The MECA story, A place for speculation Options

[Paul Fjeld]

On Craig's latest Av Week post he writes that NASA will declare Phoenix a success this week. Also he writes:

"The team invited Aviation Week & Space Technology to "embed" here at the Phoenix Science Operations Control Center and attend most of the 14 or so daily meetings to assess the new science results being transmitted 217 million miles to Earth and plan new commands for Phoenix accordingly."

No kidding.

So how do you sum things up here? Craig writes the "White House" bit, the ONLY thing driving speculation - NASA replies beautifully with that release and then presser about nothing "other" than a window into the scientific process (where we get to hear Hecht deliver a clear and concise description of the MECA situation among other things), finally inviting the "offending" publication to embed.

I vote win/win.

[Greg Hullender]

I vote win/win.

Sounds good to me. NASA shows it has nothing to hide, and rewards a "journalist" who at least showed he had lots of passion about this probe.

--Greg

[jmknapp]

New Scientist has an article yesterday that touches on perchlorate and life:

The perchlorate find is a boost in that some Earth bacteria use it as an energy source. "It's like a mineral form of pure oxygen," says Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona in Tuscon. However, it may have a downside.

In the coming months, team member Carol Stoker of NASA's Ames Research Center in California will use Phoenix data to make a firm estimate of the probability of finding life at the site. Her approach is based on the famous Drake equation, which estimates the abundance of technological civilisations in the universe, based on various prerequisites for their existence. The Phoenix site already ranks higher than all previously explored sites, largely because it has water ice, but Stoker says the site's top billing may not survive.
It all depends on the levels of perchlorate, since too much can be toxic. Phoenix team members are still estimating the concentration, but preliminary results suggest there is too much for life. "It's at apparently very high concentrations, sufficiently high that there's a question of its toxicity," says Stoker.

...

Perchlorate might also provide evidence of the past presence of liquid water. Because the chemical is so soluble, liquid water might concentrate perchlorate at lower depths, where the water would collect. Phoenix is poised to look for exactly such differences. So far it has been digging on top of a pentagon-like hillock, where ice sits roughly 5 centimetres below the surface. But now the lander has moved to the edges of the pentagon, where soil is expected to be much deeper.