Subject:
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John Glenn Announces Students Will Participate In Mars Mission
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Tue, 18 May 1999 18:14:16 GMT
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Viewed:
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1105 times
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...just saw this in one of the comp.robotics newsgroups and thought it would
be interesting to this group (there's even a lego reference a few paragraphs
in...)
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John Glenn Announces Students Will Participate In Mars Mission
The Planetary Society
May 6, 1999
http://planetary.org/news/articlearchive/headlines/1999/headln-050699.html
Astronaut John Glenn and Bill
Nye, the Science Guy, announced today an unprecedented
opportunity for children around the world to join the first
student team ever to serve on a planetary mission. This
Planetary Society project will allow children hands-on
participation in the operation of a Mars rover and robotic arm
on the Mars Surveyor mission that launches in 2001.
The announcement was made at the Space Day '99 celebrations at
the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, D.C.
Red Rover Goes to Mars will be part of the NASA/JPL Mars
Surveyor 2001 lander mission. This will be the first
opportunity for active public participation in a space mission.
"We stand on the threshold of an exciting millennium of
exploration, one where the global public will become
participants in the exploration of other worlds. Red Rover Goes
to Mars will take students from around the world to a new
frontier - Mars," said Louis Friedman, Executive Director of
the Planetary Society. "We hope it presages a future of more
public involvement in planetary exploration."
Among the featured speakers at the 10 a.m. Space Day ceremony
were Senator John Glenn; NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin; Bill
Nye, a Planetary Society advisor; National Air and Space Museum
Director Admiral Don Engen; and Vance Coffman, Chairman and CEO
of Lockheed-Martin Corporation. Glenn and Coffman are the
co-chairmen of the Embrace Space International Advisory Board.
Red Rover Goes to Mars is an outgrowth of the Red Rover, Red
Rover program - a joint development of the Society, the Center
for Intelligent Systems at Utah State University, Visionary
Products, Inc., and the LEGO company. Using computers linked
through the Internet, students teleoperate robotic rovers built
from LEGO Dacta components. 400 Red Rover, Red Rover sites are
already established worldwide in classrooms and science
centers.
Red Rover Goes to Mars will extend the network to the Red
Planet itself, where student astronauts will have the
first-ever opportunity to participate with the mission
scientists, interfacing with a rover and a robotic arm on the
lander. The rover will be the Marie Curie, the same type of
rover as Sojourner, which was deployed on Mars in 1997. Student
scientists and student astronauts will share their work and
experiences via the Internet, delivering real mission data to
homes, classrooms and science centers around the world.
"Internet technology, which has opened up communications here
on Earth, will now provide worldwide access to the adventure of
planetary exploration," said Friedman. "It is, in the words of
Vinton Cerf - one of the Internet's founders - the beginning of
an 'interplanetary Internet.' "
Red Rover Goes to Mars will be an international program,
involving students from all over the Earth. One of the student
astronauts selected for the program may one day be among the
first astronauts on Mars, operating equipment on the planet's
surface while safely housed in a Mars base - exactly as they
will be doing for Red Rover Goes to Mars.
One experiment on the Mars Surveyor 2001 mission that the
students will follow closely is a student-designed
"NanoExperiment." This experiment will be selected through a
competitively judged contest sponsored by the Planetary
Society, which is currently underway. The Society will also
fund the construction of the flight-ready experiment. Details
of this competition - a 2001 Mars Odyssey: the Student
NanoExperiment Challenge - are available on the Planetary
Society's web site at http://planetary.org
Red Rover Goes to Mars will be funded by The Planetary Society
and the LEGO Company. The LEGO Company has been a principal
partner with The Planetary Society in the development of Red
Rover, Red Rover. The LEGO MINDSTORMS products, either the
Robotic Invention System or the ROBOLAB product line for
schools, will be used as a training tool for aspiring student
astronauts in the program.
LEGO Senior Vice President, Torben Sorensen says, "The space
program is a powerful symbol of the value of education and
achievement. LEGO is proud to work on this novel experiment
with the Planetary Society and with NASA to provide new
opportunities for educational outreach. This mission is a
natural continuation of many years cooperation between the
Society, NASA and LEGO in the education sector."
Liberty Yogurt of Montreal, Canada will sponsor a poster for
Red Rover Goes to Mars and will include information about the
project on its products.
The Mars Surveyor 2001 lander is scheduled for launch on April
10, 2001. If launched on schedule, it will land on Mars on
January 22, 2002.
Red Rover Goes to Mars will begin this year with a worldwide
essay competition to select the student scientists.
Participants must be born between January 31, 1984 and January
31, 1991. Students, parents and teachers interested in Red
Rover Goes to Mars should contact Linda Hyder at (626)793-5100
or by e-mail at tps.lh@mars.planetary.org.
For more information or to arrange interviews, please contact
Susan Lendroth or Linda Hyder at (626)793-5100 or by e-mail for
Susan at tps.sl@mars.planetary.org; for Linda (see above).
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