Interplanetary Collaboration

Continued from page 1

By David Propson

August 5, 2002

One important result could be to speed up key decisions. The rover's solar panels cover over with dust in about three months, which causes much tighter deadlines than those to which many researchers are accustomed.

Trimble and his team hope that the MERBoards will improve communication between scientists with different specialties, such as the geology and geochemistry groups. It also should streamline the handover process when one shift of scientists or roboticists takes over from another and needs to update them on the current state of the mission-a procedure necessary to maintain 24/7 (or, given Mars' longer days, 28/6) coverage of every area.

One question has yet to be answered about the boards' prospect: Will the people for whom Ames built the MERBoards embrace them? Scientific collaboration is different than other types of collaboration, more group-oriented and less leader-driven. Scientists also tend to be more technologically savvy and demanding than most users.

Trimble and his team have found themselves making the boards gradually more complicated, as scientists request more functions. They added a keyboard, which Blueboard lacked. They also created simple tools for making measurements of images and made it easier to share data with an entire group of people.

Will they turn back to their papers and printouts at the first crisis? Or will they stick with the new technology? "I can't tell you that every member of the team thinks this is terrific, but it's still early," Trimble says. "If they use it for at least some of the functions we've intended it for, and a few we hadn't thought of, that's a success."