Martian Summer

by Andrew Kessler

  There’s no official response, because the team’s plan for its content just fell apart. It was supposed to be simple: confirm that TEGA also sees the chemical perchlorate and then do a press conference about how amazing it is that they discovered perchlorate on Mars. The team wanted to announce that it’s all a silly mixup and in fact, what they thought was a coverup of life was merely confusion around perchlorate. Bill’s team quickly analyzed the data and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, science and the news cycle operate on different schedules. The analysis of the new TEGA data showed neither chlorine nor oxygen, the two ingredients you need to make perchlorate. So instead of a tidy, myth-debunking story, we have a conspiracy and another fascinating Mars mystery. Why does one sample have the new substance and another doesn’t? The collective blood pressure of our serene scientists rises. There’s a lot of understanding that needs to happen on a short timeline.

  The chemical signature Bill and his engineers looked for—a little peak at notch 35 on their graph—isn’t there.

  “We looked for calibration issues,” Bill says, anything to explain. “That only confirmed the calibration was perfect and the test looks great.

  “If it was there, we should have seen it,” he continues. It might still be there. They just don’t see it … yet.

  “Maybe ice messes up the signal, but we don’t see chlorine,” he says. That elicits an uncomfortable chuckle. That would be fitting. The ice in the sample they rushed to acquire could be blocking the perchlorate measurements in TEGA. I want to tell them to turn their frowns upside down because it’s a great story. Everyone loves a mystery.

  “I guess I better go find Mike [Hecht] and tell him we can’t support his findings,” Bill says.

  AT MIDPOINT, DAVE HAMARA GIVES THE FULL REPORT.

  “TEGA did a 1005-degree Celsius bake. The instrument is happy and healthy. It’s ready to go,” Dave says. From an engineering perspective, everything is great. The science is murkier. Bill Boynton would like to clarify what these results mean. He tells the scientists and engineers the abbreviated version of events.

  “On sol 25 we saw an oxygen release. That suggested perchlorate, but could have been other things as well. Then WCL detected chlorine on the selective ion sensor,” Bill explains.

  That led the team to think there was perchlorate—an unexpected finding.

  “If it was perchlorate, we should have seen chlorine in this [heating] ramp,” he says.

  But that’s not the whole story. There is one very good reason that the results of the samples are different: Baby Bear is from the surface, and Wicked Witch is from the ice layer.

  “We didn’t look for it [chlorine] last time [on sol 25] because we didn’t think it was there. But this time we didn’t see the O2 release either; so maybe it’s because it’s a different sample,” he says. Perhaps it’s the icy sample that affects the reading. It’s a complicated picture. “Complicated pictures are sometimes very beautiful,” Bill says, reminding the group that a tidy press event is not their main goal as scientists.

  Boynton shows a graph from the TEGA experiment of the surface sample, Baby Bear. There’s a clear peak at atomic weight 32. That’s the signature for a release of oxygen. It has an atomic mass of 16, but likes to hang out in pairs. So it appears on his graph at notch 32. (Please refer to your old chemistry book if this stuff about atomic masses and stuff gets you excited.)

  Then for comparison, Bill shows a graph of the current sample—Wicked Witch. There is no peak. That means there’s no oxygen signal at the temperature range where perchlorate would decompose. But it’s not really fair to compare the composition of samples taken from two depths. Different depths means different compositions. That’s exactly why the team needs samples at different depths. They want a variety to give a complete profile of the dirt.

  “If we want to compare apples to apples, we need to do another surface sample and look for chlorine,” Bill says. He proposes that the next sample should come from the Rosy Red trench.

  A vigorous chemistry debate ensues. By the time it’s over, there are hundreds of stories in cyberspace about Phoenix finding life on Mars.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  FULL RELEASE

  SOL 69

  THE SOC IS FULL LONG BEFORE KICKOFF. MIKE HECHT WALKS through downlink at a brisk pace, then through uplink, and back around again.

  “Anyone seen Bill?” Mike asks. Hecht took it upon himself to craft his own perchlorate press release, and he wants Bill to look it over. The controversy keeps growing. The mainstream press loved the story and thousands of news outlets around the globe picked it up. There’s no choice but to call a press conference. Bill isn’t in downlink. Hecht hurries off to find him.

  The public outreach team scrambles to prepare the press conference, quell the fury at NASA and learn everything they can about perchlorate. Right now, they’re feeling shaky and want a briefing from the science team before the press conference. They already know the press is going to be confused. How? Because we’re all confused.

  “We will get a million requests when the information goes public, and it doesn’t help that when you look up perchlorate on Google it says it’s a ground water contaminant,” Carla Bitter says. “We’re used to people asking ‘Is this even real?’ for even the most basic images.”

  “Please provide us with a simple explanation,” she begs the science team. “Otherwise, we’re going to get gobsmacked.” Sara Hammond comes charging into downlink.

  “Absolutely no one is to speak about the results before the conference,” she says. The press is hounding the science team, but she implores us to ignore them.

  Bill helps Sam and Mike work out the perchlorate angle for a press release.

  “They’ll see it is toxic, and write that human exploration to Mars is impossible,” Mike Hecht says, worried about the fate of the Mars program.

  “MECA was originally built for understanding human space travel. People know that. How can we play dumb?” Mike asks. I’m not sure Hecht realizes that outside of a few dedicated journalists, most people know zilch about his instrument. Still, he’s being cautious. Once the life-on-Mars story goes away, they’ll need to replace it with something interesting.

  Google also says perchlorate can be used for rocket fuel! Toxicity aside, doesn’t that make human exploration even more possible? The best angles are considered in a sort of endless loop of science-tastic “Yeah, but what about… .” Sam and Mike worked themselves into a frenzy. They convince themselves that the errant news story puts their credibility on the line.

  “Let’s take a step back,” Richard Quinn, a MECA chemist, finally says when the conversation turns to how the world will judge them for keeping humans off Mars. They don’t need to discuss the future of the Mars program in the 21st century. Keep it simple and only talk about perchlorate.

  “Just tell them it’s premature to talk about it in any other context,” Quinn says.

  Sam isn’t sure. Bill Boynton tells him not to worry.

  “It’s kind of fun that the press has misread a story that’s not even true and then turned it on its head,” Bill says.

  Now we’ve got a real conspiracy. No matter what we say, doubts will persist. Any effort to clear up a conspiracy only fuels its growth. It’s like proving you are sane at the asylum.

  “Do you think the press release is okay?” Leslie Tamppari asks Bill.

  “It’s fine,” he says. Sara Hammond paces back and forth. She goes to her office and comes back. NASA is really on her case. She says Ray already spoke with Andrea Thompson from Space.com, and Sara thinks that was a “big mistake.” Peter talked to her, too. She doesn’t want anyone to fuel the story. All she can do is worry until tomorrow’s press conference.

  “We should just be careful about quantifying everything and then tell the press the story we have,” Richard Quinn says, trying to ground us back in the reality of the science.

  The spin and timing efforts aren’t really doing much besides giving
Sara, Mike, and Sam ulcers.

  Dr. Charles Elachi, the head of JPL, is in Tucson for a site visit. Leslie Tamppari excuses herself from the discussion to greet him.

  “You’ve had an exciting weekend. Perchlorate. The President!” Elachi says and laughs.

  “And we’ll have a few more exciting days. We’ve got a press release and a teleconference tomorrow,” Leslie says.

  Aviation Week prints a retraction. There aren’t many other retractions from news outlets that reported the story. Telling the world the White House wasn’t briefed on secret findings just puts the story back in the news. And it makes it seem all the more conspiratorial.

  Scientists run in and out of offices, Sara paces, notes get passed—and kickoff hasn’t even started. We put the conspiracy out of our minds and try to get back to planning. Of course, to complicate matters, JPL planned to do its first remote operations test today. How could they have known Phoenix would get caught up in a conspiracy now? The press release is still coming together. No one asked me to give it a once-over, but I suspect it will say “We did not find life. We did find perchlorate. Aviation Week made a mistake. Thanks.” We’ll know tomorrow.

  TODAY IS THE FIRST TEST OF REMOTE OPERATIONS. JPL NEEDS TO prepare for the extended mission. After sol 90, the science team returns to their respective university teaching positions and the engineers go back their home bases. The SOC will become an empty shell. Operating the lander will get more complicated. This next phase of the science and engineering teams working remotely is called distributed operations. The conference phone in downlink rings.

  “Ray on the line,” says the voice. Ray is the remote science lead today. He dials into downlink and watches the downlink on a webcam videoconference.

  “Tabitha, can you come here?’ Ray says into the phone loudly. Distributed ops will happen with webcams, remote logins to the SOC computers, and lots of conference calls. Ray conducts the first practice run of distributed ops. Ray calls over another student, Amy, and soon he has a small crowd of his students around the phone.

  This doesn’t seem like the most opportune time to start the trial. But the perchlorate kerfuffle is background noise for the engineers and scientists dealing with today’s plan. The engineers want to move the team back to Earth time soon because the transition to remote operations is complicated. Job descriptions will change, the planning cycle will be reorganized, and, with everyone spread across the country, it’s difficult.

  “We have to combine the kickoff and midpoint meetings and we’ll need to add several strategic positions to help the science lead,” Joel says. “We’re still ironing out the details.” If there’s one thing that JPL knows how to do, it’s organize people. They use a matrix management system that gives them the flexibility to quickly put resources where they are needed. It’s how they tackle logistical and technical problems so effectively. It’s what you need, to get a lot of smart people working efficiently.

  “Barry Goldstein has an announcement to make,” Ray says over the conference phone.

  More bad news?

  “Today is a momentous day,” Barry says. “It’s one year since launch. And I baked a cake.” He has a huge chocolate frosted sheet cake. Everyone applauds. Ray waits for the room to quiet.

  “Okay,” Ray says. “Let’s get started.” But he’s interrupted again.

  “Just a minute,” Peter says. He’s back in the SOC and, with Phoenix’s honor nobly defended, it’s time to get back to the mission at hand.

  “Over the weekend there was a story about Phoenix hiding info and that the President was briefed. We have to stay ahead of this story, even if we don’t know exactly what it is or where it’s going. We’re only part way through the science process. But we’ve been forced to announce our data because of leaks. So please don’t speak about this. We want to keep the public in the loop, but we need to understand the complex story first. It’s almost like we’re being chased by the paparazzi and there are false stories. But we know that there is only one story to tell … and that’s the truth. This is bad news as far as I’m concerned. I would have liked to have a peer-reviewed piece. But that’s not an option.”

  They will announce their inconclusive results at an upcoming press conference.

  “NASA has asked us not to mention the consequences for a manned mission,” Peter adds. Sara Hammond repeats her request not to speak with anyone and to please not even say “perchlorate.” We are supposed to say “the P-word” from now on.

  “Isn’t perchlorate what the movie Erin Brockovich is about?” someone from the outreach team asks. That would be quite a coincidence! Unfortunately, it’s not perchlorate Julia Roberts is after, but chromium-6. Oh well.

  “Let’s get started now?” Ray says. Finally we’re ready for kickoff. Today’s plan is full of exploratory trenching in the Cupboard site. The geologists are excited. Forget the P-word for now; they can’t wait to get their hands dirty with some unbridled Martian digging. In another development, the MECA team is finally ready to take an image with the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). If it works, this will give us our first look at Mars on the nano scale. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter. Really small.

  The crux of the plan is the acquisition and delivery of Rosy Red to TEGA. The idea is to get a synergistic measurement to compare with the results of MECA. In short, another surface sample, similar to the one that had perchlorate in it. Many of the scientists now hypothesize that the perchlorate is only on the surface.

  “You’re really quiet out there. You still there?” Ray asks the audience in downlink when he finishes. “The first day we tried this on the rover mission, I talked for a half hour before I realized no one was there.” We’re here, Ray.

  This sol’s plan is massive. Phoenix will work for thirty-six hours straight. It’s a good distraction for our robot. We don’t want her getting all worked up because of the conspiracy theory. Better off keeping her busy. Phoenix wakes up at 9:00 in the morning Mars time on sol 70 and finally goes to sleep at 6:00 in the evening on 71. There are no lander labor laws as of this printing. But our energy will get very low. The spacecraft team makes sure we keep a close eye on our power levels to prevent her from overdoing it and safing.

  “THINGS ARE MOVING VERY QUICKLY,” SARA SAYS. ANDREA THOMPSON from Space.com just filed a story with interviews from Peter and Craig Covault from Aviation Week.

  The headline from Space.com reads: “NASA Scientist: Reports of Mars Life Finding Are ‘Bogus’.” Peter’s quote emphatically denies that the team briefed White House officials, saying the report is “bogus and damaging.”

  How could this all have happened? The story starts sometime before the big ice press conference. Craig Covault insists that a good source told him that the team briefed the President’s science advisory on a new Mars finding made by the MECA team. Covault figured the findings would dominate the press conference. He was surprised to find no MECA representative at the press conference.

  “Where are you hiding the MECA team?” Covault had asked.

  You may recall that awkward moment. If not, here’s how it went:

  The team laughed, thinking it a joke.

  “We hid them under the table,” Peter said. There were no MECA representatives because it was a press conference about TEGA. The team didn’t understand the MECA perchlorate finding and weren’t prepared to discuss. The press conference ended, and Covault thought he had a scoop: MECA intentionally kept from the media that day in order to hide a secret finding. The whole incident speaks to larger truths about information sharing and managing Phoenix, but that’s another story.

  Covault says the fury amounts to a misreading of his article. He still stands by his claim that the Phoenix team briefed the White House.

  Peter disagrees.

  “We did not brief anyone at the White House,” Peter adamantly says. Now we have a classic Martian standoff.

  And if I might do a bit more pop-psychologizing and freelance analysis, here’s how it probably ha
ppened. Everyone at the SOC got excited about perchlorate. Who wouldn’t mention some exciting new finding to a friend or colleague? Just don’t tell anyone else. The colleagues shared the good news with one confidante and asked them not to say anything. Even Peter, when asked by a TV crew what the most exciting find was, said “I can’t tell you.” That piqued interest.

  When the news gets to Craig Covault at Aviation Week, he talks to his super-secret sources and then they say something about the President. Aviation Week interprets “not telling” as “hiding.” And then the Internet discovers the story and pretty soon we’re the Paris Hilton of space.

  MIKE MELLON IS IN THE KITCHEN POURING A 25-CENT COFFEE FROM the honor bar.

  “It’s not very good,” he says. He’s only in the SOC for three more days. He’s finally run out of funding, and he’s already worked through his vacations and every other break he’s had.

  “It’s a sad reality. But I made my budget for this five years ago,” he says. And he’s stretched it as far as it can go. Now he has to pay attention to his other research projects.

  “Now I feel really guilty about the fifty-dollar scone,” I say.

  “It was actually $52.00,” he says. The $52.00 scone is my fault. I bled his last remaining funds. Mike Mellon’s wife, Heather, works on the mission, too. We went on a coffee run last week. There was a long break in the action, so we left our Mars compound to avoid the 25-cent joe. I insisted we go to the “good” cafe. Heather Mellon drove and we misread the parking sign and got a parking ticket. The good scones cost $52.00. Serves us right for leaving Mars, even if Mike did forgive me for the scone.

  “I spent as much of the summer as I possibly could,” Mellon says, “and I can’t neglect my other projects or students.” Mike never imagined such an integrated role on the mission for himself. When Leslie Tamppari went on maternity leave, mission managers asked Mellon to help organize the Geology group, GSTG. He’s an expert on Mars geology. Once he started, they realized they couldn’t really do it without him.