Mathematics, science and logical thought processes are the foundation of engineering, science and technology.

A thorough understanding of their fundamentals and interrelationships is essential if a nation is to improve, or even maintain its position in today's globally competitive environment.

Without this understanding, there is little potential for both an informed government, capable of offering reasonable legislative choices, and an educated electorate, capable of understanding the choices and making the wise decisions necessary to ensure a productive and secure future. ( J. E. Tillman )

The primary LFEM - STEP educational goals are to continuing bringing K-12 students into our current and future Mars missions, helping them develop the humanitarian and scientific foundation necessary to create a safe, secure and prosperous climate, whether on Earth or Mars.

MetNet
MetNet (MetLander: is the same program), is a Finnish - Russian - LFEM-STEP program, led by Ari-Matti Harri of the Finnish Meteorology Institute, that will place an Atmospheric Science Climate lander Network on Mars, beginning with a Precursor mission as early as 2009. This began with the incorporation of Tillman's "Climate Lander" strategy in the International Mars Exploration Working Group's Mars Exploration Strategy as described below and published in "Towards Mars" ; these are described in the IMEWG section below. Prototype developments began in 2001 and a launch in Earth's atmosphere will test reentry techniques. Participation in this program (by Tillman and his collaborators) is described in the "Mars MetNet" Memorandum of Understanding with FMI. MetNet was introduced to the Mars community at the June 22, 23 2003 IMEWG meeting at Cocoa Beach, Florida by Ari-Matti Harri, the Program leader.

• Mars MetNet    Memo of Understanding;   Education and public outreach collaborative program where students also will share information from and can participate in our Meteorology investigation of Mars
• Tillman's Contributions    to and participation in Finnish Meteorology Institutes Mars programs since the late 1980's
• Characterizing Martian Climate Variability    Tillman, Harri and Larsen describe the dramatic inter annual climate variability and the necessity for multi year observations. Presented at the NetLander Mission Conference, Paris Nov. 18, 1998, J.E. Tillman

As an invited Co-Investigator in the French, Finnish, German, ..., US NetLander** Mission to Mars, Jim Tillman provided engineering, operations and science contributions to the development of the program and proposal during month long trips to Europe in 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2001. As a part of his participation, he negotiated an agreement allowing him to develop an educational outreach program with contributing student participants throughout the world. ( Tillman has been supported by a gift from Jeremy and Linda Jaech)

While working on the NetLander Phase A development and review in Helsinki during January-February and October-November 2000, Tillman accepted an invitation from Professor Risto Pellinen, Director of the Geophysics Division of the Finnish Meteorology Institute and Chairman of the International Mars Exploration Working Group, IMEWG, to: 1) become a Finnish Delegate to IMEWG, 2) help develop The IMEWG "Mars Exploration Strategy", which incorporated his Mars "Climate Lander" strategy, as published in "Towards Mars", and 3) participate in the "Planning and implementation of the public outreach activity in the framework of the ATMIS instrument onboard the Netlander Mission."(MetNet now replaces NetLander.). Through these collaborations, as in the past, students will be able to take an even more active role in the MetNet mission than in his past Mars Mission activities.

Come Together Washington

Mars Exhibit



Department of Aeronautics/Astronautics
left table and images above

Department of Atmospheric Sciences
right table and posters 
MetNet, "Meteorology Network"  lander
above
Viking FC#3 lander

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 14:01:56 -0700
From: Adam Bruckner <bruckner@aa.washington.edu>
To: Jim Tillman <mars@atmos.washington.edu>


Most of the positive comments were from unidentified attendees of the event. ....

The most significant plaudit came from Ed Lazowska of CSE (former chair of that department). He said that there was a "buzz" at the event about our Mars exhibit being the best one. He told me this twice in person and once via e-mail (which you received, too). Dean Denton also praised our exhibit. The Viking Lander and the Metlander that Ari-Matti sent were what made our exhibit so attractive and interesting to everyone.

People were fascinated by the fact that the Metlander (MetNet), would be going to Mars in a few years.

(Photo courtesy of James G. Tillman.)

The Viking Lander Flight Spare Capsule # 3, was formerly an exhibit in the University of Washington's Electrical Engineering Department courtesy of Professor Howard Chizeck, former Chair of Electrical Engineering, and  Professor Adam Bruckner, Chair of Aeronautics/Astronautics. It was loaned to the Museum of Flight and has been updated, described and installed there in an excellent new exhibit.  The exhibit was opened to the public  by a panel of Martian's on 22 July, 2006 after a 30th anniversary event on 20 July, 2006, the 30'th anniversary of Viking 1's landing on Mars. We had planned to land on the US Bicentennial July 4, 1976, but the Martian surface was a bit inhospitable at out primary landing site!

 Chris Vancil led and Dr. Eckart Schmidt helped restore the lander, and Dr. Schmidt acquired the model engines and tank. Prof Bruckner, Chair & Aero/Astro Department students also played a prominent role in the restoration. Rachel Tillman designed the exhibit while John Schulz created it. This is the only "Flight lander body" left on Earth and if completed would be at the Viking Lander 1 site; the other landers on Earth are all test landers. As a former Viking Lander Meteorology Team member, Jim saved the FC# 3 lander body, destined to be molten scrap, due to the insistence of his daughter Rachel. The LFEM - STEP program and participation are described at this site. Tillman was responsible for pioneering low cost Mars Mission Operations at UW, enabling his and the NASA JPL staff to more than double the life of Viking Lander 1 on Mars.

This exhibit is also described in the 2003 Electrical Engineering Kaleidoscope, EEK. Please feel free to contact us via e-mail at lfemstep@atmos.washington.edu or phone¹ regarding your interest in participating in the LFEM - STEP program.

• Contribute to education of students in science, mathematics and technology, especially in grades K-12, by expanding my 25+ years of International collaborations with educators, individuals, institutions, and students
• Utilize my pioneering roles in past and future Mars and Earth programs to develop and support these goals, especially by bringing students into the Mars Lander programs
• Expand these activities, to include technology demonstration and research, with the assistance of secondary and higher education students
• Continue collaborative developments of science, technology, and public outreach with the Geophysics Division of the Finnish Meteorology Institute in the
  • Planning and implementation of the public outreach activity in the framework of the MetNet Mission, lead by Finland
• Utilize the exciting meteorology of Earth and Mars as a platform to develop a better understanding of basic principles of and relationship between energy exchange and temperature, thereby leading to a better understanding of Climate and Global Warming, by capitalizing on our day to day intimacy with temperature
  • A "Temperature of Earth and Mars" educational module has been drafted by Tillman and Howard, piloted in 4-5 and 8th grade. Its development by Tillman and collaborators was the primary Atmospheric Sciences Education/Public Outreach element of the NASA   JPL contribution to NetLander until NASA cancelled its participation in NetLander.
    
• Partner with teachers, grade K-16 students and others to develop, produce and test educational modules, materials, hardware and software
• Complete the first local K-12 three-School Research Weather Station network, evaluating and revising the program and infrastructure
• Incorporate student participation in the MetNet meteorology investigations and School Research Weather Station program
• Have students help develop educational materials and resources, including temperature sensors for the Temperature of Earth and Mars educational module, our state of the art networks, and the School Research Weather Stations, maintaining and calibrating the later, thereby providing immedately applicable, enabling experiences

• Weather station experiment and observations goals, (partial)
• Selected School chronology

• Coe School , grades K-5, Queen Anne Hill, Seattle, Washington

  • Coe station software and web presentation developed 1998-1999
  • Weather network diagram Seattle: Coe K-5 to Finnish Meteorology Institute, Geophysics Research Division, Helsinki Finland using Unidata
  • Demonstrates the simplicity of automated routing of Coe weather data to Finland PC running Unidata on Linux
  • Collaborating sites can automatically interchange any information via Unidata, e.g., school projects, stories, assignments, etc.
  • The Coe site is off line while the school is being rebuilt

• McClure School, , grades 6-8, Queen Anne Hill, Seattle, Washington
  "Weather station helps middle school with real-world science"
  Seattle PI article Nov. 22, 1999
  • Research quality, weather station, developed for McClure
  • Acquired $2,000 University Rotary grant to match McClure and PTA funds
  • Group Health donated 90 Computer systems through University Rotary, 60 for McClure, 20 for Coe and 10 for system/infrastructure development and demonstration
    
  • System was developed by Fred Weller, who donated his time, and Jim Tillman
  • David Warren, parent and Neal Johnson, UW Department of Atmospheric Sciences
  • McClure Weather Station dedicated 19 Nov., 1999 and collaborative program announced
• Jeremy Jaech's statement for the dedication, (CEO Visio Corp., now Division of Microsoft)

• "A good understanding of science is fundamental to being a good citizen and to being productive in the information economy of the future. Science and math education for our children is therefore vital to their success. In this age of computers and video games, if our kids are to be attracted to science and math, we need to serve it up to them in ways that capture their attention and imagination. What Jim Tillman is doing with Mars weather to teach science concepts to young students is a good example of this, and is the reason I have supported him on this project.

• Thank you, Jim, for your efforts."



McClure student examining high resolution wind speed data from their
McClure, University Rotary, Fred Weller weather station.
(Photo courtesy of James Grant Tillman.)

• Mars mission information and data are available from the original LFEM

• Make your own weather plots
  • Including high resolution, continuous coverage observations and
  • Solar radiation at UW and our collaborating schools (not observed by the Weather Service), where we have installed research quality weather stations
• Thunder, lightning, sleet, 94 MPH peak wind examples on Queen Anne hill (NEW, 99/04/11)
  
• Environmental -- Science conflict
• Comparison of two weeks of temperatures on Mars
  with Seattle WA, Tucson, AZ, Antarctica during the Pathfinder mission
• School collaboration Memo of Understanding

Introduction

Although you can't yet take a classroom of students to Mars, you can use the weather data collected during the Pathfinder and Viking missions, now available on the Web, to offer students the opportunity to explore the environment on and near the surface of Mars. By conducting schoolyard investigations similar to those done during the Pathfinder and Viking missions, students can compare their own data about the weather on Earth to those collected by scientists who studied the weather on Mars, and with students in other schools throughout the world. This elementary school curriculum includes lessons that incorporate both classroom and Web-based components.

By gathering, recording, representing, and interpreting quantifiable weather data from both schoolyard investigations and from the Web, students will engage in inquiry science that follows the process and content standards suggested by both the National Research Council National Science Education Standards, and the Washington State Essential Academic Learning Requirements in Science. Both the NRC Standards and the Washington State EALR suggest that elementary students:

• Observe, measure, and describe weather in terms of measurable quantities such as TEMPERATURE, noting changes and patterns from day to day and over seasons.
• Develop abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry including: questioning, designing and conducting investigations, explaining, and communicating.

Local meteorological conditions are often influenced, or determined by: events at times and locations far removed, varying micro environmental conditions, and the complex processes involved in waters change of state. Consequently, understanding local measurements can often be quite complicated even for the research scientist. For these lessons, we have chosen to study temperature under conditions that minimize some of this complexity. For example, the relationship of the temperature of the air mass to its history, as determined by the "weather", is left to others. Temperature is moderately easy to measure, and appears time and again throughout all levels of science and human interaction with the environment. In this context these lessons strive to help the student discover some of the primary variables in "fair" experiments, thereby helping them develop their intuitive understanding and then a deeper understanding. Other lessons, exercises, experiments will be added and referenced.

In a larger context, one goal is for students to learn how to examine a technology, its application, and understand some of its limitations. Temperature measurement, along with the fundamentally intertwined temperature-energy relationships, have been chosen for their familiarity, fundamental importance to innumerable topics such as global warming and human comfort, and to everyday experience.

Students making measurements. The Thermocouple Electronic box is between students on the grass. Right student, has the voltmeter and is reading themperatures for the left student who is recording the data.

Acknowledgement

The below item was prepared as a thank you note to the students of Mike Howard's Spectrum Class, which included 4th and 5th graders, where Mike and I were piloting Temperature of Earth and Mars Module for the second year. The last assignment, June 2001, was for the students to critique the course. Their comments and our experience will be used to revise the module.

for your cooperation and effort in piloting this educational module. Our goals were for you to learn fundamental characteristics and limitations of sensors used in sophisticated air temperature measurements on Mars and in research programs on Earth. After discovering the differing speeds of response and sensitivity to errors caused by solar radiation, you had the opportunity to make specific measurements outside and then explore the surroundings. By examining the fast, multi level measurements made by our Campbell data logger, and comparing them to your results, you gained insights into natural atmospheric variability and some of the difficulties in making accurate, Representative measurements, both essential requirements for Climate Warming studies. Your performance was excellent and we were able to learn how to better construct and present these materials.

Many of your questions about the outdoor observations, such as why does hot air rise, why does it get colder as you move upward from the surface during day, and others are typically tackled in much higher grades.     We will have to work hard to develop other experiments that will help you understand these processes.

These modules are being developed in conjunction with my participating in the MetNet Mission to Mars. I hope some of you will participate in that mission with me. More information can be found at http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mars/#metnet

Again, Mr. Howard and I thank you for your patience, suggestions, and excellent ideas and I hope that some of you will become atmospheric scientists. Have a great summer!

Live from Earth and Mars
Education, Earth and Mars meteorology Modules
• Live from Earth and Mars was a three year, $ 900,000 program providing access to
  • K-12 Educational Modules
  • Weather data from Earth including our Research Stations
  • Martian Meteorology and atmospheric temperature data live from the surface of Mars during Pathfinder






This figure, incorporated in a Temperature of Earth and Mars educational module, shows the differences in the air temperature recorded at some Earth sites and by the thermocouple temperature sensor at the 1.0 meter level on Mars Pathfinder Landers meteorology mast during the first 15 sols (a sol is a Mars day of 24.66 hours), July 4 - 19, 1997. Someinteresting facts are:

1. at this 19^° N site on Mars during late summer, the daily average temperature is similar to that of the Antarctic's South Pole during its winter
2. The daily Martian temperature range far exceeds that of Earth because even though is only receives 44% as much sunlight as Earth, since its atmosphere is 100 times thinner than Earth's
3. The Martian diurnal cycles are almost identical from sol to sol since clouds are very thin or absent in the low latitudes except during dust storms.

Information about Martian meteorology, including atmospheric temperatures measured by the Viking and Pathfinder landers can be found at our Live from Earth and Mars site where examples of data from Earth and landed Mars Missions are provided in tabular form.



• The Live from Mars component provides
  • The definitive Viking Lander Martian Meteorology and Climate Record
  • As part of our Live From Earth and Mars program, extensive background information and resources, such as Viking data, plots, and a Mars-Earth comparative figure
• Behind the Scenes at Mars Pathfinder Mission Operations, (.pdf file)
  J. E. Tillman in NASA IITA bulletin, August, 1997

• Donation of Alpha Workstations Digital Equipment Corporation's (DEC, now a part of Compac) donation of 4 State of the Art workstations in 1996 played a major role in the success of the Live from Mars, LFM, component of Live from Earth and Mars. They provided resources used to develop and test the LFM web resources and the software and infrastructure for relaying data from Pathfinder to UW. They also provided resources to process the Atmospheric Sciences data, extracting and presenting the atmosperic temperatures Live from Mars , described above, during the mission, reaching millions of users.

• Volunteer George LeCompte's rewriting Viking software, deriving fundamental heat transfer and gas property relationships, including discovering errors, and developing many Pathfinder components, played a major role in making the Live from Mars component of LFEM a major success.

• 
  
  

• Viking Mission Operations at UW.
  The pioneering low cost planetary mission operations at UW, that enabled the last half of Lander 1's operation, is described in a 1984 paper "The Viking Mission to Mars" along with the science accomplishments of Tillman and his Viking Computer Facility staff at UW. This includes "real time" decoding and processing of engineering, meteorology and image data from raw spacecraft bits. Highlights of Viking and Mars exploration are included as well as his development of the permanent Viking View of Mars exhibit at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.

• The Viking Lander Martian Meteorology and Climate Record
  

• "The meteorological time series acquired by the Viking Landers on the surface of Mars is unprecedented for planets other than Earth in terms of its longevity and its temporal resolution." R. W. Zurek, Chap 24. Introduction to the Mars atmosphere, Mars, Kieffer, et al, Univ. Arizona Press, p 806, 1992.
  

  Extensive information, data and educational resource links are provided from the Viking and Pahtfinder missions. Viking meteorological pressure and temperature data, plots, a Mars-Earth comparative figure, and numerous other resources are linked here. Included are the 3.3 Mars year atmospheric pressure record showing the Martian Great dust storms and their dramatic year-to-year Climate Variability. Links to educational modules and resources are also included.

• JPL/UW Memorandum of Understanding:
  Tillman agreed that his Viking Computer Facility would process raw spacecraft data for NASA JPL to produce spacecraft engineering data for the JPL Mission Operations Staff and his meteorology experiment from 1978 through 1994; the first such agreement for planetary exploration by a non-governmental entity.

This portion of the Viking mission, the "Viking Lander Monitor Mission", is described in the JPL report which includdes our attempts to revive Lander 1 after the loss of communication. We provided support by decoding and plotting more engineering data for the JPL Mission Operations staff and replicated other mission operations programs that dumped the lander memory. Details can be found in this 3 MByte .pdf file.

As a service to the Mars community, this report on the Viking Meteorology Sensor designs was selected and scanned by volunteers to preserve this knowledge; it is by far the most comprehensive such document. Its preservation is essential since the only comprehensive repository of such information and experience is retained by Jim Tillman at the University of Washington. Several more related documents should be similarly archived. The Pathfinder wind sensor design failed to consider this resource, leading to the failure of the wind sensor design. Warning, this SENSOR DESIGN ANALYSIS REPORT is an eight MByte .pdf file. We appreciate Robert C. Cary's initiative and support and the help of Forest V. Smith, President of Western Micro Services

We gratefully acknowledge the support of Andy Schwartz, 1st Solutions, http://www.firstsol.com/ for hardware to keep the Prime Viking Computer Facility operational and preserve this priceless resource.

New 2001

Dr. Donald R. Sandstrom, Technical Fellow, Boeing, (just retired), and former professor of Physics, joins LFEM - STEP as a volunteer. He has extensive recent experience in "mathematics and computing technology", engineering and software, as well as Mars Geophysical Surveyor, Mars Environmental Survey, and Planetary Instrument Design and Development Programs. His contributions the program will be extremely valuable due to his experience and interests in both the education and MetNet and NetLander Mars components.

Publications

Presentations, technical reports and data sets

Talks

• Selected MOSTLY post 1989 (excluding hundreds of school and public presentations)

¹ Tillman, J. E., The Indirect Determination of Stability, Heat and Momentum Fluxes in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer from Simple Scalar Variables During Dry Unstable Conditions, J. App. Meteor, Vol. 11, pp. 783-792, 1972.

James E. Tillman
Research Professor
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Box 351640
University of Washington
Seattle, WA, 98195-1640
mars@atmos.washington.edu
(206) 543-4586

20 October, 2007