Steve Squyres
Steve Squyres
Steven W. Squyresis the James A. Weeks Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His research area is in planetary sciences, with a focus on large solid bodies in the solar system such as the terrestrial planets and the moons of the Jovian planets. Squyres is principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. He is the recipient of the 2004 Carl Sagan Memorial Award and the 2009 Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Communication in...
curious figure
We've been very curious to figure out what they are.
assume dirty solar stay
We have to assume the worst...that the solar panels are going to stay dirty and just get dirtier.
terms
We're not going to take any risks. It's a big crater in terms of diameter, but really shallow. It's nothing like Endurance.
carry climb head hill husband summit
We still want to get to the summit of Husband Hill and then head down into the 'Inner Basin' on the other side. But now we have more flexibility in how we carry out the plan. Before, it was climb or die.
carefully cliffs die fall proceed rover
There are cliffs the rover could fall over and die if we aren't careful. We are gong to proceed carefully and methodically.
mars not-sure martians
Mars is telling us something. I'm not sure what it is because It's speaking martian. But it's telling us something
rocks looks cleaning
The rocks, to a great extent, look swept clean. It's a much cleaner surface than what we had a right to hope for.
rocks giving water
We have concluded that the rocks here were once soaked in liquid water. It changed their texture, and it changed their chemistry. We've been able to read the tell-tale clues the water left behind, giving us confidence in that conclusion.
leadership style
My style of leadership is to lead with the lightest touch that I possibly can.
mission today
Today is day 591 of our 90-day mission to Mars.
barely driving exposed found gotten ground hard leave parts region stuff summit
What we have found once we've gotten up into the summit region...the driving has gotten very, very good. The ground is hard here. There is not a lot of fine-grain stuff around. What there is piled up in drifts. This is because the summit region is exposed to the wind; it's very windy. In some parts of the summit region, we barely leave tracks.
awe business deciding seeing waiting
We're just waiting. We're just in awe of what we're seeing and we're just waiting to see the whole thing so we can really get about the business of deciding what to do.
across columbia far hills january looked necessary night order plains quickly realized seemed sought stuff touched water whether
When we first touched down at Gusev Crater on the night of January 4, 2004, the Columbia Hills seemed impossibly far away. It was a necessary place for us to get to, though, because as we looked across the plains we quickly realized these plains were made of basaltic lava. This was stuff that was interesting but did not tell us what we really sought to know about Gusev Crater, and that is whether there had been water here. So in order to find something, in order to find something different, we had to make that mile-and-a-half drive.
home material mean seen stuff widespread
We have no idea yet how widespread Home Plate-like material may be. We have not seen anything like this before, but it doesn't mean there isn't more stuff out there.