Of Geologists

I have decided they purposely placed all the pretty talks at the end of the data just to keep me in my chair. JAXA is currently showing off all the pretty pictures from KAGUYA and it is brain candy. Really. Go see here and here. As I watch, I’m also watching the audience and taking in the culture. I am...

The Moon is Made of Minerals

Here is where I admit I have never taken Geology or Organic Chemistry. This is my third time coming to LPSC and each time I come I learn there are more minerals yet to learn. Today I spent my morning sitting in on sessions involving the new data coming down from the Lunar Missions Kaguya, Chang’e-1 and...

THE NASA Meeting

One of the either high points or low points (emotionally) of every LPSC is the NASA meeting. This year I have some sense that this will be a good experience for all. We have a new administration, we have new NASA HQ staff, and we know a new NASA director is on the way. Life just might be good for all. The...

Habitable Martian Pole

Carol Stoker and Suzanne Young just presented a pair of presentation on the habitability of Mars. Bottomline: The Mars Phoenix Landing Site is capable of supporting life today. The also calculated a habitability index for the various sites landers have explored on Mars. If a site has a probability of...

Classifying Planets

This year’s Masursky Lecture is being given by Alan Stern. Stern seriously earned my respect last year in the face of a disgruntled room of geophysicists who didn’t have the nuclear engines they needed, who’d been told that Mars was not a funding priority, and who had been saddled with...