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...
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.
taken mars earth
The thing that sets Mars apart is that it is the one planet that is enough like Earth that you can imagine life possibly once having taken hold there.
adventure giving people
I want to make as many people as possible feel like they are part of this adventure. We are going to give everybody a sense of what exploring the surface of another world is really like.
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
mistake thinking views
Is there water still on Mars? I don't have a view on that because we don't have good data to answer that question. One of the biggest mistakes you can make if you're a scientist is to think you know the answer, or wish for a certain answer, before you actually have it.
trying stuff figure-skating
That's really what science is just trying to figure stuff out, and I like figuring stuff out.
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.
remember scientist i-can
I can't ever remember not wanting to be a scientist.
way turns
There's no way to actually turn the rover off.
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.
hiking hills climbs
We didn't know if the rover could climb up or down the hills of the crater.