Backpedaling on Mars
Undisclosed Finding by Mars Rover Fuels Intrigue, NY Times
“Guy Webster, a spokesman for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which operates Curiosity, said the findings would be “interesting” rather than “earthshaking.” Mr. Webster noted that “a really big announcement,” if one should occur, would most likely be made at NASA headquarters in Washington and not at an academic conference.”
NASA’s “History Book”-Worthy Discovery Is Really Just a Big Misunderstanding, Slate
“While it’s a little odd that NASA’s communication team didn’t manage to quickly quash the rumor after the original report aired, Veronica McGregor, NASA’s news and social media manager for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told The Slatest late Tuesday night that they did their best to set the story straight.”
Update Set in San Francisco About Curiosity Mars Rover
“Rumors and speculation that there are major new findings from the mission at this early stage are incorrect. The news conference will be an update about first use of the rover’s full array of analytical instruments to investigate a drift of sandy soil. One class of substances Curiosity is checking for is organic compounds — carbon-containing chemicals that can be ingredients for life. At this point in the mission, the instruments on the rover have not detected any definitive evidence of Martian organics.”
JPL director: Mars rover Curiosity may have found organic compounds, clue in search for life, Denver Post
“The Curiosity rover may have found organic compounds on Mars, Jet Propulsion Laboratory director Charles Elachi said in Rome on Wednesday, according to multiple reports. “Perhaps Curiosity has found simple organic molecules,” Elachi said at La Sapienza University, according to La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno. “It’s preliminary data that must be checked (on) organic, not biological, molecules.” The statement figures to set off a new round of speculation and excitement about the possibility of life on Mars. Elachi, however, made clear that Curiosity cannot find life.”
Keith’s note: This is just hilarious. NASA JPL PAO has had more than a week to deal with misquotes, parsing, and “what he really meant to say” in connection with John Grotzinger’s NPR interview. But only today do they finally admit that all the speculation was incorrect. They could have put this all to bed last week and avoided all of the needless arm waving, speculation, and stories on the evening news.
Keith’s update: NASA JPL PAO just tweeted via @MarsCuriosity “Everybody, chill. After careful analysis, there are no Martian organics in recent samples. Update Dec 3”. Alas JPL PAO is not allowing offsite media to ask questions at an event that involves the formal release of data obtained by a government space mission. This is a break with NASA PAO practice since Curiosity landed. Offsite media access was not mentioned in the JPL press release (as is always the case). Oddly JPL can’t do a standard media dial-in for the MSL event at AGU but theyo ffer a standard dial-in for the Voyager media event – also at AGU – just 2 hours later. NASA SMD PAO refuses to reply to a simple question on this topic. So much for being open.
Keith’s update: NASA SMD PAO has still not responded to my question about media access to this event. But if you find this link at AGU you learn that offsite media (and anyone from the public) can only ask questions remotely via a chat function in a box on the webcast once it has started. A teleconference might be set up – but that will ony happen if the webcast is broken – and again anyone can call in – public and media alike. There does not seem to be any way to distinguish what they call “working media” from all other viewers since you can sign up using any name you want. In other words: if you are not in the room, your chance of asking a question as a member of the news media is rather low. Oh well.
AGU says that “Working members of the media may ask questions by emailing them to [email protected].” but they do not exactly explain how you are granted status as “working members of the media” If you register as “working media” online or in person you need to send them 3 articles you have written, provide a press badge etc. But if you register as “media” for this webcast you only have to use your real name.
I’ve lost count of the number of times NASA have managed to overhype press conferences. Learn from your mistakes!
So is there going to be news or not?
I believe there’s a press conference Monday at 9am PT. @MarsCuriosity tweeted this morning that there are no Martian organics in the recent samples.
So wait – first you complain that NASA didn’t comment on this media-created misquote, and now that they have in fact commented, you’re calling it back-peddling?
I noticed with that every time someone suggested Keith listen to the tape he replied with what the PAO had or had not denied.
So apparently Keith saw the story as “is NASA PAO blah blah…” whereas most of us were looking for the story of what was going on on Mars or at least with the science and scientist.
I guess wrassling with NASA Public Affairs bureaucracy constantly must tend make you look at things from that angle all the time.
and probably you mean “Pedaling”, like with a canoe.
Peddling is like pushing cheap wares at a flea market, or propagating artificially inflated pseudo-scandals instead of focusing on important stuff.
Oh, wait.
“…and probably you mean “Pedaling”, like with a canoe…”
“Paddling”?
Ah, the curse of internet nitpicking is to make a mistake in your own post. I see the headline has been fixed.
Yeah, probably I did.
🙂
NASA may say it was nothing (huh?), Or “small organic molecules”. But it will not be “biological molecules”. MSL was deliberately designed, like all JPL Mars probes, to _not_ be able to detect biological molecules. So when they say “no biological molecules were detected” remember that MSL couldn’t find them even if it drove into a compost bin.
This is part of the larger, underreported political problem where JPL management is incentivized to kill any mission, instrument, or result (from JPL or elsewhere) which could show evidence for extant life on Mars. And they have successfully done this for decades.
As long as Mars is a “dead planet” then then as far as JPL is concerned, JPL owns the entire planet. (their words, not mine). But if there were evidence of extant life (or even flowing water) then Mars would become a priority destination for sample return missions (which JPL would at least have to share) and for human missions (which JPL would not have significant involvement in at all).
That’s why MSL’s mission (and MER’s, and Phoenix’s, etc) is not to look for evidence of life but “to look for evidence that conditions in Mars’ geological past may have been compatible with the possibility of life”. A slightly more generous view of things is that the NASA Mars science program is run by geologists and mineralogists. No biologists or astrobiologists need apply – unless they happen to work for the “planetary protection” bureaucracy who seem to see their job as infinitely delaying any human Mars exploration or sample returns.
NASA may say it was nothing (huh?), Or “small organic molecules”. But it will not be “biological molecules”. MSL was deliberately designed, like all JPL Mars probes, to _not_ be able to detect biological molecules. So when they say “no biological molecules were detected” remember that MSL couldn’t find them even if it drove into a compost bin.
This is part of the larger, underreported political problem where JPL management is incentivized to kill any mission, instrument, or result (from JPL or elsewhere) which could show evidence for extant life on Mars. And they have successfully done this for decades.
As long as Mars is a “dead planet” then then as far as JPL is concerned, JPL owns the entire planet. (their words, not mine). But if there were evidence of extant life (or even flowing water) then Mars would become a priority destination for sample return missions (which JPL would at least have to share) and for human missions (which JPL would not have significant involvement in at all).
That’s why MSL’s mission (and MER’s, and Phoenix’s, etc) is not to look for evidence of life but “to look for evidence that conditions in Mars’ geological past may have been compatible with the possibility of life”. A slightly more generous view of things is that the NASA Mars science program is run by geologists and mineralogists. No biologists or astrobiologists need apply – unless they happen to work for the “planetary protection” bureaucracy who seem to see their job as infinitely delaying any human Mars exploration or sample returns.
Where is your evidence of this?
Think about this.
Which scenario is going to delay human missions to Mars more – finding no evidence of life, or finding evidence of life?
If we find evidence of life remotely, no way any human is setting foot on Mars for 100 years or so.
You don’t go stomping around on the greatest scientific discovery in history. Especially when it’s fragile and you have reasonable fear of destroying it, or unreasonable public fear of it destroying you.
A dead Mars gets us there first if for no other reason than to look for fossils.
I’ve always thought the expectation of finding fossils with machines was ridiculous. Ask any fossil hunter on earth, which is AWASH in fossils, and they will tell you they can waste a day at the best locality without finding anything. That day of human effort will have investigated more rock more intelligently than 100 rovers could in a lifetime.
Ask them if they want to fossil hunt by having a machine test pencil-eraser sized bites of surface crust and they’d laugh in your face.
what??
JPL didn’t kill the Urey bio-organic detection instrument intended to fly on ESA’s ExoMars rover, ESA did. Urey was nearly as complex as SAM on MSL, but only an eighth of the size. Urey was designed to detect amino acids AND determine chirality to assess whether biological processes were responsible for making these compounds. See: http://astrobiology.berkele…
JPL wants to be the organization to answer questions about the origin of life in the solar system and beyond. The “problem” of JPL wanting to kill missions, instruments, etc. capable of finding evidence of extant like is “underreported” because it’s not true. No conspiracies here.
Interesting thing I just noticed: The NPR article which started this whole hullaballoo has since replaced the word “earthshaking” with “remarkable.”
http://www.npr.org/2012/11/…
“Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something remarkable.”
… and didn’t leave a comment saying that they did. Like a kid refusing to admit they broke something… “no, it was like that already”.
yuck.
Everyone at NASA was taking vacation days to extend their long Thanksgiving weekend. Nobody was home, is my theory.
This whole thing smacks of government conspiracy.
Government hears about an “earthshaking” discovery and wants to know what it is. They agree that it is “earthshaking”, a little bit too “earthshaking” in fact, and have the story completely buried.
They found something up there and a scientist spoke too soon before the powers that be vetted it for public consumption. WHAT ARE YOU HIDING NASA!?
I accidentally pushed the “Like” button, and unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be a way to retract that. There is absolutely zero evidence to support your claim, and there is certainly no reason to like your post, save for its comedic value.
This whole thing only “smacks fo government conspiracy” if you are susceptible to the whiles of conspiracy theorists. Sadly, conspiracy theories persist based on missing evidence that conspiracy theorists say should be there.
Robin,
I found you can un-like simply by clicking the like-link a second time; it toggles. Too bad DISCUS doesn’t have a send-to-trash function for conspiracy posts, though.
Glad you liked it.
In conspiracy-land, there are no slips of the tongue, mistakes in wording, overexcited scientists, mistaken news reports, etc. Everything must be taken at face value. Except for everything.
Yeah. This post was meant to be humorous. I don’t actually believe that. Guess it wasn’t ‘on the nose’ enough.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/…
Grotzinger and a couple JPL managers were standing in the hallway. I swear I saw a young fellow in a hoodie stop them and use the Jedi Mind Trick! “You are not looking for this soil sample”, “there’s clearly no organics that are you seeking here”.
From a Star Wars Wiki – “species with highly organized mental facilities were known to be inherently resistant to its effects,”
— well obviously this does not include JPL PIs or Managers.
I heard the story while still getting ready for work that morning. I replayed it just now. 1)the NPR reporter spliced his narration into the dialogue so 2)Grotzinger’s statement is fragmented and maybe out of context. But it is clear that he states the following –
“we’re getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak,”,
“and data is looking really interesting”,
“this data is going to be one for the history books. It’s looking really good”,
“I know I’m killn’ ya (laugh)”
There is narration interjected by the reporter between each fragment of Grotzinger’s statements. I must admit I keep some hope that Organics with indications of biotic origin have been found. Despite the sound editing by the reporter, it definitely appears Grotzinger is eluding to new findings in the soil samples from SAM and he just can’t tell us just yet.
Grotzinger is alright yet he reminds me of Abbott who has just attempted to play Costello and altogether we now have a new variation of the comedy routine “Who’s on First”.
Yeah, Ok, Cowing, go ahead make a Star Wars character out of a Curiosity Scientist.
Well, at least NASA/JPL is keeping the MSL program in the public eye with this. When you can’t get good attention, you can always go for bad attention. Every four-year-old knows this.
But seriously, I doubt very much any of this was intended. Maybe a little honest enthusiasm simply got overstated and it’s gathered mass like a snowball rolling down hill. I agree it’s a mystery that the PAO doesn’t jump on these things immediately and clear the air. In science credibility is everything.
So, I just watched the Ustream live from the AGU conference. Yet I can’t figure
out what John Grotzinger’s “history making” revelation is supposed to be. He
told NPR about this alleged big news during a recent interview, presumably he knew what the Hell he was talking about. I too would call it “backpedaling”. I find the whole thing annoying.