Steve Squyres

This week we talk with Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the science payload on the Mars Exploration Rover Project, & Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Preview from the show:

We have been so incredibly lucky with this mission. I mean, to have that dead wheel, which we thought was a catastrophe at the time, turn up one of the most exciting discoveries of the mission, was very good fortune.

The next big thing, at least in mars exploration, along with the continuing adventures of the rovers, is a mission called Phoenix. And Phoenix is a lander mission that’s going to land near the north polar region of mars, and is going to dig down into the soil there, hope to find ice and then, scoop up some of that ice, and put it into a little chemistry set on top of the lander, and find out what’s inside of that ice.

What we’ve tried to do is provide images, provide curriculum materials, and provide information for educators as we go. And I think that’s actually the best way to do it, because the thing that makes this exciting is not reading about it in the historical sense after the mission’s over, so much as being an active participant – you know following the mission as it’s going along. You can go to our website, and you can download the latest pictures from Mars that have come down in the last day or so.

Links:

• NASA’s Mars Exploration Page
• Audio clips with Dr. Steve Squyres, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
• Transcript: Mars Rover Update with Dr. Steve Squyres
• Steve Squyres on NASA Direct
• Steve Squyres entry from Wikipedia
• Steve Squyres: Man on a Misson from NOVA
• Steve Squyres Interview on The Colbert Report
• Steve Squyres on NPR’s Fresh Air from WHYY, March 29, 2004
• ABC News Person of the Week Article
• Father of Spirit and Opportunity, an article from Scientific American, October 2004
• Interview with Steve Squyres from The Cornell Daily Sun
• Mars Exploration Rovers Mission Update blog & Way Cool Scientist!
• UC Berkeley Distinguished Lecture in Astronomy Lecture with Steve Squyres on Google Video
• Roving Mars, written by Steve Squyres from amazon.com

Brian’s “Flaming Pumpkin of Death”
Dale’s Stop-motion video project

Direct download: nsta_lol3.mp3