COMMUNICATING FIELD GEOLOGY STRATEGIES TO NASA MISSION PLANNERS

NASA HQ working groups are identifying science requirements for incorporation into future human mission planning. The aim is to maximize science return within a developing engineering framework, in part, by understanding how field work is ideally conducted. Although inherent to field geologists, it is difficult to explain in a conference room. Here we discuss our approaches to demonstrate the practices of a field geologist to NASA engineers. To communicate our field strategies we designed field work in ways that enabled us to visually demonstrate how field plans were built and modified. Our research focuses on lava sheet inflation at the McCartys flow, NM, and the 1859 Mauna Loa flow, HI. GPS tracks show how our paths changed from a daily plan, and how our overall plan developed over multiple visits.

Comparing our GPS tracks and an Apollo-style plan showed the difference between a planned, straight-line path between points and actual field work. Our plan was designed for 8 hours, covering a roundtrip distance of 8.75 km. We did not complete the plan due to unanticipated sample collections, extended observations at stations and terrain navigation, although we achieved the day’s objectives. Although it appeared that we covered less ground, we walked 9.1 km. This demonstrates the difference between a path of mapped straight lines and actual traverses while conducting field geology. Straight-line segments drawn over our actual traverse path in GoogleEarth show a total distance of only 6.7 km, a margin of ~25%. The main points for this exercise were to show the engineers that real-time flexibility must be preserved, and that a distance buffer must be anticipated.

Short duration science mission scenarios focus on distance traveled and diversity of sites visited. Long duration outpost missions might enable thorough analyses of features. For our sites we show a buildup of traverses based on our evolving hypotheses. The main points for this exercise were to show the engineers that significant science questions are rarely answered with one visit per feature. In other words, science success is not determined by checking matrices boxes when field geologists walk on mapped lines and visit points of interest. The quality of work conducted during those walks and visits is what determines science success, often requiring long or multiple visits.