And, in particular, looking at a scenario of approximately two decades before the first manned mission to Mars and considering the ideal age for an astronaut to be between 35 and 40 we can infer that the future Martians are today in school, perhaps harboring secret dreams of becoming the first men ever to step on another planet.
It is our mission as educators to foster those dreams and to make them come true through journeys, now of the mind and the imagination, tomorrow of gleaming rockets thundering into space, that will teach the Martians the science and the spirit of space exploration. We don't need to wait twenty years : the young Martians may be making their first trips within a few months.
Today we face another major goal, the colonization of Mars. And this time the challenge is more subtle, for not one problem emerges as a clear obstacle in the way. It is true that several difficulties, such as the loss of bone marrow in microgravity or the development of a practical bioregenerative life support system seem to stand out above the rest, but none of them appear as an absolute barrier to threaten the technical feasibility of the trip to Mars.
However, 27 years after arriving at the Moon we are still hesitant to take the next "giant leap" to Mars. Although the scientific community at large agrees to the need of a sustained manned Martian effort, some sectors within the scientific and academic circles still voice their doubts as to the convenience of committing energy and resources to the colonization of Mars.
These doubts are reflected on the general public's view of the situation. Most people are oblivious to the discussion of manned vs. unmanned space exploration, and do not care for the lessons learned by probes or new discoveries. The layman's view of the problem is deceptively simple : he wants to know when we will get to Mars, and is surprised when confronted with the space community's internal doubts and hesitations.
So perhaps the greater barrier to be conquered is not technological, but social. This time it is not gravity that keeps us rooted to Earth, but more formidable and subtle enemies : skepticism, disincentives and lack of focus.
In order to overcome these obstacles we must work hard to generate a positive attitude to space exploration. And the best and most important place to start doing so is the classroom. The younger generation will not only be the one that will physically travel to Mars, but they will also play a crucial role in supporting a manned mission to the red planet.
"Anyone who has been in space knows that the impatiently awaited unearthliness quickly loses its charm. It is not the uniform blackness of the cosmic abyss that engages your attention, but the spectacle of our small planet haloed in blue. Suddenly, you get a feeling that you've never had before, the feeling that you are an inhabitant of Earth" Oleg Makharov, USSR
In this effort of inspiring students to pursue the exploration of space this International dimension should be highlighted. Whenever possible whatever project related to space is implemented should include some element of international cooperation and hopefully be developed in association by more than one school.
The Internet serves this purpose admirably. Online collaborative projects seem to fit the moled perfectly, adding cross cultural exchange to the excitement of space related activities.
That day, various coordinated activities and simulations were performed, all of them related in some way to the exploration of Mars.
As part of the project, a group of students from St.Peter's School in Buenos Aires, Argentina, returned early from their summer holidays in order to build and assemble in a record time of 10 days their spacecraft simulator "Tango II". They then put together a hastily prepared checklist for the initial stage of a mission to Mars and coordinated an Internet simulation with two other schools from the U.S.
The countdown punctually started at T-2h and instructions were emailed from Mission Control situated in a school in Dallas, Texas. As switches were flipped accordingly, confirmation was emailed instantly to Mission Control. After a successful launch, the "Tango II" spacecraft proceeded to dock with Space Station Weatherby managed by Project Orion from Lincoln Gahanna High School in Ohio. Again instructions were emailed back and forth in accordance to a previously arranged code.
Once safely docked and after the students shared their "virtual lunch" preferences over the Web, the Argentine students proceeded to start their CELSS simulation experiment, which consisted in a computer controlled greenhouse where peanuts, potatoes and soybeans (NASA's recommended choice for space crops) were planted. The system featured two sensors that monitored temperature and humidity and turned on and off a heating and watering system accordingly in order to simulate space intensive growing conditions. Results of the experiment were shared via email with the other participating schools.
Other schools shared their experiences. Students in the Cosmonautic School in Zelenogorsk, Russia, built and tested rockets (among many other activities) before passing the baton to primary students in Exeter, England who spent the day surveying the "Martian" landscape at a local red-sand quarry and collecting "Martian" water samples from the nearby English Channel.
Sim coordinator Chris Rowan explained how his class is divided up into teams: "The Navigation team 'technicians' are busy tracking the progress with a satellite tracking program... the Public Affairs team has been at work drumming up interest throughout the school and community... [and] the Medical team monitors the heart rate and respiration of the astronauts. They also have the final word... concerning crew health. No astronaut would be allowed inside the simulator with a big bag of cookies for lunch."
The kind of interest generated by this project is also an excellent example of how educational activities can contribute to the space program.
The Interactive Trip to Mars was featured in the '24 Hours in the Cyberspace' book-CDROM project (http://www.cyber24.com/html/3_15.html) On the 8th of February photographers were sent to Siberia, England , the U.S and Argentina in order to document these educational activities and simulations under the heading "Kids from Around the World Blast Off to Mars"
In Argentina, the event was covered by all major newspapers (some of them featuring full page articles) and both the students and teachers involved were repeatedly interviewed for radio and TV programs. Under titles of the type "Students travel to Mars", "A voyage to the Red Planet", etc. Journalists not only commented on the trip itself but also used it to discuss extensively the potential of future manned exploration of Mars and the feasibility of such an endeavour being possible at the turn of the century. The educational experience attracted the attention of the media mainly because it had to do with Mars, thus revealing the hidden interest of the general public in the red planet.
The Educational Division of NASA Ames Research Center in San Francisco coordinates a series of very interesting outreach activities that involve teachers and students. As a part of the NASA K-12 Internet Initiative, this "Sharing NASA" series of activities permit "real" contact with the everyday world of space exploration and provide insight into the human dimension of high tech careers.
Teachers subscribe to email lists and/or follow progress of these projects on Web pages. Email updates feature technical data, interactive activities for the classroom, and essentially field journals from the scientists, engineers, controllers and all other people working on the mission. These journals constitute a unique opportunity to witness the day to day progress of space exploration.
Past projects include "On Line from Jupiter", that brought the excitement of the Galileo mission as it encountered Jupiter in December 1995. Students had direct contact with the men and women of Galileo and shared in exciting classroom activities like ProbeSquash (predicting the number of minutes the probe would be able to relay data before being crushed by the Jovian atmosphere.
More recently, Live from the Hubble Space Telescope dedicated three orbits of the best optical telescope available to student observations. Classrooms could follow events by reading the usual journals and having immediate access to fresh images from the Hubble Telescope.
Currently, Women from NASA provides students with an opportunity to meet some of NASA's women. This project is designed to encourage female involvement in math and science careers via role models within NASA. Other future NASA educational projects include Shuttle/Mir Online Resources for Education and Live from Antarctica II, a sequel to the widely acclaimed Live from Antarctica.
Plans are also underway for a training tape to assist integration of this project into classrooms, home schools, and lifelong learning. Each video and accompanying on-line and print materials will allow educators to customize the learning experience, whether they use only one program, live or on tape, or follow the Mars missions across the school years.
Interactive on-line opportunities and a Teacher's Guide will make the human dimension of contemporary science and high tech careers come to life. Curriculum strands will include: Mars geology and evolution as a planet, robotics, interplanetary weather, exobiology, mission planning, rocketry, comparisons between planets of the solar system, and Mars imaging resources.
The "Let's Talk Mars" section of this project has already put several teachers in contact with Mars experts who will assist them in whatever space related projects these teachers try to develop during the academic year 1996/97.
As an example, Lincoln High School students in Buenos Aires, Argentina are studying the geology and climate of Mars and trying to develop a simple numerical model of the Martian atmosphere and its interactions with its surface to be used in constructing a Mars Terraforming Home Page. NASA has assigned Dr. Jim Bell, an investigator from Cornell University, to assist and guide the students in their Terraforming project. Interaction has started taking place with a preliminary Web chat held on the 31st of May, in which students had the unique opportunity of being able to have an "exclusive" interview with their mentor scientist for over an hour.
The very first step involves designing the spacecraft. Using existing and future (plausible) technology students from participating schools from all over the world would exchange emails, consult with each other in web chats and submit ideas and proposals on hardware design. NASA experts could also give Web lectures on the topic and answer students' questions.
The level of detail and the technical complexity of the design would be appropriate to the students' mastery of the concepts involved. They would be able to rely on foreseeable future advances and facilities (like assembling and launching their spacecraft in the Space Station, for example)
As the design progresses, the discussions, sketches, etc. would all be placed on a Web page for the general public to follow the development of the initial stage of the mission and email their comments, suggestions, etc.
Students would basically choose a propulsion system, life support, landing/launching procedure and make a rough integration of these into a hardware design.
Depending on the number of schools interested in participating, committees or task forces can be created for each of the problems (propulsion, life support system, etc.) in order to reduce design time.
Once the preliminary design is completed, the next phase would consist in actually laying out the mission sequence. Using the same procedure (chats, conferences by experts, email) the students would again be guided by their teachers and the experts into establishing mission sequences, orbits, duration, crew composition and responsibilities and all other major decisions concerning the mission, again within their grasp.
Once this is ready and the mission sequence defined, it will be time for the Crew Selection process. And just like in real life, potential candidates will apply for the different crew positions available both in the spacecraft (astronauts) and on ground (controllers). The Teacher Board would then discuss (through chats, email, etc.) the relative merits of the candidates and select prime and backup crews (to take over in case of holidays, exam periods, emergencies, etc.) Each participating school would be assigned one position based on their previous participation and/or degree of expertise.
In the meantime , a mission simulator software (for PC and Mac platforms) would be readied based on the accepted students design. Every participating school would receive their now personalized copy of the software which will allow them to deal with their specific part of the mission as well as being able to monitor the status of every console and switch both in the spacecraft and in Mission Control.
The software would rely on local time and make the necessary conversions in order to synchronize MET (Mission Elapsed Time) for all schools in different parts of the world.
Periodically (once a day) schools will be emailed a status file that will update the mission for the simulating software. Conversely, whenever one of the crewmembers performs an action that will affect the outcome of the mission (such as flipping a switch in one of the consoles) the software will email the newly updated status file to the server that will in turn distribute this file to all participants.
A typical day during the mission for one of the "crewmember" schools would begin by downloading the updates file via email and feed it to the software simulator. The students would then meet to monitor their controls and ensure that all readings and parameters are nominal. They might want to send some messages to their fellow crewmembers and comply with the station keeping chores of the day and then sign off.
Occasionally, non time critical problems could be simulated by the teachers in charge, in the manner of a "real" astronaut simulation. These malfunctions should be solved by the crewmembers and ground controller students by mutual consultation via email and web chat, and eventually seeking advice from the experts. The software can include a simulation feature (within the simulation!) that would let students try out their solutions before committing themselves to a course of action. A typical problem, (system malfunction, calculation of a mid-course engine burn, etc.) would allow the crew several days before becoming critical and would be scheduled accordingly to avoid an excessive workload.
Simultaneously, a Web page will reflect the status of the mission, typically featuring the spacecraft's position en route to Mars, a dual view of Mars and the Earth as seen from the cabin at that moment, an image map of the spacecraft with technical explanations of each of the subsystems and the design process. It would also allow the general public to peek at the status of every light and switch in both the ship and Mission Control, read the mission log and email comments and suggestions to crewmembers. The general public could also download via FTP a copy of the simulation software and subscribe to a listserv to receive the mission log and the updates via email. They would be able to run the software, perform actions and see their effects on their own software but obviously not participate directly in the mission.
A simulation of this nature cannot keep a second per second time precision on events. Major milestones in the mission, such as launch and landing would present the "cybernauts" with nominal or near nominal parameters that only require minor corrections.
In order to reduce the length of the simulation, after the spacecraft is Mars bound and in the correct trajectory and astronauts are thus only required to perform station keeping duties, the transit time could be reduced by some sort of "hibernation" or time skip process.
The advantage of an email based simulation as opposed to a Web based cgi simulation is that most of the work can be done off-line, thus allowing schools with costly or limited access to the Web a chance to participate fully. The whole simulation is thus also easier to implement and design. Future editions of the Student Mission to Mars can focus on the redesign of the existing spacecraft, design of a permanent Martian Base, the construction of a VRML Web site and eventually turn into a Race to Mars contest in which groups of students design their own missions from a set of predetermined hardware elements and then compete virtually to see who arrives first at the Red Planet.
Such an activity is sure to generate excitement and enthusiasm in the educational community. Students exposed to it would learn science and experience first hand the thrill and adventure of space exploration. As a spin-off, the project is likely to attract the attention of the media, not only in the U.S. but also in other participating countries that are generally far removed from any "real" space activities. This would certainly help in the expressed goal of restructuring the public image of the space program in order to get nearer to Mars.
"The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. "
Perhaps it should be time for us to stop reminiscing about past accomplishments and take a bold leap into the future. Mars lies within our reach. we possess the technology, the expertise, the talent and the courage to plunge ahead. We only lack the incentive to take us there.
Teachers frequently complain of students daydreaming in class. But perhaps in their dreams we will find the incentive and the inspiration to achieve what now seems impossible. In the words of Robert Goddard :
"Nobody knows what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow"
Our role as educators has to do with these dreams and hopes. Hopes of conquering Mars, which are so closely related to Man's old dream of a world with no frontiers, united in friendship and cooperation. And the road that leads to the fulfillment of those dreams starts right away from our classrooms. It is time to start teaching the Martians.