The
lanky, silver-haired Brit grimaces. This is not happy news.
But the good-natured researcher does not let it darken
his morning. This is still an exciting week for scientists
obsessed with the red planet: the American rover Spirit
is beaming back fascinating pictures of the dusty, frozen
planet that will fuel future study for him and his students.
Mr.
Spray is the director of this nation's only NASA-affiliated
space centre and the only full-time faculty member for
the University of New Brunswick centre quickly becoming
a training ground for leaders of future Mars missions.
Canada's
Mars U is a well-kept secret. It has been open for more
than two years, but few know it exists -- even folks who
live in this sleepy capital city. The centre, with nine
researchers, carries out its work with quiet modesty from
a few rooms in the back halls of the university's geology
building.
"A
lot of my friends thought I was kidding when I said I was
going to Fredericton for grad school," says 23-year-old
Beverley Elliott of Edmonton, who was just as surprised
when she discovered the place to study planetary geology
was not in Ottawa or Toronto, but New Brunswick.
For
her master's thesis, she is dedicating herself to the mysteries
of Valles Marineris -- a canyon 11 kilometres deep that
cuts across 4,200 kilometres of Martian landscape. It belittles
the Grand Canyon.
It is
her quest to find out how it got there and what it is made
of. She's just starting the data-crunching and image-analysing
that will help her in the drive for answers. One of the
obvious questions she is out to answer: Did a river run
through it?
Researchers
here and elsewhere are convinced that the dusty, barren
and bone-dry red planet was once home to streams, lakes
and a vast ocean. But it is far from scientifically proven
-- like much about Mars, this remains a mystery.
If there
was water there, that suggests the planet sustained life
of some kind. "In fact, one theory has life having
evolved on Mars early on in the solar system when conditions
there were more favourable than here for life, and that
we were transported as bacterial or primitive life forms
on meteorites to Earth," says Mr. Spray. "So,
we're in fact Martians."
That's
not science-fiction absurdity, but real scientific theory.
Whether it ever proves true remains to be seen, of course,
but it is not too farfetched.
Bits
of Martian rock do fly through space and land on Earth.
The meteorites are a valued quarry for collectors and scientists.
The university has its own collection tucked away in a
safe -- six grams of Martian rock it bought a year ago
from a Scottish dealer for $6,000.
The
focus at the centre is increasingly on Mars as scientific
curiosity about it intensifies. But it is not its sole
focus. Its grounding is in the study of craters on Earth
-- a field that brought Mr. Spray here 18 years ago from
Britain. The geologist intended to stay just a few years,
but is now firmly rooted and was behind the effort to convince
NASA to
approve the university as a regional planetary imaging facility.
Now,
he is consciously focusing research at the centre on Mars
to meet what will be a growing demand for talented young
minds to take part in future missions to the planet.
"It
is not a planet that was formed 4.5 billion years ago and
then shut down and has been frigid since. It has had a
very rich, intriguing history and it may well have had
life on it. Because of that, there are a number of American,
European, Japanese and U.S. missions to Mars."
He is
involved in planning future missions himself -- sitting
on two committees for a NASA rover mission slated for 2009
and as Canadian representative for the European Space Agency.
But he is most keen to see Canada lead a mission to Mars,
arguing this country has the savvy to pull it off. And
he says it need not cost a lot.
"When
the earthquake occurred in Bam, Iran, Canada immediately
pledged $500 million. That's great, that's fantastic, and
I think that type of response is typically Canadian and
right. We can go to Mars for probably between $100 million
and $200 million."
Canada,
he says, could put ground-penetrating radar into orbit
around the red planet to find out what is beneath its surface.
The Canadian Space Agency has contemplated a mission, but
says its current budgets won't support one.
© 2004
David Stonehouse. For permissions to reprint, please e-mail info@davidstonehouse.com |
