12 Quotes by Jim Garvin

Needless to say I am bouncing off the walls... and ecstatic.

Looking for life on Mars is such a big task that we really had to start by building a knowledge base. We started exploring Mars with Viking by asking some tough questions, which led to more complicated questions and more exploration. We have to think of it like school. We start in kindergarten learning the alphabet and build from there. In kindergarten, we don't jump right into calculus.

It has obviously precipitated a lot of interesting thinking in our science community.

That's the job Hubble had to do at the moon. It was a noteworthy undertaking. This is in some sense the miracle on the moon.

We haven't conquered the moon. It's a planet the size of Africa and we've been to six spots the size of a large backyard or farm or ranch. That's not exploring. That's touching.

We photographed the Face as soon as we could get a good shot of it.

We believe hydrogen may be the clue, the fingerprint, of where water may be.

Earth is the laboratory for future discoveries on Mars. Without examining Earth's extreme environments, we wouldn't understand how processes worked to shape the landscape, chemistry and life at the limits. Without that understanding, we couldn't draw conclusions about how life can develop on other planets. By examining these windows to Mars, scientists step out of the vicarious and into real features on Earth that function similarly to those on Mars.

The students that are learning about Mars through this expedition are understanding the tools and technology to ask the right questions and get the right answers. They're the ones who will be traveling to Mars and making the great discoveries. They'll do the fun stuff.