-day journeys they are planning, so basically they are all “touch and go” activities, but if they find anything worth further investigation, they can deploy the rover. It was a very good idea, I think to go there and talk with him, we got lots of new understanding of the planning and the whole operation, and it was nice to learn, that those “events” we usually see on space news, are actually very current decisions by the scientists, and it was good to witness how these decisions are born. Now, we are down at the Science Downlink Assessment Meeting, and the results of today’s acts were just announced. There was much rejoicing when they declared that every scientific measurement could be executed, the rover moved 2.5 meters, and this, puts Spirit ahead of Opportunity! According to the latest reports, they are planning to go ahead with their campaign towards the rim. Right now, the routine reports of the smaller activities are being given. Although, it’s getting late, but all of us are still very tuned up and excited as it seems big things are about to happen as Spirit proceeds. Spirit Sol 37 / Opportunity Sol 16Monday, February 9, 2004 This morning with the family we went to Universal Studios. It was very fun all those rides and shows, so although I was a bit too shook up, and had a little headache throughout the day, it was very good to get some relaxation between these days here at JPL. I guess, it was today when Saatvik and I finally got to the JPL by highway, and never taking any wrong turns! But then we went into the office, and the real action began. Today’s Science Context Meeting was held by Scott McLennan, a Long-Term Planning lead, and it was mainly about the resources of the communication, and the expected challenges with the flash memory management About the communication, he showed us the expected communication limits, but he also said, that he has no idea how they can predict it; - because of this Saatvik and I immediately took the opportunity to ask how they did it – we got the explanation that he just took it from the engineers’ report, so someone else must know how to do that… On our way to back to the office and to the routine ice cream, KJ gave us a near-complete tour of all three floors of the Mars Exploration Rover mission, including the ground control room for both Mars Exploration Rovers, the offices of most of the science groups, and the big meeting and conference rooms. I’ve been sitting in these rooms for 4 days now, but seeing the whole thing together amazed me still, and of course the mission control room was more than fascinating! On top of it all, Mark Adler, the Mission Manager invited us further in, and answered lots of our questions about the planning, the communication, the rover’s computer, etc. He also showed us around explaining who and where people work, and what they do. It was amazing! During our second time in the office we (but mainly Saatvik) got way closer to the point, where every currently required image is calibrated, so only the processing for the Mars dust and the MarsDial project is left. Thanks to Saatvik’s brilliant idea of using macro recording, the dust project is now very accelerated, so we started off with MarsDial. Now there we managed to do the local time estimate, but when we read through the result’s explanation, we found out that there has to be some mistake in our basic technique using Martian time, since the comparison within the MarsDial software used both Earth and Mars time where it shouldn’t have. We had a big argument about the usage of the Martian times, even used couple of references, but as we deepened into the topic, we got mixed up even more, so we agreed that we will continue this tomorrow, since we had to go down to Downlink Assessment, where I am right now, writing this journal. Addition: So far the Assessment was surprisingly interesting, compared to the fact, that today they did nothing else but drive. First, there was a big discussion about the usage of Mini-TES on Adirondack, so because of this, they missed the so far only opportunity to get an analysis of a RATted rock. There are always trade-offs to be made among the many activities the rover can do. Then there was big cheering, because it was announced, that they successfully drove a bit more than 20 meters, and from that 7 meters were completely autonomous, being the longest computer-controlled drive on another planet. Now, after the routine checks, they are planning next sol’s morning, what to do before the drive, how to plan the Touch&Go-s, and what to do after tomorrow’s journey further towards the rim of the Bonneville Crater. It seems, that now the real interesting part of today’s planning is over, and the scientists will soon leave for the preparations for the Science Operations Working Group Meeting, where they will actually plan tomorrow sol. Further Addition: We’re sitting here at the wall of the entrance side in the Assessment Meeting Room, and there are big posters all over the wall. Right behind me, my favorite, a 3D (stereo) image made by the back Hazcams of the lander, after the rover got off. Now, guess what, every pin holding it onto the wall accidentally fell of – so did the poster. Straight onto KJ… !!! It wasn’t nice, but the whole room, full of scientists busted out laughing! For me, sitting closest, it wasn’t just funny, but shocking funny! So it took a while for the next sitting scientists and for me, to jump up and help… Spirit Sol 38 / Opportunity Sol 17Tuesday, February 10, 2004 Today’s programs were much calmer than the days before, in every aspect. Since our shifts keep going into the nights, I was very very sleepy, so I slept through the whole morning, and hardly got up for lunch. Today’s program was a visit to Caltech (California Institute of Technology), a University here in Pasadena and one of the best in the world. We had a guided tour there by one of the students, the whole place was beautiful, friendly, and appealing in both in human and in scientific ways. Although, the international admission rate to Caltech is extremely low, I still hope, that one day, I may have the chance, to study there. Being extra motivated by this, I arrived fresh at JPL today where finally I could finish all the remaining images, while Saatvik could move on with the Dust project. After a little break, I was able to check my e-mail box where, of course, other things waited for me. Soon we proceeded to the Science Context Meeting. First was a presentation by Hap McSween about the geochemical properties of Adirondack, and although I tried very hard, I couldn’t understand enough to explain it here. Following Hap, the Geology Lead, Natalie Cabrol, did a presentation on the possible targets of the geology group, with priorities and good motivation, like searching for past water activities on carbonates, etc. Somebody from Long-Term Planning presented us a couple of hypotheses on the surface elements of Mars, the plans to ask for, and the realities of those plans getting included in the traverse plan towards the Bonneville Crater. Diana Blaney from Chemistry showed the potential targets for chemistry and mineralogy priorities, what to do, and why. Phew! We are just through the so far longest Context Meeting!! It was nearly two Martian hours, which is even closer to two normal hours! A big discussion emerged when one of the scientists noticed, that mainly every theme groups was asking for the same thing, just from different perspectives. They kept coming back to issues of selecting possible targets, and finding the balance between traveling and science. To tell the truth, in the end, it was a bit boring. Now we have less than an hour until Downlink Assessment, so we will just keep on with our job of calibrating the images and doing the dust calibrations! Spirit Sol 39 / Opportunity Sol 18Wednesday, February 11, 2004 Today was a resting day for me, I was still very exhausted when I woke up in the morning, so because of this and because of the fact that my dad couldn't spare any more time and had to go back yesterday, mom & I decided to take this easy. We went to Huntington Library and Garden here, in Pasadena, it was extremely beautiful, the weather was very nice to us, and simply everything went perfectly fine. In the evening we again set out to JPL, and I am still right here. Before the Science Context Meeting, Saatvik & I went on with the MarsDust project, and today I also got to the mass-measuring of the images with macros, but after I was done with nearly half of a big sol, my computer went crazy, and had to restart it before I had a chance to save the worksheet! Oh, come on!! More than an hour of work flew by! I didnt have any chance to continue, because we had to go to the meeting. Before the meeting (and during it as well), there were surprisingly few scientists there, but compared to the previous days Context Meeting, it was very good and truly interesting. Right before the meeting, one of the scientist showed us a magazine called Weekly World News. On the cover, the shocking truth, Alien Skulls Found on Mars!!!!!! :) :) :) :) And we thought we knew whats going on in mission command!! :) There was a big laugh all among the scientists (I dont know whether they have shown it to one of the bosses), but finally it all became quiet, and the meeting began. Today's biggest issues were again mostly about the long-term plan towards Bonneville Crater, but there was a new topic as well, about the required cooperation between MER-A and MER-B team (Spirit's team and Opportunity's). The supporting ideas just kept coming, and even Steve Squyres (the big boss) came in, and joined, with his suggestions about how could they coordinate the mutual teamwork. In the end they agreed that theyll try to create a meeting where the leads of both Spirit and Opportunity could meet. (This is very hard due to the fact, that the Spirit's shift is between about 18:00 and 03:00, while the Opportunity's shift is between 07:00 and 16:00, and everybody needs sleep.) After the meeting we had a long and worthy talk with Nathalie Cabrol, the geology lead, about the geology teams task in the mission, and her place in the whole picture. She was very nice and talkative, she even told us her point of views in science, and we even found out, that she was one of the earliest, who suggested Gusev as the landing site for Spirit. After our journey through to 4th and 5th floors (via the routine ice cream) we went back to the office, and I was after all able to do the dust measurements. We are proceeding very well with that (with the help of the macros), and had some fun looking up some background things about the magazine mentioned earlier :) I'm now here at the Downlink Assessment, the first thing was of course the teams responsible for the instruments on the rover did their check in, after that, the Downlink Coordinator updated the scientists on today's events. Every scientific sequence was successful, although the drive was a bit shorter, because the final part, with the Hazard Avoidance on, stopped the process for safety reasons. After that, they continued with the long term plans for the traverse to Bonneville. Right now, the rover is only at the very beginning of its journey. The two main points of view is right now are the logistic or the hard scientific way either go as far as possible, as soon as possible, Larry Crumpler from the Long Term Planning Group presented this, or stay here, since we got at the current range two very high priority targets, and this was pointed out by Nathalie Cabrol from geology. Right now, they are trying to find a compromise with the help of the engineers. Spirit Sol 40 / Opportunity Sol 19Thursday, February 12, 2004 Today started and will end in JPL for me. I had to be here by 9:45, because of a press conference, which was held here, about the rover's proceedings, as well as another student program, allowing U.S. high school students to come here as well. Unluckily, (but only because of myself) I left my passport home, and without it I could not get in! So back to the car, back to the guest house, back to the freeway, and back to JPL in nine minutes! That was one speedy trip! The press conference itself was interesting, at least I got an update on Opportunity's progress, and after the conference the press interviewed us about our participation here and our place in the whole MER mission. After a short rest home, my mom and I set out to Pasadena again. This time we managed to pick out another arboretum, now the Los Angeles County Arboretum. The weather was very nice again, it was quiet all around, so it was a quite good way of relaxing. In the afternoon we went in to The Planetary Society's office because we were expecting a Hungarian TV crew. Unfortunately, they were delayed at the airport and in L.A. traffic so we gave up waiting and went back to the guest house. Later on, we greeted them when they finally arrived at their hotel. I got into JPL again around 19:00, and when we arrived to the office (it's too bad it's the last day with Joe; it reminds me, that the last one at all is closing fast...), we found that Emily could get to her computer and uploaded us a bunch of new images from the new sols of Spirit, so we had the job to do! I really got into the practice and calibrated two and a half sols in a row. Like the scientists had known that this was my penultimate Context Meeting on Spirit, it was the most interesting Context Meeting, both the meeting itself and the talks after. They discussed the plan for today's sol, what was left in and what was left out, and than showed us a few very nice pictures of today's targets, including Mimi (an amazing rock which could very well prove to be layered rock, a sedimentary rock, a type which the scientists are searching for to improve their theories of ancient water activities). The Long-Term Planning (LTP) came up with a couple of basic plans for when they approach a close target. The problem is that this place nearby is an extremely promising place. But if they spend 4 sols studying it, that exceeds the original 3 sols driving, 3 sols location plan. That's why they want to try the "mega-drives" (well over 30, or possibly even 50 meters). After the meeting, we stayed there for quite a long time with Saatvik, first talking to Patrick Whelley from Geology about the images they use for geological mapping, then we split up, Saatvik went to someone else, and I stayed for a while with Patrick, to talk about the locations so far, and the possible next ones, from the geology theme group's point of view. After, I went to Scott McLennan, the LTP Lead, and talked about the Mission Success Chart, and evolving from that, the inner politics of planning the movements of the rovers. Both scientists were very nice and helpful, I am happy and honored to be here, and to talk to people like them. It's 23:50 and they are ready to start the Downlink Assessment Meeting, and I am ready to finish my journal for today... Coming tomorrow: The Downlink Assessment Meeting and-we participate in the VOTING! Postscript:
During all my interviews, before I came here, the journalists kept asking me about when the scientists will ask for my opinion on any cases during these meetings. For my true regret, I had to turn them all down, saying, that’s not what I am there for. Actually, that changed last night. They were discussing the possible movements for targets, and that how many sols should they spend there and why. The SOWG Chair asked for a vote on the question, about driving sooner, and all the scientist raised their hands. Joe, Saatvik and I were sitting in the corner with our laptops, and we were very alone in the crowd, not raising our hands. So the SOWG Chair turned to us, and asked whether we are voting or not. So we voted… And there were a few smiles among the scientists, and we voted with yes as well. So we gave advice, kind of… :) :) :) Spirit Sol 41 / Opportunity Sol 20Saturday, February 14, 2004 The Last One for Me :( Although I was very sleepy in the morning, and didn’t really want to get up, I knew I would be looking forward to this day. For second time (and a third sol), we had a group of four of on-duty Student Astronauts! And I was very happy, and planning all the fun with a bigger group, but the arrival of Kristyn and Cheng-Tao reminded me, that this wonderful week of my time as a Student Astronaut was coming to an end… :( I got up at 9:50 in the morning, which was a pretty big problem, since I had to be in the office of The Planetary Society (TPS) by 10:30, though I was still awake at 2:00 AM in the morning. But we had to go, because we agreed to meet the Hungarian TV crew there. There, during the lunch I finally had the chance to properly meet both Kristyn and Cheng-Tao, and while they were gone for basic orientation, I had the opportunity to play with the Carl Sagan Memorial (Pathfinder) Mars Station’s LEGO rover in TPS from the local computer – it was fun, it was easier to drive as I could see it, and it was fun when somebody connecting over the website nearly made it fall over, so I needed to “save” it… :) I came in to JPL first at about 2PM, to meet again the TV crew, and they had been already filming there mainly about Theodore von Kármán, who was a Hungarian man (Kármán Tódor), one of the founders of the JPL. We all (Kristyn, Cheng-Tao, Jennifer from TPS, the TV crew, our JPL escort & me) went up to the office, I had the chance to show a few basic tricks to Kristyn and Cheng-Tao, then I had the interview with the Hungarian crew. It went well, even though this was my first interview with a camera now for at least three weeks… After we were all done, we went to the JPL store, and all four of us bought something, but I particularly got into the feeling of buying, so I bought a NASA T-shirt, a NASA cap, and I was very weak on resisting, so I also bought a beautiful NASA watch… I also bought 4 of the JPL teddy, but those not for myself… :) We went back to the guest house, and after a little get-together (even my guitar and Kristyn’s violin appeared), we all decided to go in to the city for dinner and fun and everything. Upon arriving back, we quickly all packed, and set out again (for Saatvik and me, for the last time) towards JPL. Seemingly too soon the Science Context Meeting began, held by today’s Long-Term Planning Lead, Dave Des Marais, was again about the routine things, the left out things, the available resources or their lack, etc. But there were two interesting things I’d like to mention. First, they were looking at revising the traverse plan so that they can reach the rim as soon as possible. The second, the good news is that yestersol they had a communication record, one of the downlinks reached the speed of 256kbps, which is as fast as a low class DSL, so I guess congratulations are in order. Because of this, they finally had the chance to download nearly every remaining pictures from the rover’s flash memory – delivering a big bunch of nice images about a few targets on the previous days. These images were presented directly to us by Natalie Cabrol from geology, and also with Meredith ----'s help, and interesting fact is, that she is a PhD student at a university, and she has been working around here as an equal with the scientists. When we were finished talking, we went back to the office – this time without ice cream – since we already had it before the Context Meeting… J At this time we had the chance to brief the newcomers, and I worked with Kristyn, and I tried to teach her the basics and advances in the image processing task we did so far. She was a quick study, and easily understood the tricky things we developed in the previous days, and I was relieved, that she could learn the things, which even I wasn’t sure I could explain.
Since we mentioned to Emily that we hadn’t been as effective with the SunDial, as had been with the MarsDust and the other images, so we had a quite productive talk about Time, times and time zones on Earth and Mars, the geometry of them, and how they are calculated, etc. Returning from the discussion to the original topic we finally used the SunDial software as it should be used, and got a pretty good result on calculating the time – by this getting back to the path of this part of the RRGTM project. We also got a few amazing images of the MarsDVD and Biff, the Astrobot on Spirit, and we helped Emily, by calibrating those pictures and making them usable for the RRGTM homepage. It was cool… :) Then, we came down to the Downlink Assessment. After the initial check-ins, the update on today’s achievement, they showed an amazing picture taken by the Microscopic Imager today of a patch of soil, before leaving it. It was incredible, seeing those particles of course sand or possible gravel, in size somewhat similar to the “blueberries” at Meridiani, but still, very unusual sight at what I had thought was an aeolian (wind-formed) location. When they changed to tomorrow’s planning, we had the chance to witness a heated discussion – about whether they should do a Touch & Go on Mimi and stay at the dunes overnight, or the other way around. There were some other ideas, but they were soon all silent; there were big supporters for both of the plans – since both are highest priority targets. The supporters for the dunes said, that this dune is uniquely clean, while Mimi is too small to be valuable. In opposite, the scientists for the rock said it was the most different rock they so far found, a big chance that it was not an ordinary Martian basalt, while we can find dunes every second stop. Both targets are very important, but because of then traverse plan, they have to leave. John Grant, today’s Science Operations Working Group (SOWG) Chair--the man in charge of today’s planning--nearly brought it to a vote – but he was told that they might well receive deciding results by the next downlink, before SOWG Meeting. So Grant gave the task to Doug Ming to put together two generic plans for now so they can jump in whenever they have the data, and he asked everybody else to help him develop a good plan, because these plans very well can prove to be one of the most important short-term decisions at this time. Now, we’re back at the office, all writing our journals, and will soon leave to the SOWG meeting, my final one here at JPL. It was great being here. Big thanks for everybody who made it possible, but especially to the Planetary Society. Thanks. |
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