ENMU professor talks about NASA work

When NASA's Curiosity rover landed Sunday on Mars, Jim Constantopoulos was at the edge of his seat.

Jim Constantopoulos

Constantopoulos, a professor of geology at Eastern New Mexico University, had watched several other NASA missions in his youth such as the Apollo missions. But the rover's mission of studying Martian geology made the event more interesting. After all, he had worked at the NASA Johnson Space Center more than 30 years ago doing something similar.

In the summer of 1980, Constantopoulos was one of 12 undergraduate students selected to work on a three-month project to study Martian geology. The project, which was part of a larger study of Mars, entailed analyzing samples from the Sahara Desert to understand the striations found on satellite imagery on the red planet.

Constantopoulos answered questions about his experience:

Q: What was the goal of the project you were selected for?

A: To try and understand the colors that were seen in the imagery from Mars. At that point we knew that it was very Earth-like. We used Earth analogs to try and explain what was happening in Mars.

Q: What was your job?

A: I used scanning electron microscopy and I measured the thickness of the coating on the sand grains and also determined the chemistry of coating of the sand grains. I found the thickness of the coating had increased away from oases. In the (satellite) images, the color streaks changed as you got farther away from the oases in the desert.

Q: What was it like to work at the NASA Johnson Space Science Center?

A: For a kid that grew up watching the (NASA) missions, it was better than going to Disneyland. We got to hang out with the first of the shuttle astronauts and got to actually sit in the full mock up of the space shuttle. We got to go into the lunar sample lab where the moon rocks were actually stored and worked on. We basically saw it all.

Q: How did your experience working for NASA affect you?

A: It just solidified my choice (to go into the field of geology.) I have great love for the field. I was going in the right direction as far as my education. It was certainly motivation to go on to graduate school.

Q: What space programs did you watch in your youth?

A: As a kid I remember watching all the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. Of course the most memorable experience was sitting there in front of the TV watching Neil Armstrong's first steps. I still have the newspapers from that historic event. The other thing that I remember was that the main engines for the Saturn moon rocket were made not too far from where I grew up (in San Fernando Valley, Calif.) and they would test them in a canyon above were we lived. You could hear the roar from miles away.

Q: Does the Curiosity rover's mission of studying Mars make it more memorable than previous missions?

A: Certainly my previous experience makes the current mission more interesting, but for me it's the huge advances in technology that make this one really fascinating. It's probably the closest thing to having an actual geologist and a portable lab on the surface of Mars.

Q: What does Curiosity's landing tell about us?

A: I think it shows that when the U.S. puts its best science and engineering minds together we can accomplish great things.

— Compiled by CMI staff writer Gabriel Monte

(left) Constantopoulos

(right)View of Mars from Curiosity