WEST WINDSOR: His mission: Learning all about Mars

By Charley Falkenburg, Staff Writer
   WEST WINDSOR — Frank O’Brien lives just down the street from Grover’s Mill, the infamous ground zero of Orson Welles’ 1938 Martian invasion hoax. But Mr. O’Brien is convinced the invasion is real, only it’s the other way around — the humans are invading Mars.
   ”We’ve been doing an invasion of Mars for 50 years — that’s kind of impressive,” said Mr. O’Brien.
   Mr. O’Brien works full time at Colgate, but his real passion is space, NASA and doing outreaches as a JPL solar system ambassador.
   In honor of National Engineer’s Week, it was this passion he shared with people at the Roebling Museum in Florence as he talked about one of NASA’s greatest missions: landing the rover Curiosity on Mars.
   The journey to put man on Mars wasn’t an easy one and had more than its share of failures, both from the United States and from Russia. However, Mr. O’Brien attributed technology advancements, humankind’s innate thirst for exploration and, of course, some great engineering for eventual success.
   ”There are actually two rovers actively on Mars today and somehow Kim Kardashian still gets the news,” he noted, generating laughter in the packed media room at the museum.
   The Curiosity mission was instrumental in getting to know and better understand the barren, craggy planet. The rover is about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. It boasts features such as 17 cameras, six independent wheels, some simple suspension and drives itself via a preprogrammed route. It also won’t be joining NASCAR anytime soon.
   ”It goes two to four centimeters per second; the guy is going to retire before he gets to his destination,” said Mr. O’Brien.
   But before the Curiosity nailed the landing last summer, Mr. O’Brien recalled how the blood pressure of the folks in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory was near heart attack levels during the infamous “seven minutes of terror.” It took the base at Earth seven minutes until it found out that Curiosity, or “rover on a rope,” had descended from the rocket on a rope and successfully landed on Mars via parachute.
   Then, of course, came the cheers, whistles and high-fives. But even better was what the rover captured — a gold mine of information, pictures and evidence that showed the bone-dry planet has traces of methane and once had an abundance of water.
   ”It’s a geologist’s paradise,” said Mr. O’Brien after showing pictures the Curiosity snapped of sedimentary rock. To him, the signs of water meant one thing: they might find evidence that life could have existed once upon a time.
   But what if they do find life and astronauts come into contact with Martians who supposedly made their debut in West Windsor decades ago? Will interaction with another species make it unsafe for the astronauts to return to Earth?”It’s the most scary thought that keeps a lot of people awake at night,” said Mr. O’Brien. “It would become a political problem and the government would be freaking out.”
   There’s another peculiar discovery about Mars Mr. O’Brien said has scientists “going bonkers” — samples of talc-like powder drilled from rocks were not red, like how everyone envisions the planet. They were greenish-gray.
   ”We are awaiting the results, but this would challenge all we know,” he added.NASA is already planning a second trip to Mars in 2013 with the “Maven.” Mr. O’Brien described it as “the most boring mission by today’s standards,” since the rover is sans cameras. However, the expedition is still equally important.
   ”It’s going to figure out why Mars is the barren wasteland it is today,” said Mr. O’Brien. “It’s going to find out why it lost its atmosphere.”Following the Maven, is Curiosity expedition part two in 2020 — the next big mission to rove on Mars for the United States.
   It appears Mr. O’Brien is more than excited about what future expeditions will shed on Mars — no matter how many people try to convince him all space explorations are fake. He calls these people the “crazies” and said he deals with them quite often with a tidbit of advice.
   ”There are some people you just can’t convince,” laughed Mr. O’Brien. “I tell them ‘get your tinfoil and put it back on your head.’”