Landing Site Chat Summary

This web chat was held on 3/26/97 amongst the Mars Academy participants in order to decide the landing site. The final decision was made after our members voted on their choices.

Mars Academy:
Welcome to the Landing Site Chat Area

Jose Tiago Goncalves:
Besides being able to provide the necessary fuel the ice caps would also be interesting place for
some reasearch on primitive life forms.

Richard Askren:
Would an ancient river bed be a good place to land? If there was once water in the area would there be a greater chance of finding fossils?

lucky 13:
any churchill students in here right now?

Mars Academy:
We are standing by. welcome to the landing site chat. It is a warm and sunny day here in Buenos Aires, and we are looking forward to Easter Break.

Mars Academy:
What would be your first option for a landing site?

Tiago:
The Poles :)
They are made of frozen CO2 and H2O..

Churchill School:
Hello from Northern Canada! It is just over freezing here, but for us, that is nice weather!

Nuno Vicente:
Is that it? Ok, then. I would like to ask your opinion on Hebes Chasma. It seems that it's got everything in order to meet our goals.

Mars Academy:
We like the idea of the poles for precisely those reasons. But we would have some problems, as we are coming in in an equatorial orbit.

Nuno Vicente:
Wouldn't the poles be a choice namely to find fossils, since the temperature out there is too low to have life nowadays?

Barrett from LA RONGE, SASK, Canada:
Barrett suggests that we land on Eridania NW becAuse it is close to Mara Tyrrhenum.

Tiago:
Well, if Mars had life forms earlier than Earth that was because it was smaller than Earth and the surface cooled earlier. Maybe it had an atmosphere and water but there's the chance that due to to earlier cooling of the surface the planet 'died' much sooner than the Earth

Mars Academy:
Nuno Vicente: Perhaps only very strong ecosystems could be buried deep under the ice caps, but to discover them we would have to drill considerably

Dabnee from Churchill:
There could be problems with communication at the poles.

Nuno Vicente:
The poles seem to me a good choice. Sincerely, I find them too inhospitable, but they can certainly tell us a lot about past life, which is one of the reasons why we are making this after all.

Tiago:
When it 'died' maybe the water in the atmosphere and the CO2 were concentrated on the poles. That's why i think the poles would be a good place to start looking for life

Tiago:
The poles' composition is similar to the composition of a CO2 rich atmosphere, and Carbon usually means life

Churchill School:
Would the North Pole be a "penetrator" site?

Nuno Vicente:
How costly would an orbit transfer be? If you've got to take more combustible, then there will be certain constrictions regarding total weight, wouldn't it be?

Mars Academy:
To sum up the poles offer the best climatic record of the Martin Evolution (which is not one of our primary goals) and promise of fossil life or CO2 based life forms that can withstand the temperature. The problems are the very cold temperatures (don't forget that this is going to be a manned mission), communications problems, and propulsion is going to pose a problem, because the landing site is not near the equator.

Tiago:
Besides we could decompose the water in the poles by electrolisis. That would form O2 (essential to the ship's life support systems) and H2 (a great fuel). The power to decompose the water would be available from one of the ship's reactors.

Tiago:
I think the real problem posed here is landing. Communications, etc. are easy to solve.

Mars Academy:
Can we now discuss equatorial sites, like Hebes Chasma , Eridania Northwest, and Gusev Crater.

Tiago:
We will have satellites orbiting Mars in a near future

Nuno Vicente:
Don't you think that we have a definite information about water existing on the poles, yet we do not not how much is there in old fluvial terrains? Having in mind that we certainly will be in risk somehow, how likely is it that undersoil could provide us with the same water that in the poles would allow us to produce both hydrogen and oxygen?

Mars Academy:
There are several equatorial landing sites which are ancient river beds and promise to be rich in fossils caught in the sedimentary walls of these basins.

Tiago:
The research on that will be made by Pathfinder

Ewelina:
The Hebes Chasma wouldn't be a very good site because it is located in a canyon and there could be lava floods.

Mars Academy:
Nuno: Good point, but will we depend on in situ production of propellants and life support systems on the first manned mission to the planet?
Churchill and Barrett, we would like to hear your opinion.

Tiago:
Ewelina: mars is not a very active planet

Sandy:
Gusev Crater is in a tropical region, so it would be warm. Also, a flat landing region.

Mars Academy:
Hebes Chasma is a closed canyon system, which at one point was an ancient lake bed.

Nuno Vicente:
Looking at a Mars Atlas, the northern hemisphere looks like a more promising ground in general than the southern. Gusev Crater seems to be associated with a very limited outflow when compared to the one that marks the surface outgoing Echus Chasma. Dao vallis, on the other hand, certainly seems to be a good place where to land, because it may be near to hydrothermal sources(still active?)

Sandy and Barrett:
Gusev Crater is an old lake bed. It could contain fossils!

Tiago:
These sources would be a very good site where to find life, just as the bottom of Hebes Chasma (for other reasons).

Nuno Vicente:
Gusev Crater is (no doubt about it) a good site as well. If all the places we discuss are, for that reason, interesting, we still have to find one from all of them. That's why it will be hard to choose one among them!

Sandy:
Dao Valis: Hasn't been explored. We have very little information. but precautions must be taken.

Tiago:
Yep... I agree with Nuno. There's also Candor Chasma I, Valles Marineris etc. etc.
They're all good sites, but they're not outstanding sites... we must focus our attention on
these ones.

Mars Academy:
Tiago: To which landing sites are you referring to?

Nuno Vicente:
Surely. Should we search for mixtures of ground, like in Dao Vallis, when we are mainly looking for one thing, life (present or past)? How much is that particular mix important for our knowledge? If we have a long time on Mars, should we not be near many different ,interesting, things at once?

Tiago:
We must concentrate on the landing sites which have *OUTSTANDING* coditions
to host our mission. Hebes Chasma is one of those. But others like Gusev Crater are just good sites.

Nuno Vicente:
I am referring, obviously, to the features around Valles Marineris (Noctis Labirynthus, Echus Chasma, Hebes Chasma, Ius Chasma, etc.)

Barrett:
if we land on Eridania, we will have easy access to Mera Terranium, it is a flat landing site,

Mars Academy:
Can we all write our top three choices for a landing site in order of preference.

Tiago:
Yes, the lands near Valles Marineris seem to be the best option when considering non polar
regions

Nuno Vicente:
Look, we have to choose one of them. There is no use in saying that they are good, sites, we know that already. We should be enumerating, qualifying those sites, in order to meet a final choice, not continue saying "But this one's good!!". Like traffic policemen say, "Move along, move along!"

Tiago:
Well, first i would like to point that Hebes Chasma has a few more problems

Nuno Vicente:
I would name Hebes Chasma, then Dao Vallis, then the North Polar cap.

Mars Academy:
We are running out of time, and we need to arrive at some conclusions soon.

Churchill:
1. (Best Site) Parana Valis
2. Hebes Chasma
3. Mare Terinium

Nuno Vicente:
Tiago, I must agree with you in that it may be, among other things, difficult to land.

Tiago:
In my opinion the main landing site would act more like a base. From there we could move to other points on the surface to collect samples and for that we would use a kind of plane that would be to the mars mission what the moon rover was to the Apolo missions
A chasm would certainly not be the best place to land a plane...

Mars Academy:
Barrett, can you give us your choices.

Churchill:
We agree. That is why we recommend Eridania

Tiago:
My choices would be : Polar Cap (still don't know which one of them), Valles Marineres, Hebes Chasma

Churchill:
Barrett: Eridania.

Churchill:
Ewelina: Hebes Chasma.

Nuno Vicente:
In most of the sites, we are talking of depressions: Dao Vallis, Gusev Crater, Parana Valles, they are all in that same position. Were we to land on top, say, some miles off the rim, we would be able to both lower ourselves down the Vallis, or Chasma, and start off from a high place. What do you think about that now, Tiago?

Mars Academy:
We will post a synopsis of this chat on the page so that other people that couldn't make it to the chat can express their opinion via e-mail. We'll be leaving now, thanks for all your input. Signing off.

Nuno Vicente:
See you in the next chat, guys!

Tiago:
That's a good idea... but Valles Marineres is connected to some of the most important landing sites. It would be a good place.

Nuno Vicente:
Between Valles Marineris and Hebes Chasma, Tiago? Would that fit?

Churchill:
Thanks to all, we as a group think that this was an excellent diz dialogue and in the end think that Parana Valles rules!
Later!

Jackie Meyer:
I think it would be better to use an equatorial site because of the orbital mechanics involved. We can't screw up our first mission, plus, there are many excellent sites for exobiology along the equator.

Jackie Meyer:
I'd look at Dao Vallis because of the chances of fossils being found and the water frost and clouds that exist there.

Mr. Rowan:
Please include me in the next chat . . . we had some connectivity problems and were involved in some other projects that kept us from participating this time . . .
We'll be there next time!