Live-- From Other Worlds; No. 1

<v Announcer>Live from Other Worlds has been made possible in part by NASA's mission from Planet <v Announcer>Earth Study Office and the NASA Education Division. <v Announcer>Additional support has been provided by the NASA K-through-12 and National Research and <v Announcer>Education Network Initiative V.W. <v Announcer>Virginia Quality Education and Sciences and Technology, and by the Planetary Society. <v Camille Jennings>What you're seeing is happening right now. <v Camille Jennings>It's a live television signal from one of the ends of our earth, from Antarctica. <v Camille Jennings>The icy continent surrounding the South Pole. <v Camille Jennings>We're watching NASA researchers explore the Antarctic Ocean under the thick sea ice. <v Camille Jennings>Experimenting with techniques that may someday help us explore the planet Mars and the <v Camille Jennings>other strange and fascinating worlds of our solar system. <v Carol Stoker>I can't quite hear what you're saying. We're going to switch the <v Carol Stoker>?inaudible?. Could you repeat that please?

<v Carol Stoker>Ok, here we go. <v Carol Stoker>I got it. We're live. Dale, this is your cue. <v Dale Anderson>Hi, this is Dale Anderson, and I'm talking to you from the Antarctic. <v Dale Anderson>And I'm underneath the ocean down here. <v Dale Anderson>We're about 10, 20 feet of ice, 6,000 miles from <v Dale Anderson>you. <v Dale Anderson>And we're broadcasting live. You can see my friends here. <v Dale Anderson>?Inaudible name? who is also my dive buddy. <v Dale Anderson>Looking at this large sponge and we have an ?inaudible? <v Dale Anderson>who is also my dive buddy just below me, here <v Dale Anderson>behind me. And I'll see if I can get him to come around to my side.

<v Dale Anderson>John if you'll just bring the ?inaudible? straight. Back, go <v Dale Anderson>back, ok come straight forward.And <v Dale Anderson>here is my friend, stop. <v Dale Anderson>This is a remotely operated vehicle. ?Inaudible? <v Dale Anderson>that you can see. <v Dale Anderson>And if you let us ?inaudible? <v Dale Anderson>give a camera on the front a stereo pair, it will let you nod up and down. <v Dale Anderson>Cameras <v Dale Anderson>up and down.

<v Dale Anderson>And Don if you could why don't you just say hello to everybody with the robotic arm. <v Dale Anderson>Robotic devices like this can go many places that <v Dale Anderson>human beings cannot go. I'm sitting in about 120 feet of water. <v Dale Anderson>The water temperature is about 28 degrees. <v Dale Anderson>That's pretty cool down here. <v Dale Anderson>And I get stay down on the bottom too too long. <v Dale Anderson>I'm going to swing around and take a look at my other friend ?inaudible? <v Dale Anderson>who is still looking at the sponge. And this is one of the reasons that we come to places <v Dale Anderson>like this so we can study unique organisms <v Dale Anderson>in this very special place. <v Dale Anderson>These very large sponges, protozoans and- <v Dale Anderson>and other organisms such as the ?inaudible?, because it's really tree like <v Dale Anderson>around here and nowhere else.

<v Dale Anderson>But we'll talk about this in a few minutes. <v Dale Anderson>Right now, I'd just like to welcome you because <v Dale Anderson>this is a Live from Other Worlds. <v Dale Anderson>[music] <v Camille Jennings>Welcome, kids, to Live From Other Worlds. <v Camille Jennings>I'm Camille Jennings here in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Have you ever gone on a field trip. <v Camille Jennings>You know, you pack a lunch, get on a big yellow school bus and drive off to your local <v Camille Jennings>science museum. Well, today, we're all going on a very special kind of field trip. <v Camille Jennings>But it's not like any that you've ever taken before. <v Camille Jennings>You won't be riding on buses along city streets or freeways. <v Camille Jennings>Our eyes and our ears will be traveling down the information superhighway, taking a trip

<v Camille Jennings>via satellite and television and computer to Antarctica. <v Camille Jennings>And as you'll soon see, Antarctica is a very special place. <v Camille Jennings>In fact, in the whole of human history, according to the National Science Foundation, <v Camille Jennings>which helps us run things down there, all the people who have ever visited that land <v Camille Jennings>could fit within one major sports stadium. <v Camille Jennings>Today, we're gonna multiply that number by a whole lot. <v Camille Jennings>Is all of you come along for an electronic field trip via television? <v Camille Jennings>Let's see now if we can talk to Dale in his colleagues down on the ice. <v Camille Jennings>Perhaps they'll be able to tell us why. Going to a land near the South Pole may <v Camille Jennings>eventually lead us to the planet Mars. <v Camille Jennings>Dale, can you hear us? This is Camille out at WHRO, over. <v Dale Anderson>Any questions? <v Camille Jennings>Dale, we do have a couple of questions to ask you. <v Camille Jennings>One of the things that I'm very concerned about is you said you wouldn't be able to stay <v Camille Jennings>under the surface of ice for a very long period of time. <v Camille Jennings>About how long will you be able to stay down? <v Camille Jennings>Over.

<v Dale Anderson>Well, my staying down under water is a pretty short one. <v Dale Anderson>Because we're working kind of deep right now, we're in 120 feet <v Dale Anderson>of water or so. <v Dale Anderson>I'm actually going to have to come up slope a little bit, so I can regain <v Dale Anderson>a little time. <v Dale Anderson>My all time underwater will be about 20 <v Dale Anderson>minutes at the snap. <v Dale Anderson>But let me get up here about 85 or 90 feet and I'll get <v Dale Anderson>a little more time to stay. <v Camille Jennings>That was excellent. Dale. We're getting such a tremendous reception from you. <v Camille Jennings>I can't believe it. We do have several students, though, here at WHRO. <v Camille Jennings>They're all looking forward to ask you some questions. <v Camille Jennings>We've got one student here today. This is Nick and he happens to be our birthday boy. <v Camille Jennings>So we're going to let him go first with a question. <v Nick>Well, what I wanted to know is the, uh, rover. <v Nick>How is it controlled down there with you?

<v Camille Jennings>Over. <v Dale Anderson>ROV, the rover, which <v Dale Anderson>is down below me a little bit. <v Dale Anderson>But anyway, it through, yeah. <v Dale Anderson>OK. It's controlled by ?Don Barch? <v Dale Anderson>who is sitting on the surface. <v Dale Anderson>Let me turn around. There he is. <v Dale Anderson>He was right behind me. He was sneaking up on me. <v Dale Anderson>But you can see their's a tether coming down. <v Dale Anderson>And that line now, all the signals coming down to the ROV. <v Dale Anderson>So there's people on top of the surface giving the commands come in and they're <v Dale Anderson>essentially diving underwater with me without having to be here. <v Camille Jennings>We're receiving you loud and clear. <v Camille Jennings>Dale, we've got one more student. He's got another question to ask you. <v Camille Jennings>Go ahead. <v Student>Yes. I'd like to know that- I know there's a hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica. <v Student>Does it affect your work? <v Camille Jennings>Over Dale.

<v Dale Anderson>I think the question was about the ozone hole, is that correct? <v Camille Jennings>That's correct. Over. <v Dale Anderson>Well, the ozone hole has had some problems with some of the <v Dale Anderson>organisms under the ocean, but it's still being studied. <v Dale Anderson>That's really not know what those effects are. <v Dale Anderson>There is quite a bit of ice covering the ocean so that limits the amount of <v Dale Anderson>ultraviolet radiation that can get in. <v Dale Anderson>But is something that is the topic of great interest by many scientists right now. <v Camille Jennings>All right. Thanks for your responses, Dale. I know that many of our other students have a <v Camille Jennings>lot of other questions to ask, but right now there's a lot of other people were helping <v Camille Jennings>us bring Dales words to all of us and who are participating in this program today. <v Camille Jennings>Let's go ahead and meet some of them. Don. <v Donald James>Thanks, Camille. This is Donald James at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, <v Donald James>California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. <v Donald James>You know, NASA's been involved in some exciting missions, putting men on the moon and the

<v Donald James>space shuttle. But, you know, we've also sent spacecraft to all the planets in our solar <v Donald James>system except for Pluto. <v Donald James>Well, these spacecraft are like robots that can actually be controlled right here on <v Donald James>Earth. And these robots that are controlled on earth are very much like the work <v Donald James>that we're doing here at Ames and our robotics laboratory where we can actually control <v Donald James>the robot down in Antarctica. <v Donald James>And here in our robotics lab, we have students from some of our local schools, together <v Donald James>with Butler Hyne over here, who can control the robot, as well as Carol <v Donald James>Stoker down in Antarctica who is our project team leader. <v Donald James>Later on, our students will be able to ask questions of Butler and Dale and Carol <v Donald James>and be able to talk to them about some of their exciting work, as will many of you over <v Donald James>your own computers, even if you're not on the camera during the program. <v Donald James>And in a couple of days, students here at Ames and also students in Hawaii and <v Donald James>Virginia will actually be able to take control of the rover and drive it themselves and <v Donald James>explore the underworld.

<v Donald James>Well, let's meet some of these students now. <v Donald James>Let's go 3,000 miles to the west, to Hawaii, where Patty is. <v Donald James>Patty. <v Patty Miller>Hi, Camille. Hi, Don. And hello, kids all across America. <v Patty Miller>Yes, this is Honolulu, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. <v Patty Miller>But we've flown in kids from all the different islands. <v Patty Miller>Also, we've got kids from Molokai, Maui, Kawai and the Big Island. <v Patty Miller>And they've been busy here today working on some activities that are directly relevant <v Patty Miller>to the activities that the NASA researchers are doing down in Antarctica. <v Patty Miller>Let's take a look at what they're doing. <v Patty Miller>Kelvin, what are you up to here? <v Student>We- we built a robot arm out of chopsticks. <v Student>We're trying to see if the controller can carry out simple <v Student>tasks. <v Student>Grip stop, up stop, left stop, <v Student>down stop. <v Patty Miller>OK. Nice job here, but we need more practice on this. <v Patty Miller>Let's take a look over here at what's going on.

<v Patty Miller>We have a group of students over here who are trying to figure out how a message is <v Patty Miller>transmitted by a satellite. <v Patty Miller>Um, Jason, can you explain what you're doing here? <v Jason>I'm the transmitter, and I'm sending a message to the satellite. <v Speaker>Message received. <v Speaker>One flash colors 82, if he does this right, my message <v Speaker>will look like a transmitter. <v Patty Miller>Take a look at the two message boards. Do they match? <v Patty Miller>You know, I think, guys, this is a difficult task to send these messages. <v Patty Miller>And I think we need a lot more work over here. <v Patty Miller>And then a few minutes, students out there in the audience will understand how these <v Patty Miller>activities relate to what they're doing in Antarctica. <v Patty Miller>Now, back to you, Camille. <v Camille Jennings>Thanks, Patty. Well, East Coast, West Coast, Hawaii and Antarctica, <v Camille Jennings>as you can see, we've got an awful lot of places looking and listening together. <v Camille Jennings>And soon you, too, will be seeing how each one of you can easily get involved via your <v Camille Jennings>school computer and a phone line. <v Camille Jennings>You see, this communication network spans the globe and involves satellites high in orbit

<v Camille Jennings>above Earth. We thought you might like to know how it all works and why. <v Camille Jennings>And we really have to be honest with you right up front on this, despite all our best <v Camille Jennings>efforts, sometimes it just may not work. <v Narrator>It all starts here under the ice. <v Narrator>NASA is experimenting with an underwater robot with stereo and close up <v Narrator>TV cameras. It's named Mars One for reasons you'll soon understand. <v Narrator>It can dove down to the very bottom of the ocean here in McMurdo Sound, <v Narrator>which can sometimes be as deep as eight hundred feet. <v Narrator>For safety reasons, human divers can only go down 130 feet. <v Narrator>So, though we're quite close to the main American base, McMurdo Station, this robot <v Narrator>sometimes shows us brand new sites. <v Narrator>Even closer to the surface, there are astonishing sights. <v Narrator>Not even the marine biologists who are working with us know quite what to expect from <v Narrator>moment to moment. So you guys are definitely part of the expedition of Discovery.

<v Narrator>Mars One has what is called an umbilical cord, which holds its power supply, <v Narrator>as well as fiber optic cables that take the TV pictures back up above the surface <v Narrator>through a hole in the sea ice. That hole is nearly 10 feet deep. <v Narrator>So even getting in and out of the water is a pretty big deal on the surface. <v Narrator>In a modified fish hut, the NASA research team sits and works <v Narrator>here. They monitor the signals and sometimes control the robot locally when it's <v Narrator>not being driven from Ames. <v Narrator>Close to the fish heart, they set up an infrared laser which carries their voices <v Narrator>and the TV pictures back across the ice to McMurdo Station. <v Narrator>You can think of a laser as a fancy kind of flashlight with its light concentrated <v Narrator>in a special way so that the beam carries information. <v Narrator>When it snows, the laser light gets scattered and we can lose the connection <v Narrator>completely. That's already happened a number of times during the research,

<v Narrator>but we sure hope it won't repeat itself during these broadcasts. <v Narrator>But down here near the pole, even though it's now summer in the southern hemisphere, <v Narrator>we have to tell you that snow is something that is always possible. <v Narrator>From McMurdo, the signal is sent by microwave first to a ground station, <v Narrator>then up to an Intelsat communications satellite, 22,000 miles <v Narrator>above the earth in an orbit which always keeps it in the same place. <v Narrator>Then, like a flashlight bouncing off a mirror, the signal goes down to <v Narrator>a ground station in California and then travels by another fiber optic cable <v Narrator>to NASA Ames. <v Narrator>There a skilled team of technicians, tweaks and tunes the signal and sends it into <v Narrator>Butler's lab. <v Narrator>22,000 miles up 22,000 miles back. <v Narrator>Even traveling at the speed of light, the fastest anything in the universe can go

<v Narrator>that all takes nearly three quarters of a second to get from Antarctica to Ames and <v Narrator>back. <v Camille Jennings>Now from Ames, the signal sent backup to another satellite, which then bounces it <v Camille Jennings>across the continent to our TV station here at WHRO in Hampton Roads, Virginia. <v Camille Jennings>WHRO is essentially communications central. <v Camille Jennings>Here all of the various audio and video signals are mixed and sent back <v Camille Jennings>out over satellites to schools around the country. <v Camille Jennings>Today, you're on an electronic field trip with students all across America. <v Camille Jennings>You've seen students in Hawaii and in California and here in our studios at WHRO. <v Camille Jennings>We've got students as well. <v Camille Jennings>You see, our students will be asking questions about the research that we're watching. <v Camille Jennings>And you'll be able to do that too. Later our computer expert, Brian Callahan, <v Camille Jennings>will be giving us a demonstration of how just about any kind of computer fitted with a <v Camille Jennings>phone line can keep you in touch with the Antarctic researchers. <v Camille Jennings>Now, keep in mind that we're all watching this program from very different places. <v Camille Jennings>We're watching it also from different time zones.

<v Camille Jennings>And we thought you might like to know that when our program started, it's 2:00 p.m. <v Camille Jennings>on the East Coast, 11:00 a.m. in California, 9:00 in the morning in Hawaii. <v Camille Jennings>But it's 8:00 a.m. the next day in Antarctica. <v Camille Jennings>So while today is Wednesday here in Virginia, it's Thursday down where Dale is. <v Camille Jennings>So really we're talking to tomorrow. <v Camille Jennings>Well, let's take a look now at why NASA, the space agency, is swimming around <v Camille Jennings>with a robot in the ocean under all that Antarctic ice. <v Narrator>Antarctica is the most remote continent on earth. <v Narrator>Fascinating. Beautiful. <v Narrator>A place of world records. <v Narrator>90 percent of all of the ice on the earth is here and 70 percent <v Narrator>of all of the world's freshwater. <v Narrator>At its deepest, the ice is almost 3 miles thick, making Antarctica <v Narrator>earth's highest continent. <v Narrator>During the Antarctic summer, when it's winter for us north of the equator, <v Narrator>temperatures can rise as high as 15 degrees Celsius. <v Narrator>That's 59 degrees Fahrenheit. <v Narrator>But most of the time, it's cold, very cold.

<v Narrator>The world record low was recorded here. <v Narrator>But amazingly, some parts of the interior have even less rainfall <v Narrator>than the Gobi Desert. They're called dry valleys. <v Narrator>Around Antarctica lies an immense sheet of sea ice. <v Narrator>It's on or under all of this ice that the NASA researchers work. <v Narrator>In winter, it's as much as 15 hundred kilometers, 1,000 <v Narrator>miles wide and three meters or 10 feet thick. <v Narrator>The main American base is McMurdo Station with laboratories, warehouses, <v Narrator>stores, a home away from home for researchers. <v Narrator>Close to McMurdo is the volcano called Mount Erebus. <v Narrator>McMurdo is the port of entry for most American researchers. <v Narrator>Nearly all now come by air.

<v Narrator>Each year, some 1100 may visit, though only a couple of hundred stay on <v Narrator>for the cold, dark winter months. <v Narrator>Since nearly everything must be shipped in, America's National Science Foundation <v Narrator>carefully coordinates all arrangements. [music] Mars, <v Narrator>the red planet, is the fourth from the sun. <v Narrator>It's both like and unlike Antarctica. <v Narrator>Mars, too, has ancient volcanoes. <v Narrator>This one, Olympus monds, is nearly three times higher than Mt. <v Narrator>Everest. <v Narrator>But as the simulated trip reminds us, there are no oceans on Mars <v Narrator>nor liquid water, though Mars is smaller than Earth. <v Narrator>Its surface area is roughly equal to our planet's dry lands. <v Narrator>This huge Rift Valley would stretch from New York to Los Angeles. <v Narrator>Mars also has dry valleys.

<v Narrator>At least now they're dry. <v Narrator>But most researchers think their river like shapes must mean that once they <v Narrator>flowed with running water perhaps four billion years ago when Earth and Mars <v Narrator>were young. <v Narrator>On earth, water was essential to the origin and evolution of life. <v Narrator>Researchers want to know whether Mars also once had life. <v Narrator>They'd like to know how and why the climate changed and where the water went. <v Narrator>[music] <v Narrator>The path to exploring Mars may start out in Antarctica with <v Narrator>new discoveries, new tools and new techniques. <v Camille Jennings>To learn more about the Antarctica Mars connection, let's go ahead and ask team leader <v Camille Jennings>Carol Stoker in an arc- in Antarctica some questions.

<v Camille Jennings>Carol, are you there? Over. <v Carol Stoker>Yeah. Yes, I'm here. <v Camille Jennings>OK. Wonderful. I have a question for you, and that just simply involves at what point do <v Camille Jennings>you think we're actually going to be sending that Mars rover to Mars based on some of the <v Camille Jennings>research you've done today over. <v Carol Stoker>I'm sorry, we have some interference from the driver here. <v Carol Stoker>Could you repeat the question? <v Camille Jennings>Certainly. At what point do you think you'll actually be sending the Mars rover up to <v Camille Jennings>Mars based on the research that you're doing right now over? <v Carol Stoker>Well, that actually depends on when we. <v Carol Stoker>We have a mission to Mars where we're at a point now where we could do the control system <v Carol Stoker>for Mars rover. And the best option probably <v Carol Stoker>for getting a Mars rover is a Russian rover that's been built, <v Carol Stoker>and it's planned for a 1996 launch. <v Camille Jennings>Got one more question coming from our students down here. <v Camille Jennings>Let me go ahead, pass the microphone over to you and you go ahead, introduce yourself and

<v Camille Jennings>ask your question. <v Tamara Glover>Hi, my name is Tamara Glover. <v Tamara Glover>I was just wondering how do you keep warm underwater. <v Carol Stoker>A diver underwater has to wear a dry suit which keeps <v Carol Stoker>the cold water from coming in contact with their skin, um. <v Carol Stoker>Inside the dry suit, they wear a thick insulation, some kind of insulating <v Carol Stoker>suit. And the combination of those two things keep them pretty dry and warm. <v Carol Stoker>It's pretty similar to a space suit actually. <v Camille Jennings>OK. I'm certain that that's something that some of the kids have already had some <v Camille Jennings>familiarity with as all students, as we know, love astronauts and learning about space <v Camille Jennings>travel. I know that the students out at Ames have some questions, Don. <v Camille Jennings>Let's turn it over to you. <v Donald James>Thanks, Camille. Yes, we have some students here eager to ask some questions. <v Donald James>I'm not turned over to Devin at first, Devin. <v Devin>Hi. My question is, why did the robots snags on something

<v Devin>in the ocean? How would you go about freeing it? <v Carol Stoker>Could I ask someone to repeat the question? <v Devin>Sure. What if the robot snags on something in the ocean? <v Devin>How would you go about freeing it? <v Carol Stoker>That's a good question. We've actually had that happen. <v Carol Stoker>We got the tether of the robot tangled up in a <v Carol Stoker>underwater line. We had just enough line to get the robot back <v Carol Stoker>to the hut. And we put a razor blades, sort of razor blades in the gripper claw <v Carol Stoker>and went back down and cut the line. <v Carol Stoker>So actually, because robot has hands, it's able to untangle itself. <v Donald James>Great. Well, Anna has a question here for you, Carol. <v Anna>How long did it take you to get everything ready? <v Carol Stoker>Um, it took us about 9 months between the time

<v Carol Stoker>that we were in an article last year, got our equipment back and rebuilt <v Carol Stoker>it, built new systems onto it and brought it back down here. <v Carol Stoker>So if you count this particular project, it took us about 9 months. <v Donald James>Great. Well, thanks a lot. Let's turn over to Patty in Hawaii. <v Patty Miller>Thanks, Don. We have some questions here from Hawaii. <v Patty Miller>Melissa, would you go ahead, please? <v Melissa>Dale, this is Melissa. I heard that there are 4 foot long jellyfish in Antarctica. <v Melissa>Is it true that they sting you? <v Carol Stoker>They want to go to Dale. Is this a question for Dale? <v Patty Miller>Dale's out of the water. <v Carol Stoker>Come on Dale, they want to ask you a question. <v Carol Stoker>OK, Dake is just- is just coming in. <v Carol Stoker>He's just gotten out of the water. <v Carol Stoker>He's out of the water. And he should- you should be seeing him in the hut camera. <v Carol Stoker>Uh-hang on, let me just pass him the telephone.

<v Patty Miller>Just a second- he needs to hear us on the telephone. <v Patty Miller>One more time, Melissa. Go ahead. Ask him a question. <v Melissa>Dale, I heard that there are 4 foot long jellyfish in Antarctica. <v Melissa>Do they sting you? <v Melissa>Over <v Dale Anderson>No, they really can't sting us, because we have these big, thick suits on and the masks <v Dale Anderson>and everything. So we're pretty safe. <v Dale Anderson>But these jellyfish that are down there are really, really beautiful. <v Dale Anderson>They're really large. And I hope that you saw some of the pictures of them that we shot <v Dale Anderson>earlier. <v Patty Miller>We have another- thanks, Dale. We have another question for you here from Randy. <v Patty Miller>Randy, go ahead. <v Randy>Hello, Dale. This is Randy. I have a question for you. <v Randy>What made you want to send this robot under the water? <v Randy>And what's the importance of it? <v Dale Anderson>Well we're practicing for some of the future missions to Mars and by learning to control <v Dale Anderson>the robots down here in the Antarctic under this ice, it's helping <v Dale Anderson>us understand how we can control robots on Mars one day. <v Dale Anderson>So that's really important to a lot of scientists within NASA and other communities.

<v Patty Miller>Thank you. Dale. Now back to you, Camille. <v Camille Jennings>Thanks, Patty. We've already met some of the people on this project, but there's another <v Camille Jennings>key player, and that's the rover, Mars One. <v Camille Jennings>And in our studios today, we have the sister rover to One in Antarctica. <v Camille Jennings>This one's a little different, though. All right. We're going to try and decide on a <v Camille Jennings>couple things that are different with our students here. <v Camille Jennings>First one is there's a very obvious one. <v Camille Jennings>The one down in Antarctica is red. <v Camille Jennings>What's different about this? <v Student>Aqua color. <v Camille Jennings>Yeah, it's sort of aquac color. OK, now there's also something different right here. <v Camille Jennings>We've got a camera. Can anybody try and tell me something about how this is different <v Camille Jennings>from the camera on the one in Antarctica? <v Student>Well, um, aren't there like two cameras instead of one. <v Camille Jennings>That's exactly right. There are two cameras on the rover down in Antarctica. <v Camille Jennings>And there's- there's also something very unique about those cameras. <v Camille Jennings>You know, when you go home and you start listening to your music, you turn on the- what's <v Camille Jennings>the- what's the thing? Starts with an S- two speakers switch that runs the- <v Student>Stereo

<v Camille Jennings>Stereo. OK, runs the stereo. <v Camille Jennings>And actually the cameras that are on the Mars rover are running in stereo. <v Camille Jennings>You're literally seeing a more of a three dimensional format than a two dimensional <v Camille Jennings>format. OK, now that's one thing. Let's see. <v Camille Jennings>There's also something very different. There's something missing right in here. <v Camille Jennings>You can tell me what that might be. I know somebody over here knows the answer. <v Camille Jennings>We're going to let him try. <v Student>The robotic arms <v Camille Jennings>The robotic arms, the manipulator arms. And what are those arms being used for down there <v Camille Jennings>right now? <v Student>Picking up stuff <v Camille Jennings>Picking up stuff, right. Much the same way that we use our arms to do. <v Camille Jennings>So there's some very different pieces to this rover compared to the one down in <v Camille Jennings>Antarctica. Good job, guys. <v Camille Jennings>Now, the researchers down there are using the rover in order to complete their research. <v Camille Jennings>Let's go ahead and go back to Ames and watch as Butler explores the ocean under the ice <v Camille Jennings>in Antarctica with the rover. <v Butler Hynes>Hi kids, what I'm doing now is I'm- I'm driving the rover from here at Ames over the <v Butler Hynes>satellite link. What you're seeing here is you're seeing a stereo display in front of us. <v Butler Hynes>There's a display of one camera view on top of that one.

<v Butler Hynes>Over here you see a navigation grid showing where we are in the scene. <v Butler Hynes>These are the controls to the rover. And then over here you see a virtual reality view. <v Butler Hynes>And it's as I drive the rover around. <v Butler Hynes>I'm using the space ball. <v Butler Hynes>Baseball is sensitive to all degrees of freedom. <v Butler Hynes>So as I push it and pull it, the rover does what I want. <v Butler Hynes>For instance, I just twisted the ball a little bit and you see the rover twisted its <v Butler Hynes>view. Now I'm pushing down on the ball, on the rover sinking down towards the ground. <v Butler Hynes>If I want to look up. I can look up now and see the ice above us. <v Butler Hynes>See, that's the ice above us. See the dive hole? <v Butler Hynes>And if I looked down, I see the bottom of the ocean again. <v Butler Hynes>One thing you should notice over the satellite link is that as I give a command, it <v Butler Hynes>takes a second or so before the rover actually does what I'm telling it to do. <v Butler Hynes>That's because of the delay in the satellite transmission time.

<v Butler Hynes>Now I'm pushing down and the rover's sinking towards the bottom. <v Butler Hynes>I can control the manipulator arm. <v Butler Hynes>Also, I can move it into the point of view. We lost control. <v Donald James>OK, well, we're going to ask a question to Dale, and I think there's a student here that <v Donald James>would like to talk to him about some of the things that he's doing. <v Donald James>Jordan, did you have a question for Dale? <v Jordan>Yeah. What kind of computer systems do you use in- in Antarctica? <v Dale Anderson>Well, we have a number of computers that we're using here in the Antarctic. <v Dale Anderson>We're using an Amiga. And we're also using a Macintosh and an IBM. <v Dale Anderson>So we're using quite a number. <v Dale Anderson>And they're all very, very helpful and have special jobs. <v Camille Jennings>Great. Well, thanks a lot, Jordan. Now we're going to turn it over to Patty in Hawaii.

<v Patty Miller>OK, thank you, Don. And we've got a question here from Joe. <v Patty Miller>Joe, go ahead. <v Joe>Oh, hi, this is Joe. I was yeah, I was wondering where you put all the trash <v Joe>that is in Antarctica, over, over. <v Dale Anderson>Where we put the trash? Well, all of the trash <v Dale Anderson>in the Antarctic in the U.S. program is really taken back out and removed <v Dale Anderson>from the Antarctic. It's all taken back to the United States and disposed <v Dale Anderson>of properly there. But we take very, very good care of sorting all of the trash. <v Dale Anderson>So we have many different piles. <v Dale Anderson>There's aluminum piles and scrap metal piles of the waste paper. <v Dale Anderson>So it's all sorted very carefully and then returned to the United States for proper <v Dale Anderson>disposal. <v Patty Miller>Thank you, and we have one more question here from Melani, you have a question, please. <v Patty Miller>Microphone, talk into the microphone. <v Melani>Dale, this is Melani. <v Melani>I want to know does the wildlife act differently when your staying down there? <v Melani>Like penguins and seals? Over.

<v Dale Anderson>What was the question do we see the penguins and seals? <v Melani>Oh, um, Does <v Melani>it disturb the wildlife or does it act differently? <v Dale Anderson>I'm sorry. You'll have to ask one more time so I can hear. <v Patty Miller>The question here, Dale, is that she wants to know if the wildlife is <v Patty Miller>affected by you guys being there. Do they act differently or are they intimidated by <v Patty Miller>you? Are you intimidated by them? <v Dale Anderson>Right. That's actually a very, very good question. <v Dale Anderson>And in general, we try to stay away from most of the animals. <v Dale Anderson>We don't disturb them. We try to let them stay in their natural environment without <v Dale Anderson>bothering them very much. And only the researchers that are directly involved with <v Dale Anderson>research on a particular animal really go over and work with them. <v Dale Anderson>So everybody here tries to stay a certain distance away from the wildlife <v Dale Anderson>just to take pictures. And if they're at all upset, then we leave and leave <v Dale Anderson>them alone.

<v Patty Miller>Thank you. Sounds like what we try to do here in Hawaii. <v Patty Miller>Now back to you, Camille. <v Camille Jennings>Thanks, Patty. Still got some more questions coming in from WHRO. <v Camille Jennings>Go ahead, introduce yourself and ask your question. <v Tracy>I'm Tracy and I have a question. <v Tracy>Even with all that protection on from the cold, do you still get affected by it <v Tracy>at all? Over. <v Dale Anderson>Well, sometimes we do. In that last dove I made, I was pretty warm. <v Dale Anderson>This- this dry suit that I'm wearing keeps me dry inside. <v Dale Anderson>I'm wearing clothing on underneath it. You can see the gloves on my hand, which are <v Dale Anderson>made of wool. But in general, if we don't stay down to too long, it's quite comfortable. <v Dale Anderson>On some days, though, our hands get real cold. <v Dale Anderson>So it just depends on what kind of work we're doing. <v Camille Jennings>OK. Thanks, Dale. I've got another question for you. <v Sarah Meadows>Yes. I'm Sarah Meadows. I was wondering, what kind of training did <v Sarah Meadows>you have to go through before you actually went down for the dive? <v Dale Anderson>Well, I've been diving for quite some time, and I do have some basic certification

<v Dale Anderson>through some of the diving agencies. <v Dale Anderson>And we also dive through a university program that's that's really run through <v Dale Anderson>Scripps Institute and they're diving officers there certify us for diving in the <v Dale Anderson>Antarctic because it does take some special training, and you have to be aware <v Dale Anderson>of certain- certain rules to dive safely <v Dale Anderson>down here. <v Camille Jennings>OK. Dale, just got one more question for you. <v Camille Jennings>Go ahead. <v Speaker>Yeah. What do you do during your free time when you're not under the water in the hut? <v Dale Anderson>Well, a lot of time is spent, of course, preparing for the next day's work and making <v Dale Anderson>sure that everything is operational. <v Dale Anderson>And I also spend some time working with some of the other ecologists here trying to <v Dale Anderson>understand some of the problems that they're working with. <v Dale Anderson>But we also have time just to sit around and talk. <v Dale Anderson>We have a coffeehouse here in town. So it's it's nice to sit over there and drink some <v Dale Anderson>tea and and interest stories around from time to time. <v Dale Anderson>And now they even have television down here.

<v Dale Anderson>So every once in a while, we get together and watch a video on the TV. <v Camille Jennings>OK. Thanks. Now, you heard some great questions coming from our students here at WHRO. <v Camille Jennings>Let's go ahead and go back to Don at NASA Ames. <v Donald James>Yes, Camille. In our next program, the students here at Ames will actually push <v Donald James>Butler out of his seat in order to drive the rover. <v Donald James>And students in Hawaiian and Virginia will be able to drive the rover as well. <v Donald James>But what you see here in our lab is some pretty fancy computer equipment. <v Donald James>But you know what? Our other sites, you don't have to have all the fancy computers in <v Donald James>order to drive the rover. In fact, the computers are just like the ones you probably have <v Donald James>in your schools and your home, too. It's pretty neat stuff. <v Donald James>Also, our next program, Butler is going to teach us a little bit about the amazing <v Donald James>technology of virtual reality. <v Donald James>Also, tell us about why it's important to have stereo vision to help drive <v Donald James>the robot. And to see in stereo you'll need these special electronic <v Donald James>glasses called Crystal Eyes.

<v Donald James>So we hope to see you then. <v Donald James>Goodbye from Ames. <v Camille Jennings>You look very space-age in that helmet. I rather like it. <v Camille Jennings>Well, you have seen and heard the questions coming from our live participants in the <v Camille Jennings>television studios around the country that every one of you, if you, your teacher or <v Camille Jennings>your school, has access to a computer and a simple gadget called a modem to connect it to <v Camille Jennings>the phone network can ask questions of the researchers that you've been watching during <v Camille Jennings>the program. And some of their colleagues who volunteered to respond to you. <v Camille Jennings>It's called e-mail or electronic correspondence. <v Camille Jennings>And here with more is Brian Callahan, who's in charge of helping folks get used to <v Camille Jennings>computers here at WHRO. Brian. <v Brian Callahan> Thanks very much, Camille. <v Brian Callahan>As you can see, all you really need is to have a microcomputer and a thing called a <v Brian Callahan>modem, as Camille said, that hooks you up to the phone line, hook your computer up to the <v Brian Callahan>phone line, and then you need to get a log in code and a password. <v Brian Callahan>And you get your log in code and your password to get into the system by contacting your <v Brian Callahan>local public television station.

<v Brian Callahan>Once you do that, they'll tell you how to dial in. <v Brian Callahan>As you can see, I've already dialed in here on this computer and you'll get to a main <v Brian Callahan>menu eventually, which will say something like Live From Other Worlds. <v Brian Callahan>Ours say choice Y down in the lower right hand corner. <v Brian Callahan>So I simply choose Y. <v Brian Callahan>And I'm presented then with a whole other menu of choices, including Dales <v Brian Callahan>Dive Diary. Let's see what Dale is doing back in October. <v Brian Callahan>We just go on there and let's see back in October. <v Brian Callahan>In addition to Dale having to get his diver's license, he also had to get his driver's <v Brian Callahan>license. So you can see he's gives all sorts of things on there this way. <v Brian Callahan>In addition to that, you'll be able to ask questions from each of the researchers. <v Brian Callahan>You simply do that by choosing item- Here it comes -item <v Brian Callahan>C and that'll be the researcher Q&A. <v Brian Callahan>So any of you who have not been in the program today can still participate using <v Brian Callahan>electronic mail by getting online and choosing items C, which is the researchers Q&A. <v Brian Callahan>So as you can see, everybody can be involved, not just the people in the studio.

<v Camille Jennings>Well, thanks, Brian. I think it's time we do a fire at my computer back home. <v Camille Jennings>Let's go ahead and go now to Patty Miller in Hawaii. <v Camille Jennings>Patty? <v Patty Miller>Thanks, Camille. You know, we use computers all the time in Hawaii to communicate. <v Patty Miller>With so many islands here. <v Patty Miller>It's a lot easier usually to telecommute. <v Patty Miller>That's to work and to talk by satellite and computer rather <v Patty Miller>than always getting on an airplane. <v Patty Miller>Our students have found some interesting things here in this system. <v Patty Miller>And let's take a minute and look at it. Melani, what can you tell us? <v Patty Miller>What have you found here? <v Melani>Well, we asked a couple of questions to Dale and ?we found? Dale's Dive Diary where he tells us about all of his experiences. <v Student>Yesterday, I drove to a small island to dive through the tide cracks in order to <v Student>observe the bottom of the ocean. The view underwater was absolutely breathtaking. <v Student>Several seals were underwater with us, but in general kept their distance. <v Student>After Dan and I had been down for about 33 minutes, we headed back <v Student>to our downline and noticed a Weddell seal in a breathing

<v Student>hole nearby. We could hear a ?chill?several octaves <v Student>and a powerful, guttural thump, a low frequency burst <v Student>that penetrated your very being. <v Student>But we were getting a bit cold, our hands in particular. <v Student>So after nearly an hour underwater, we made our way back up the hole <v Student>to the surface. Another grand adventure underwater. <v Patty Miller>Thank you. Now I know we'll be- I'm sure we'll be sending some messages here to Dale and <v Patty Miller>hope to hear back from you people before the next program. <v Patty Miller>So from all of us here in Hawaii, aloha and farewell. <v Camille Jennings>Don. Carol and Butler and kids all across America. <v Camille Jennings>Thanks for joining us. We hope to see you again next time and hear from you via e-mail. <v Camille Jennings>Dale in Antarctica. Are you still with us? <v Dale Anderson>Yes, I'm still right here. <v Camille Jennings>OK. Well, thanks, Dale, and thanks to the entire NASCA team. <v Camille Jennings>So for all of us farewell.

<v Camille Jennings>See you next time for student drivers and robot divers. <v Camille Jennings>Keep your fingers crossed for good weather in the Antarctic. <v Camille Jennings>Keep those e-mails coming for the Live From Other Worlds project. <v Camille Jennings>Thanks and goodbye. <v Speaker>Live From Other Worlds has been made possible in part by NASA's mission from Planet

<v Speaker>Earth Study Office and the NASA Education Division. <v Speaker>Additional support has been provided by the NASA K-through-12 and National Research and <v Speaker>Education Network Initiative, V-Quest west Virginia Quality Education and Sciences <v Speaker>and Technology, and by the Planetary Society.