Correction Added.
When Steve Squyres played poker late at night during his college days, he dreamed of becoming a name in the scientific community.
Squyres continued to fulfill that dream Thursday when he was awarded the Shoemaker Award by Beyond, the Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at ASU.
The award, given annually to an accomplished scientist, recognized Squyres’ work as the scientific principal investigator of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover project.
“It was a tough game to get into, but we all aspired to be where we are now,” Squyres said.
The award was named after Eugene Shoemaker, one of the founders in the field of planetary science. He co-discovered the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with his wife Carolyn Shoemaker and Canadian astronomer David Levy in 1993.
Squyres worked alongside Shoemaker as a graduate student while he was at Cornell University.
“Gene was a valued colleague and dear friend,” Squyres said.
Shoemaker was killed in a 1997 car accident and the award was created in his name by Beyond in 2007.
“Gene Shoemaker was a brilliant and much loved scientist,” said Paul Davies, director of Beyond. He added that Shoemaker did much of his work in Arizona.
Carolyn Shoemaker, who is herself an expert on asteroids and comets, presented the award to Squyres.
“Steve is a young Gene Shoemaker,” she said. “He has all of his ability and enthusiasm.”
Shoemaker, who lives in Flagstaff, went one step further in honoring Squyres.
“I have named an asteroid after Steve,” Shoemaker said.
The asteroid, now called 10044 Squyres, was originally discovered in 1985, Shoemaker said.
In order to name the asteroid, a tracker must first map its orbit three times. The process took 15 years for Shoemaker since each trip around the sun took the asteroid five years. It orbits between Mars and Jupiter, Shoemaker said.
Once Squyres professed just how honored he was at receiving the two honors, he moved on to present a lecture on the Mars Exploration Rovers project.
The project, which launched the rovers Spirit and Opportunity in 2003, was expected to be a 90-day excursion, Squyres said.
More than 2,400 days later, the rovers are still operational, thanks to the solar panels on the rovers.
Spirit is currently in hibernation because of a discharged battery, and it awaits the solar energy it needs to power back on. Opportunity is making its way toward the large crater called Endeavor, Squyres said.
In an ideal situation, Squyres said he would have been the one on Mars, but he had to create robot geologists to take his place.
“Gene would have loved this mission,” Squyres said.
Squyres was chief among hundreds of scientists and engineers on the project. Phil Christensen, who played poker with Squyres and mused on their futures while at Cornell, was one of these scientists.
Christensen is a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at ASU. He designed the rovers’ infrared spectrometer, which reflects light off rocks and determines their mineral composition.
Steve Ruff, a faculty research associate at ASU’s Mars Space Flight Facility on the Tempe campus, has monitored and controlled the infrared spectrometers on the rovers for the past six years.
The spectrometer was responsible for discovering the chemical compound silica on the surface of Mars.
“Silica forms when water interacts with rock,” Ruff said.
The discovery indicated that water was once on the surface of Mars, he said.
Silica is the same substance used in packets found in commercial products like shoes or toys to absorb moisture. Ruff added it could indicate the existence of microbial life.
“With ASU’s instrument, we made one of the most important discoveries in the mission,” Ruff said.
Near the end of the lecture, Squyres produced never-before-seen photos of the surface of Mars that were downloaded just hours prior to the event.
The pictures depicted the plains of Mars stretched out in front of the rover Opportunity, with the enormous rim of the Endeavor crater far in the distance.
In an interview with The State Press, Squyres recalled the challenges he overcame during his career.
“There are tough, dark times for all of us,” he said, “I’ve even had spacecrafts blow up. But when it all works, it’s just amazing.”
Reach the reporter at alex.ferri@asu.edu
