MSGT Journal - News and Views from the Mars Society at Georgia Tech

There is a meeting Tuesday, March 11, at 11 am in Guggenheim Building (School of
Aerospace Engineering) Room 244. This meeting will be a send-off
ceremony for our Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) Crew 69.
This is a great opportunity to meet the crew and see what kind of projects
they will be working on. It is also a good time for you to find out how you can
participate in this unique program this year by signing up to be a mission
support volunteer.
Again, the meeting will be on March 11, at 11 am, in Guggenheim 244!
Come and enjoy the FREE PIZZA!

EMS Technologies, Inc. was a sponsor last year for MDRS Crew 47.

ATLANTA, Oct. 3, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) — EMS Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ELMG - News) announced today that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has awarded EMS Defense and Space Systems a $1.2 million contract to provide Ka-band antennas for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) exploratory rover. The MSL is scheduled for liftoff sometime in September 2009, during a narrow launch window that occurs for only a few weeks every 26 months.

The MSL is twice as long as and carries a greater payload than the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. At liftoff in 2009, the MSL will carry the largest, most advanced set of instruments for on-the-spot science duties ever dispatched to the Martian surface. The rover is being designed to assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support life.

The Ka-band antennas, which use EMS’s patented slot array technology, are a critical part of the Terminal Descent Sensor (TDS), which will guide the MSL to the surface of Mars. Unlike previous Mars rovers that used inflatable airbags to bounce the rovers to a halt on the planet’s surface, the MSL rover will use precision landing techniques to steer itself toward the Martian surface. EMS anticipates that the TDS antennas will be used on other future Mars missions as well.

“We are proud to be a part of this NASA mission of discovery that will vastly enrich our knowledge of the red planet,'’ said Jay Grove, senior vice president and general manager of EMS’s Defense and Space Systems division. “EMS was selected for this exciting program because of our technical strength, our forty years of space flight heritage, and our ability to meet the critical schedule this program requires.'’

About EMS Technologies, Inc.

EMS Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ELMG - News) is a leading innovator in the design and manufacture of wireless, satellite and defense solutions, and focuses its unique range of advanced technologies on the needs of broadband and mobile information users. The Company is headquartered in Atlanta, has approximately 1,200 workers worldwide, and operates manufacturing facilities in Atlanta, Ottawa and Brazil.

EMS Technologies’ Defense and Space Systems Division develops advanced technology systems for military and space applications. The division provides critical subsystems for communications, radar, and electronic warfare systems.

For more information, visit EMS on the World Wide Web at http://www.ems-t.com.

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION CONTACT (January 19)
Georgia Tech has been given an opportunity to contact the current crew of the International Space Station, Expedition 12, over amateur radio. One of the current crew members, Bill McArthur, is a Tech graduate (MSAE ‘83). Ten students will be asking the crew questions.

Live simulcast of the event will be carried on 91.1 FM in Atlanta, or www.wrek.org online. There will also be a group listening session at 10:00 AM at the Clary Theater in the Student Success Center.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0705/28edequal.html

The time has come for America to commit itself to the human exploration and settlement of Mars.

Despite the greater distance to Mars, we are much better prepared today to send humans to Mars than we were to launch humans to the moon in 1961 when John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to achieve that goal. Given the will, we could have our first teams on Mars within 10 years.

It needn’t break the bank, either. Some previous NASA plans for human Mars missions were very expensive because they involved developing orbiting spaceports to construct giant interplanetary spaceships filled with all the supplies needed for a round trip to the red planet. But technology has now been demonstrated that would allow us to manufacture a rocket’s return propellant out of the Martian atmosphere. Our spacecraft can be dramatically smaller and cheaper if we don’t use them to ship to Mars things that can just as easily be made there.

If done in this way, the cost of the Mars program would be about $20 billion to develop all the hardware needed. After that, each mission by the copy would cost between $1 billion and $2 billion. It’s a sum this country can easily afford.

But why do it?

For the knowledge. This past summer NASA scientists revealed a rock ejected from Mars by meteoric impact, which showed strong evidence of life on Mars in the distant past. If this could be confirmed by actual finds of fossils on the Martian surface, it would show that the origin of life is not unique to the Earth, and thus by implication reveal a universe that is filled with life and probably intelligence as well. From the point of view of humanity learning its true place in the universe, this would be the most important scientific enlightenment since Copernicus.

Robotic probes can help in such a search, but by themselves they are completely insufficient. Fossil hunting requires the ability to travel long distances through unimproved terrain, to climb steep slopes, do heavy and delicate work, and exercise very subtle forms of perception and on-the-spot intuition.

For the future, Mars is not just a scientific curiosity, it is a world with a surface area equal to all the continents of Earth combined, possessing all the elements that are needed to support not only life, but technological civilization.

With Discovery’s successful launch this week, the nation now has a chance to lift its eyes and accept the challenge of opening new frontiers of new worlds. It is a historic opportunity. We should seize the time.

Robert Zubrin, an astronautical engineer, is president of the Mars Society.

Georgia Tech will be hosting the Yuri’s Night World Space Party (http://www.yurisnight.net), a celebration of the anniversary of the first person in space, Yuri Gagarin, and the first shuttle flight, STS-1.

Details will be forthcoming as plans are finalized.