Date: July 4, 2011
Title: A Research Station on Mars – The Boreas Project Part 3
Podcaster: Robert Yule Elphick
Organization: The British Interplanetary Society
Links: http://www.bis-space.com/
Description: The British Interplanetary Society recently sponsored a project called Boreas. Its objective was to design a research station to be placed on the north pole of Mars in 2037. The research station was conceived to operate for at least one Mars year – possibly longer with exchanged crews. It was designed to be run by a crew of up to ten members. The project was executed over several years and finally published in a report as a series of papers. This is part three of three podcasts which summarizes some of the results of the project.
Bio: Robert Yule Elphick was raised and educated in Britain, receiving degrees in Applied Physics and Geophysics & Planetary Physics. He has spent his life studying planets working mostly in the Oil and Gas industry but following exploration of other planets as well. He is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society where he became a member of the Boreas Project contributing to the Astronomy, Geophysics, Information Technology, and station design aspects of the project. He now lives on Whidbey Island in Washington, USA where he is retired and volunteers in various ways teaching technology and science.
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Transcript:
SCRIPT – Part 3
The British Interplanetary Society recently sponsored a project called Boreas. Its objective was to design a research station to be placed on the north pole of Mars in 2037. The research station was conceived to operate for at least one Mars year – possibly longer with exchanged crews. It was designed to be run by a crew of up to ten members. The project was executed over several years and finally published in a report as a series of papers.
Hello, my name is Robert Yule Elphick. I am a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society and was a member of the project Boreas team. These podcasts are based on the project study.
In this third of three episodes we will describe some possible astronomy at the research station.
Mars has a similar obliquity to the Earth. It tilts about twenty five degrees to the ecliptic but it points in different direction. Instead of Polaris at the axis of rotation, Mars’ axis points toward a position near Deneb in Cygna.
The atmosphere of Mars is significantly different from that of the Earth. We can expect this to have a significant effect on the astronomical ‘seeing’. The problems of observing through Earth’s atmosphere are due mainly to the presence of water and dust. Water vapor is particularly attenuating at infrared wavelengths. On Earth, the higher the altitude of the observatory the clearer the seeing at optical wavelengths but we really need to get to balloon altitudes or higher to observe in the IR.
On Mars, the atmosphere is much thinner. At ground level the pressure is probably around nine to thirteen millibars at the North pole compared to over one thousand millibars on the surface of the Earth. There is negligible water vapor in the atmosphere, especially at the north pole at night (remember the night is about ten months long at the north pole!). We suspect therefore that the ‘seeing’ in both the optical and IR wavelengths will be far superior on Mars.
Retroreflector
Landing a retroreflector with Corner Cube Prisms on the north pole before 2037, the proposed launch date of the Boreas project, would allow measurements of the atmosphere’s absorption and extinction by bouncing laser beams at a number of wavelengths from a satellite and monitoring the reflections. The reflector would be similar to the models left on the Moon during the Apollo program. These measurements would help to design the optimal telescope and observing program for the station before embarking on the Boreas adventure.
Parallax
The greatest astronomical advantage to Mars is its distance from Earth. The separation of Mars and Earth is sufficient for parallax measurements. The parallax measurements have the huge advantage that they would be taken from both Earth and Mars at the same time. All previous parallax measurements of stars have been taken at six month intervals to take advantage of the diameter Earth’s orbit as the base line. However these measurements are subject to any changes in the position of the targets during this time period. By taking a picture of a target from the Earth and Mars AT THE SAME TIME any temporal variation of the target’s position is eliminated whether regular, cyclical, singular or chaotic. Target motion that might be caused by gravitational anomalies in it’s vicinity, planets orbiting it, unseen companions such as brown dwarfs, old burned out stars or black holes. Also unseen passing objects. These effects would be removed leaving a much more precise parallax measurement of distance than has ever been achieved before.
In addition, when Mars and Earth are at opposition the base line is larger by over twenty percent from anything done before at 2.5 AU. Distances to near stars should therefore be more accurate than those obtained with the Hipparcos mission or even the future Gaia program. Any improvement in our distance scales is, of course, of great astronomical and cosmic significance and interest. Particularly when we obtain improved distances to Cepheid variables. Polaris, as a population I Cepheid variable, will be a target for sure. Especially since it the closest one to Sol.
It will be interesting to compare the results of these new parallax measurements with previous ones made from Earth. Differences will require new explanations and could well trigger further research.
Marsʼ axis wobble
Computer modeling of the orbital data of Mars Global Surveyor, indicate that the core of Mars is at least partially fluid and that the axis of rotation includes some wobble.
Telescopic observations from the pole will provide additional data to generate a detailed picture of the wobble and so help refine our understanding of the dynamics of the core of the planet. Repeated observations of selected stellar targets over long periods will provide valuable data. If the observatory could either be continuously manned over many years, or be run remotely from Earth, for long periods of time, long term patterns will emerge and increase our understanding of the interior of Mars.
Telescope
The design of the telescope system will depend on the results of the retroreflector experiments and the mass allowance for the telescope. The telescope will probably be a Ritchey-Chrétian design. That is, a Cassegrain telescope with hyperbolic mirrors. This design allows observations to be made at visual frequencies through the infrared. The Hubble telescope was build with this design. Since the surface gravity on Mars is only about a third of that on the surface of the Earth, the telescope and mount can be of a lighter build. The comparative clarity of the atmosphere should allow the telescope to reach its Dawes Limit of resolution so a seventy two centimeter (thirty inch) diameter primary should provide a 0.152 arc second resolution. At the north pole a simple mount will suffice because an alt-azimuth mount is the same thing as an equatorial mount. A Dobson type of mount is easier to maintain, even in the difficult conditions of the north pole.
The telescope will require protection from dusty wind storms and carbon dioxide snow. A door over the main aperture will be the first line of defense. For worse conditions the telescope will be able to slew into a horizontal position and be covered by a semi cylindrical ʻtentʼ.
Radio astronomy
The weight of an antenna for radio astronomy is too high using current technology and conductive metals. If we could find a low density material that is a super conductor at the temperatures of the Martian north pole then it might be possible build a useful antenna. The only reason to make the effort would be to produce a large baseline with the Earth for interferometry work.
These podcasts have only scratched the surface of Project Boreas. There is a great deal more detail that makes this project such an interesting study. They include health considerations, logistics, communications, biological / organic chemistry research, surface transportation, data processing, robotics, life support, etc.
Can you, your friends, or your school come up with suggestions to improve the Boreas proposals? I would be interested to hear from you.
The Report of Project Boreas, composed of a number of papers, is one hundred and ninety two pages. It can be purchased by going to the British Interplanetary Society website at B I S dash S P A C E F L I G H T. Any search engine will find it. Look in the book section.
Thanks for listening. See you on Mars!
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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