Hanna+S

= The Search for Life on Mars = //by Hanna S.//

**Big bang to galaxies:**
#|The Big Bang Theory is the idea that about 15 billion years ago, the Universe was created by an explosion that caused the original Universe, approximately the size of an atom, to form. This extremely hot and small Universe created by the explosion began to rapidly expand and was, within a flash, about the size of Earth. The temperature of the Universe than began to decrease, and particles such as electrons began to form. However, these electrons were destroyed when the temperature started to drop again, and by 3 minutes, 1/4 of the particles had transformed into helium nuclei. For about 300,000 years, the Universe did nothing but expands and lowers in temperature. Eventually, the temperature reached 3,000 Kelvins, and electrons were then able to orbit nuclei without being broken up by heat. Structure began to appear and approximately 2 billion years after the Big Bang, galaxies began to form. When the Universe was about 3 billion years old, our #|Galaxy, (which started out as a sphere of gas) began to form.

**The Milky Way Galaxy:**
The Milky Way is a small portion of our galaxy that we are able to see. It's a flat circle of stars with a thin layer of gas and dust cutting through the middle. In the middle of this circle, there is a central bulge, and in the center of this bulge there is most likely a black hole surrounded by gas #|clouds and dust. On one side of the central bulge, or the galactic center, is a dwarf planet that is merging with the Milky Way. On the other side is the sun. The Milky Way has four arms spiraling out of it that are distinct because of the pink clouds of helium gas and the tiny blue stars that dot it, when in reality, the stars are mainly red and orange. As the galaxy turns, each cloud]] of gas and each star has its own orbit. The sun takes 250 million years to orbit around the Milky Way, and it travels at 250 kilometers per second. The way the galaxy rotates lets us know that we are surrounded by an enormous and invisible corona containing ten times more stars, gas, and dust than we are able to see, and the galaxy could actually be five times as large as we think. Our galaxy is also strange in another way. There is a mysterious dark matter that pulls on the stars in all of the galaxies and causes them to #|move at the same speed throughout their entire galaxy. Gravity should actually cause them to move slower as they move away from the central bulge. This unnatural subject remains a mystery until scientists have the technology to answer the question as to why.

**History of the Solar System:**
Like all stars, our sun was produced when gravity pulled together a cloud of interstellar gas and dust. This spinning ball collapsed about 4 billion years ago and became a thin disc with a proto-sun in the middle. Within this disk, solid particles began to clump into larger particles a few kilometers away from each other. The ones that were farthest away from the proto-sun and in the coldest parts survived. When these particles collided, some broke, but others merged and formed even larger particles. In the outer solar system, four large clumps formed to create the giant planets (Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, and Jupiter) which developed discs that moons grew in. These giant planets had ten times the Earth's mass and a large enough gravitational pulse to grab onto a thick atmosphere of gas from the surrounding nebula. The rings around the giant planets were most likely created when rocky matter and comets get too close to them and the planet’s gravitational force tears them apart. In the inner solar system, however, the conditions weren't desirable in order for large planets to be created, but the four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) managed form. The surfaces of these planets were constantly heated by bombardment as well as inner radio activity. Metal in the molten planet sank to the middle and the lighter molten rock came up to the surface of the planet. The planets then cooled of and became solid. Our moon was most likely created when a planet approximately the size of Mars collided with Earth. The surface of every moon in the solar system is cratered by a heavy showering of bombardment for approximately one million years. Most rocky matter are destroyed in collisions, settle in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, or are thrown out into the outer solar system. However, some are captured and become the moons of planets. The cold rocky matter in the outer solar system heat up as they get closer to the sun and turn into comets. Venus, Earth, and Mars got their atmospheres later then the giant planets and are probably the result of gasses that volcanoes blow out. The oxygen that we find on Earth that is essential to life is created when plants break down carbon dioxide. Rocks crashing onto Earth from the solar system are less common now then earlier on, but sixty-five million years ago, a fifteen kilometer object crashed onto Earth and is most likely responsible for the extinction of many species of the time such as including dinosaurs. ** An Overview of Rockets ** The machine that started the mechanics of rocketry was called the aeolipile. It was invented by a Greek man named Hero of Alexandria. The aeolipile was basically a sphere that revolved when steam (which was generated by a kettle full of water heated by a fire directly underneath it) shot through it from the pipes it was connected to. However, nobody knows when the first real rocket was actually built. Some believe it may have been an accident, such as if one of the gunpowder-filled bamboo tubes that the Chinese threw into fires at religious festivals didn’t explode and instead shot forward because of the ignited powder it was filled with. Eventually, the Chinese began to experiment with rockets by attaching the gun-powder filled tubes to arrows and propelling them with a bow before they realized that the rockets could move by themselves. Thus, real were created. In 1232, the first significant use of a rocket was recorded. The Chinese used their rocket-arrows to bombard the Mongols in war. The rockets may not have caused much physical damage, but the new invention was mind-blowingly frightening to the Mongols. The Mongols then proceeded to create their own rockets, and are possibly the reason rockets spread throughout Europe. During the 13 th to 15 th century, numerous rocket experiments took place. A monk named Roger Bacon created a new and improved gunpowder that allowed the range of rockets to exceed the previous limit. Jean Froissart from France discovered that launching a rocket through a tube allowed its flight path to be more accurate and straight, and Joanes Fontana from Italy created a surface-running torpedo-rocket that was capable of sending enemy ships up in flames.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian teacher, proposed the idea of using rockets to travel through space in 1898. Tsiolkovsky claimed that rockets could only go as fast as the exhaust velocity of escaping gasses and introduced the idea of using liquid fuel to propel rockets in a report he published in 1903. Because of his research and logic, Tsiolkovsky is now known as the father of modern astronautics. Robert H. Goddard, an American, conducted a series of experiments in rocketry in the early 20 th century. Goddard’s experiments had to do with different kinds of fuel and how they would affect the altitude of a rocket. Goddard, like Tsiolkovsky, was convinced that a liquid propellant would be more sufficient than a solid propellant and proceeded to create the first working liquid-propelled rocket. This rocket’s first successful flight took place on March 16 th, 1926. It flew for a total of 2 ½ seconds, raising 12.5 meters off the ground and landing 56 meters away from its starting point. This short flight began a new era of rocketry. Goddard continued to experiment with rockets and eventually made larger and higher-flying rockets as well as compartments that held scientific tools within the rocket and parachutes that allowed the supplies in these compartments and the rocket to float safely to the ground.

Small rocketing societies began to appear around the globe, including one in Germany called “Verein Fur Raumschiffahrt” (Society for Space Travel), which developed the V-2 rocket used by Germany in WW2 against London. This rocket was rather small when compared to today’s rockets, and it used a mixture of liquid oxygen and alcohol as fuel that burned at a rate of approximately one ton every 7 seconds. The V-2 was capable of achieving great thrusts and could be used a dangerous weapon, but it came too late in the war to change the outcome. However, when Germany fell, many of the Allies seized hold of unused V-2 rockets and a multitude of German rocket scientists came over to the U.S., while others went to the Soviet Union. Both of these countries knew that rockets could be used as an important military weapon and began to create experimental rocketry programs. These programs developed a variety of medium to long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles that started the U.S. space program.

On October 4 th, 1957, the Soviet Union launched an Earth-orbiting artificial space satellite called the Sputnik 1 (Sputnik meaning satellite, in Russian) that was the first successful entry into space. It was the shape of sphere that had 4 radio antennae protruding from it. About a month later, the Soviets launched a rocket into space that carried a dog named Laika. Laika traveled in space for a week in space until she was put to sleep before running out of oxygen. On January 31 st, 1958, the U.S. launched the Explorer 1, its own satellite, into space. On October 1 st of that year, the U.S. officially developed the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) program. Soon after, machines and people were being launched into space. Astronauts orbited Earth and landed on the moon, robots were sent to different planets, and satellites allowed scientist to develop a better understanding of or world as well as predict weather and allow instant communication throughout the globe. Society began demanding an increase in larger payloads, meaning that a variety of powerful and versatile rockets had to be produced. The creation of rockets is essential to the space travel and launchings that we conduct today, and they have allowed mankind to explore the Universe we live in.

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 * SEARCH FOR LIFE ON MARS, ROCKET STAGES**

**__ THE EXPLORATION OF MARS __** Mars is one of the few planets that humans can see with the naked eye. Because of this, the exploration of Mars has been going on for hundreds of years. However, the beginning of the exploration of Mars really started when the telescope was invented in 1600s. Our researched was furthered when in the late 20th century, space probes were sent out from Earth that successfully allowed us to get a more conclusive look at the Martian system. Since the 1960s, many robotic spacecraft such as rovers, flybys, and landers have been launched for Mars. These robots are intended to collect data about the current situation and history of Mars as well as give scientist conclusive information on the possibility of sending humans to Mars. One such robotic spacecraft, a flyby launched in 1965, gave us accurate data about Mars including the following; Mars’ surface atmospheric temperature is estimated to be about -100 degrees Celsius, or 1% of Earths daytime temperatures. There were also no magnetic fields detected in the Martian radiation belts. Because of this crucial data the flyby provided, scientists concluded that the Martian landers that were in the process of being planned would have to be redesigned according to the current condition of Mars. It was also concluded that life on Mars may be less probable than originally thought. Unfortunately, 2/3 of all space missions to Mars fail before they finish their mission, some even failing before they have a chance to leave Earth. The reason for this failure rate can be attributed to the high complexity of these space missions and the countless variables of the journey that are impossible to determine beforehand. Since March of 2012, there has been one successful rover, named “Opportunity”, that has been sending data back to scientists on Earth.

= __Rocket Parts__ =

=Rocket Experiment Results= == The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether mass effected the altitude of a rocket's flight. 7 groups of students each made a rocket using a model rocket set. Their rockets were then painted as the students wished. Because each rocket was painted differently, they had different masses. These rockets were equipped with engines and parachutes, and when the rocket’s paint was dry, they were weighed using a digital balance and the mass was recorded. The rockets were then launched, flying straight up into the air and falling back down to the ground. The altitude they flew upwards was measured with an angle gun from 100 meters away. The tangent of the flight was calculated to figure out the altitude, and the masses in accordance to the altitude of the rocket were compared. After our rocket experiments were conducted in class, it was concluded that the heaviest and the lightest rockets flew the farthest. For example, the heaviest rocket, 50.6 grams, and the lightest rocket, 43.9 grams, both flew 86.9 meters high. This means that my hypothesis, that a middle mass will cause the rocket to fly the highest, was false. I thought that rockets that were too heavy would fall after going a few meters, and that the lightest wouldn't be able to push against the force of gravity, but it turns out that the lightest and heaviest rockets are best for going the farthest distance. ==

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== When my rocket first took off, it shot straight up into eh sky. It then stopped at 64.9 meters, and started to spin and cartwheel towards the ground. The parachute came out of the nose-cone, but didn't unfold. The rocket crashed onto the ground with a detached nose-cone and parachute and ended up loosening one of its fins. In order to improve its flight, my rocket should have been constructed using more glue to keep the fins on and give the rocket weight, and with more baby powder so that the parachute would be able to unfold. I may also want to add more fins to the rocket so that is heavier and has a more stable path through the air. ==

= __**Rocket Fin Experiment **__ =

==The purpose of the rocket fin experiment was to conclude whether the amount of fins a rocket had affected its altitude. The first graph that we conducted was a graph comparing the maximum altitude in meters that a rocket flew to the mass in grams it weighed. This graph showed that there was no relationship between mass and altitude.==



==The next graph that we made was comparing the number of fins a rocket had to its maximum altitude. This graph concluded that there was an inverse relationship between the mass of a rocket and its altitude. It showed that the rockets with the least number of fins flew the highest, and the rockets with the most number of fins flew the lowest.==



==My rocket had ten fins in total; there were six fins on the bottom and four slightly curved fins just below the nose cone. The amount of fins were supposed to make the rocket more steady and fly a straighter path as well as give our rocket mass (it weighed 57.4 grams in total) that would hopefully allow it to fly farther. The curved fins were supposed to make the rocket spin in order to fly both straighter and farther. However, when our rocket was launched, it flew a total of 17.6 meters into the air before plummeting towards the group of bystanders watching in terror. The parachute didn’t unfold, but it did eject, and the recovery wadding stuffed inside to keep our parachute form burning was flung out of the rocket and sat smoldering on the ground as our rocket pathetically dive-bombed beside it. From this experience, I have concluded that perhaps heavier rockets with more fins don’t fly as well as they theoretically should, and would, if given the chance, remove some of our useless fins.==

**__ The History of Robotics __** The history of robotics truly began in 350 B.C. when Archytas of Tarentum created a mechanical bird given the name “The Pigeon.” This mechanism was propelled by steam and is one of history’s earliest studies of flight. However, robots have been in the minds of people for millennium and show up in myths and legends. For example, in Greek mythology, Hephaestus supposedly had mechanical servants. Robotics show up in our history time and time again, including Ctesibus’ water clocks in 200 B.C., Leonardo DaVinci’s “Leonardo’s robot” in 1495, Jacques de Vaucanson’s automata including “The Duck” in 1738, and in 1770 Pierre Jaquet- Droiz and his son Henri-Louis Jaquet-Droiz (the inventors of the modern-day wristwatch) created 3 automata dolls; one doll could, write, one could play music, and the last could draw pictures. In 1801, Joseph Jacquard created an automated loom controlled by using punch cards, and in 1822, Charles Babbage, known today as the “Father of the Computer”, presented his prototype of his “Difference Engine”. He then moved onto a more complicated project called the “Analytical Engine”, which used punch cards, much like Joseph Jacquard’s automated loom. Although Joseph never made an entirely functioning version of either of his machines, he was giver the name “Father of the Computer” because he created the beginning of the binary numbering system used in modern computers. However, the most modern technology began in 1898 when Nikola Tesla created and showed off a remote controlled boat at Madison Square Garden. In 1961, Heinrich Ernest created the MH-1 at MIT, a mechanical hand that was operated by computers. The first robotic arm was created in 1962 to do repetitive or risky work on a General Motors assembly line. The Stanford Research institute introduced “Shakey” in 1966, the first moving robot with the ability to respond to and process its actions. That same year, the ELIZA program was created at MIT and was a technological physiologist that took a person’s words and formed it into a question. In 1967, MacHack, a chess playing program, was created by Richard Greenblatt. The “Stanford Arm” was created by a student, Victor Scheinman, who worked in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1969.



In 1977, two space explorers, Voyagers one and two, takeoff from the Kennedy Space Flight Center. The mobile robots group at MIT released Genghis, a walking robot, in 1989. The most recent innovations that are fresh in our memory to this day probably began in 1993, when Dante, an eight legged robot, was sent to Antarctica with the hope of collecting data like that of another planet. The mission failed, but in 1994, Dante two was sent into a crater Mt. Spurr in Alaska, and the mission was a success. That same year, Marc Thorpe began the robot wars at the Fort Madison center in San Francisco, California. David Barrett created the “RoboTuna”, a machine that studied the way fish swim, in 1996. Also in 1996, the “Gastrobot” was created by Chris Campbell and Staurt Wilkinson, a robot that digested organic mass and produced carbon dioxide. The P3 was introduced by Honda, the result of attempts to create a human-like robot, in 1996 as well. In 1997, the International Space Station sent their first node up into space, to be followed by many other electronic space-exploring components over the years. This same year, the Pathfinder Mission lands on Mars and lets its rover, named “Sojourner”, out to explore the unfamiliar territory from early July until September. In 1998, a toy phenomenon called “Furby” was introduced to the market, a robotic pet that could say 800 English phrases and some phrases in its own language, called “Furbish”. Another toy is introduced the market by Lego in 1998, called the Robotics Invention Program. The following year, Lego releases 3 more toys called the Droid Developer Kit, The Robotics Discovery Set, and the Robotics Invention System 1.5. In 1999, Sony also releases an electronic pet named ASIMO. In 2000, Lego creates the MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention System 2.0. In 2001, they release the MINDSTORMS Ultimate Builder’s Set. This same year, the FDA allows the use of an idea called “CyberKnife”, where robots locate a tumor in the body and give it a dose of radiation.



In 2003, NASA launched 2 space crafts, the MER-A “Spirit” and the MER-B “Opportunity”, for Mars. These examples conclude some of the most astonishing moments in robotics and allow us to conclude not only how far we’ve come since the beginning, but how long we have to go until the end.

=** Programming Robots**=

===Motors can be programmed to move a robot in Lego Mindstorms. You click on common palette when you first enter Mindstorms, then select the action you wish to program into your robot. Click on programming guide, and follow the instructions on the page-to-page slides. By doing this, you are telling the motor to conduct a series of specific actions that join together to create one big action. Actions that you can program into your robot include, playing sound, showing things on the screen, driving forward, reversing, accelerating, a curve turn, a point turn, driving in a square, parking, and action replay. By combining these actions, you can create a series of movements that allow your robot to do things such as complete obstacle courses. It can be challenging to get your robot to do the exact actions you wish to perform in the exact time it needs to be done in. It takes careful observation and trial and error in order to correctly program the motor of your robot to perform a certain task.=== media type="file" key="robot video.AVI" width="300" height="300"
 * Robot Video**

Geology in the Search for Life on Mars  There is a multitude of ways that minerals can be identified. They can be identified by color, look, luster, hardness, streak color, magnetism, light refraction, an acid test, and taste. Scientists on earth apply these strategies to their studies in order to identify minerals. For example, they can simply look at a mineral and determine what it is by its color and other properties observed by the eye such as luster. It is also possible for scientists to test the hardness of the mineral by using other substances and determine what it is by finding its number on a harness scale. Another strategy is for scientists to streak the mineral on a porcelain tile and see what color it leaves behind. Testing magnetism will narrow down which mineral it could be depending on if it’s magnetic or not. Scientists test the light refraction, or how the light reflects off of the mineral and alters its appearance. Sometimes scientists use an acid test to determine if the mineral was a carbonate compound and narrow it down from there. Scientists even taste the mineral in order to determine its identity. There are many ways that a mineral can be identified, some ways more effective than others, which scientists use in their studies.

 NASA’s Curiosity, a rover that is currently traveling to Mars, has been equipped to find out Mar’s geological history. Curiosity is the closest thing to a geologist that we can send to Mars, and it will analyze rocks on the red planet and give scientists back on Earth evidence as to whether or not life once existed on Mars. The first thing the machine will have to do is determine whether the conditions on Mars are suitable for life. All life is based on two things; certain minerals and organic molecules. If the rocks on Mars show evidence of this, it is possible the red planet once sustained life. The way that Curiosity analyzes this data is by driving up to an outcrop, drilling a hole in it, and analyzing the powder that comes out. Curiosity takes in the rock powder and then splits it into two instruments; on instrument analyzes the minerals in the powder, and the other analyzes the organic molecules in the rock powder. However, sometimes it isn’t possible to access the rocks on certain places on Mars, and in these cases, Curiosity uses a laser. Curiosity shoots the laser at the rock, and from the light that is reflected back, it can send information to scientists on Earth that allow them to get an idea of the rocks chemical composition. If all goes well in this journey for answers, scientists will have seen parts of Mars they had never seen before, show rock history, and maybe even have evidence that there was once life on Mars.

**__Life __**  In order to classify something as living, it must possess certain qualities. First, all living things are made up of cells. Cells are the basic units of living things; they are made up of many parts and can be classified as animal cells, plant cells, and bacteria cells. The second quality living things must possess is the must need materials. For example, in order to live, the thing in question takes what it needs, such as oxygen, minerals, water, and sometimes sulfur, from the environment. The third quality of a living thing is that the thing is homeostatic, or it stays the same on the inside. A living thing must attempt to keep itself the same on the inside, using a great deal of energy, despite changes in their environment. A proper example of this is that humans try to keep their body temperature around 98.6oF at all times. The fourth property is the thing responds to stimuli. This means that the thing will react to a stimulus, or anything that causes a living thing to react. There are two kinds of stimuli; negative stimuli cause a living thing to move away from the stimulus and positive stimuli cause a thing to come closer to the stimulus. The next quality is that a living thing reproduces. is when a living thing makes their unique offspring, and there are a couple of ways that animals and plants reproduce. Number one is sexual reproduction, which is between two parents, and number two is asexual reproduction, which is with one parent. In addition, all living things must grow, or grow from a lower or a simpler state to a higher or more complex state. Not all things grow at the same rate or reach the same size. Living things must also adapt, or modify to make an organism suited to its way of life. This can be done through evolution, which is the process in which the characteristics of a species will change over time. The last thing living things must do is perform respiration, or release the energy that is stored in chemical bonds or sugar (food). There are two ways for living things to perform respiration; consumers take in good to sustain life and producers produce own food. 

 There are multiple scientific methods used in order to detect life on other planets. One of the methods scientists can use is taking samples of the planet and analyzing it in an electron microscope. Another method that can be used is a radiation detector on a probe sent to the planet you wish to test for life on. A radiation detector can be used because if microbes in the soil, living things would metabolize the nutrients and give off methane gas or radioactive carbon-dioxide, which could be measured by the radiation detector. Some control experiments that scientists use to detect life are heating some soil from the planet at varying temperatures and leaving some samples in the dark for months because these conditions would kill microbes that are photosynthetic or depend on photosynthetic organisms for their survival. You could also attempt to find a cardiac rhythm of methane release into the atmosphere, which is a positive sign of life. Some other methods that can be used are detecting soil for the presence of organisms by adding water and seeing what it stirs up or see if the soil has come in contact with water. Chemicals in soil can also be distinguished by heating it up. Each chemical boils off at a different temperature. A rover can also detect salt in order to find water, a positive sign of life, or find ice and take a video of it to see if it vaporizes and is ice made of water, not carbon-dioxide. Satellites can also be sent to look below the surface of the soil and see if it is life sustaining or use satellites to find craters and volcanoes. The presence of volcanoes proves that a planet once had or has a molten core and a magnetic field, or an atmosphere, which is a positive sign of life. Scientists can also go to extreme places on earth such as barren deserts, deep oceans, and extremely salty water to see if life can prevail in those harsh conditions, therefore finding it either plausible or implausible for life to be on a planet with harsh conditions. Scientists can study organisms on Earth similar to those on another planet in addition to the many other methods scientists use to detect life on foreign planets.