The PLANETARYPLANETARY REPORT REPORT Volume XXII Number 2 March/April 2002 Io’s “Hot Spots” Volume XXII Table of Number 2 Contents March/April 2002 A PUBLICATION OF Features From The Mars Odyssey: Let the Mapping Begin 4 Mars Odyssey is now returning data, and initial results are producing a rare Editor state of excitement in the planetary science community. A member of that community is Bruce Betts, The Planetary Society’s director of projects. Bruce’s Ph.D. dissertation e’re gearing up for a surge of focused on infrared data collected by the Soviet Phobos 2 spacecraft in 1988–89. So, W activity at The Planetary Society. Bruce just loves the infrared data coming from Mars Odyssey and is closely following For a start, Mars Odyssey has reached its the mission. Here, he shares a preliminary look with our readers. mapping orbit and is returning detailed data about the surface of Mars. As we go The Rampant Volcanoes of Io to press, NASA has released initial results 6 Rosaly Lopes is a volcanologist whose career has focused on otherworldy based on the data—and all indications are eruptions. She’s also a member of the Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team on that Mars Odyssey is going to be a doozy the Galileo mission, which has been observing Jupiter since 1995. The orbiting of a mission. Scientists are already seeing spacecraft has revealed such a substantial array of volcanic features as to keep any strong evidence of hydrogen, probably volcanologist excited and busy for a long time. Now that Galileo has completed its from water-ice, on or near the planet’s final pass of Io, Rosaly recounts many discoveries about the most volcanically active surface. You can count on many more body in our solar system. announcements about the mission in future issues of The Planetary Report. Deep Space 1: The New Millennium in Spaceflight On the political front, we’re preparing 12 Deep Space 1 (DS1) was one of the New Millennium missions designed to once again to engage Washington policy test technologies to substantially advance our exploration of other worlds. Science makers over restoring the mission to Pluto. writer Robert Burnham has taken a long look at DS1—its accomplishments and Also this year, the Europa orbiter mission problems, as well as the lessons this experimental spacecraft has taught us. has been canceled. NASA now has no program to explore the outer planets of Cosmos 1 Update: Schedule Slips, our solar system. You can read the details 19 Confidence Grows of the Bush administration’s fiscal year Planetary Society Executive Director Louis Friedman recently returned from Russia, 2003 budget, from which both missions where he reviewed progress on Cosmos 1, the Society’s solar sail project. He’s got both are eliminated, in World Watch (page 18). good and bad news to report. That’s how it is at The Planetary Society. Sometimes, we revel in the astounding Departments discoveries of planetary missions; other times, we fight to keep those missions 3 Members’ Dialogue alive. If you have Internet access, you can 18 World Watch regularly check our website, planetary.org, for updates. In the coming weeks, we will 20 Questions and Answers be planning how best to return outer planet exploration to the NASA agenda. 22 Society News We should all be ready to act. —Charlene M. Anderson Contact Us On the Cover: This Galileo mosaic may resemble an abstract painting but is ac- Mailing Address: The Planetary Society, 65 North Catalina Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91106-2301 tually a high-resolution image of the longest known active lava General Calls: 626-793-5100 Sales Calls Only: 626-793-1675 flow in the solar system. Found in the Amirani region of Jupiter’s E-mail: [email protected] World Wide Web: http://planetary.org moon Io, this flow extends roughly 350 kilometers (220 miles). The Planetary Report (ISSN 0736-3680) is published bimonthly at the editorial offices of The Planetary Society, 65 North Catalina Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91106- Approximately half the length of the flow is shown here. Dark ar- 2301, 626-793-5100. It is available to members of The Planetary Society. Annual dues in the US are $30 (US dollars); in Canada, $40 (Canadian dollars). Dues in other countries are $45 (US dollars). Printed in USA. Third-class postage at Pasadena, California, and at an additional mailing office. eas indicate recent, fresh lava; these areas are too hot to be cov- Canada Post Agreement Number 87424. ered by sulfur dioxide, which appears lighter. Scientists think the Editor, CHARLENE M. ANDERSON Copy Editor, AMY SPITALNICK Associate Editor, DONNA ESCANDON STEVENS Proofreader, LOIS SMITH main Amirani plume emanates from the fuzzy purplish area near Managing Editor, JENNIFER VAUGHN Art Director, BARBARA S. SMITH the bottom of the image. Technical Editor, JAMES D. BURKE Technical Editor, BRUCE BETTS Viewpoints expressed in columns or editorials are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent positions of The Planetary Society, its officers, or advisers. Image: JPL/NASA ©2002 by The Planetary Society. Cofounder CARL SAGAN 1934–1996 Board of Directors Members’ Chairman of the Board BRUCE MURRAY Professor of Planetary Science and Geology, Dialogue California Institute of Technology President WESLEY T. HUNTRESS JR. Director, Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington Vice President NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON Astrophysicist and Director, Hayden Planetarium, American Museum of Natural History Executive Director Sounding Off way stations or milestones to- in the hands of organizations such LOUIS D. FRIEDMAN ANN DRUYAN I was once a member of The ward achieving that goal or as ours and, most important, of author and producer DONALD J. KUTYNA Planetary Society, but I allowed whether they would be detours organizations teaching our youth. former Commander, US Space Command my membership to expire because delaying it. —REX CHILDRESS, JOHN M. LOGSDON Director, Space Policy Institute, I do not believe we should be The Planetary Society does Louisville, Kentucky George Washington University Advisory Council Chair pursuing a manned mission to not judge the outcome of that CHRISTOPHER P. McKAY Mars. It is premature. engineering and economic trade- Funding Restored planetary scientist, NASA Ames Research Center BILL NYE I do support a constellation of off. We believe that if we adopt NASA’s reversal of its December science educator JOSEPH RYAN satellites around Mars, and I an international goal of human 2001 decision to terminate the Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Marriott International support robotic landers. However, exploration of Mars, the question Arecibo Observatory’s Near ROALD Z. SAGDEEV former Director, Institute for Space Research, I do not believe the primary sci- of interim steps can be intelli- Earth Object (NEO) observation Russian Academy of Sciences ence goal of such landers should gently decided and planned. program was welcome. But STEVEN SPIELBERG director and producer be geological exploration. Rather, These steps could include mis- NASA’s level of funding for KATHRYN D. SULLIVAN President and CEO, Ohio’s Center it should be to practice landing— sions to the Moon. NEO study in general seems of Science and Industry and former astronaut MARIA T. ZUBER consistently, safely, and accurate- The Society agrees that for inadequate. Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ly. We need to allow for full any scientific investigation into Cutting funding to the Arecibo Advisory Council telemetry so we can learn from the possibility of lunar ice at the Observatory would have limited JIHEI AKITA the inevitable failures. As far as poles or underground water on our ability to obtain high-preci- Executive Director, The Planetary Society, Japan BUZZ ALDRIN human exploration goes, we Mars, robotic probes are cost- sion orbital information about Apollo 11 astronaut RICHARD BERENDZEN should be aiming for the Moon; effective. As you know, we sup- NEOs. It would have eliminated educator and astrophysicist there is no better place to cut our port a vigorous program of one of the most effective and JACQUES BLAMONT Chief Scientist, teeth on manned missions. robotic space exploration. accurate tools for determining Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, France RAY BRADBURY If I were able to be heard and I suspect we agree on just the size of NEOs, and that poet and author DAVID BRIN were given the chance to try about everything in the big pic- speaks volumes. author shifting the Society’s focus, I ture, and we would be lucky to be NASA’s current funding lev- FRANKLIN CHANG-DIAZ would consider becoming a arguing only about the details. If els leave much of the follow-up NASA, Astronaut Office ARTHUR C. CLARKE member again. you want to advance your agen- observations of NEOs on an ad author FRANK DRAKE —ROBERT GARDIAS, da, or any agenda for planetary hoc basis. Plus, the amount of President, SETI Institute; Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Toronto, Ontario, Canada exploration, I recommend that funds earmarked for the Minor University of California, Santa Cruz STEPHEN JAY GOULD you rejoin The Planetary Society. Planet Center—which serves as Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, There have, of course, already Thanks for writing. the central clearinghouse for Harvard University GARRY E. HUNT been six human landings on the —Louis D. Friedman, orbital data and observations space scientist, United Kingdom SERGEI KAPITSA Moon, which involved eighteen Executive Director (both radar and optical)—is cur- Institute for Physical Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences astronauts. So, one could say tailing services and operating CHARLES E. KOHLHASE JR. our teeth are well on the way to Our Future in Space hours. And reducing operations mission designer, author, digital artist JON LOMBERG being cut. Whether we should re- After reading “Whither, O Splen- at the Minor Planet Center artist HANS MARK turn to the Moon before we send did Ship?” (see the January/ adversely affects the vital fol- University of Texas at Austin astronauts to Mars is the real February 2002 issue of The low-up process at a time when YASUNORI MATOGAWA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan question.