MISSION TO MARS Rovers' schedules keep YSU grad behind the times

The Cortland native is a doctoral student at Arizona State University.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
On a recent Tuesday, Trevor G. Graff started his 10-hour work shift at 11 p.m.
By Wednesday his start time had switched to 11:40 p.m.
And Friday, it was changed to 12:20 a.m.
The 27-year-old scientist sees his hours change by about 40 minutes each day.
That's because he's keeping martian hours.
Graff, and other workers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have set their schedules around the Spirit and Opportunity rovers that landed on the Red Planet in January.
And, on Mars, a day lasts 24 hours and 39 minutes.
Part of the team
Graff, a Cortland native, is part of the team that controls the rovers, working to provide the commands that make the rovers' motors work. The computer messages he sends to the robots tell the machines what to do.
Beyond serving as commander, Graff also works to retrieve data from the rovers and analyze it to determine the moves the robots should make next.
"It's pretty fun to realize you're commanding something millions of miles away on another planet," Graff said.
The $820 million NASA rover mission is probing Mars for geologic evidence that the largely dry and frozen world once was a wetter place hospitable to life. Spirit and Opportunity could last 180 days or longer.
Graff described the rovers' landings as well as the first images they sent as "enthusiastic and tension-filed hours" during which the team experienced the excitement and nervousness of being caught up in such an event.
"But every day has its exciting moments," he added.
Still, Graff said, the full impact of being a member of the group making history hasn't quite sunk in.
"It's tough to put into words," he said. "I don't think the whole import is going to hit me ... until years after."
Graff recently earned his master's degree in geology from Arizona State University. He's working toward his doctorate at ASU, studying through the university's Mars Space Flight Facility; his doctoral work will likely involve his work with the Mars rover mission.
Graff said that once he completes his doctorate, he'll either teach and continue research, or work for NASA as a project scientist. "And there's always the long shot of astronaut hopes," he said.
How it began
It all started with a love for the outdoors and outer space that led Graff to Youngstown State University to study geology and earth science after his 1995 graduation from Lakeview High School.
"The outdoors and space always interested me," said Graff. "It's one of those lifelong dreams kind of coming true."
The former Boy Scout thought he might someday work as a forest ranger or in some other field that would keep him outdoors.
At YSU, he met Dr. Ray Beiersdorfer, an associate professor of geological and environmental sciences, who helped Graff get paid research positions at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Graff first worked there during the summers of 1998 and 1999 and stayed on until he started his master's degree program.
"It's been a natural outgrowth of him starting here at YSU," Beiersdorfer said. "Our best students are as good as the best students anywhere else in the country."
Among other mentors, Graff said, are Dr. Richard Morris at the Johnson Space Center, and Dr. Phil Christensen, at the ASU flight facility. Beiersdorfer said that colleagues from the Johnson Space Center and ASU frequently tell him how impressive Graff's work is, with Morris often saying, 'Bring me another Trevor.'
"I'm very, very proud and excited with the work he's doing now with the Mars exploration rovers," Beiersdorfer said. "He's incredibly bright, also very even-tempered so he can deal with setbacks. And he's easy to get along with. ... It sounds like I'm gushing, and he deserves it."
Graff said he's pleased at the public interest the Mars rover mission has generated in exploring other worlds.
"I definitely think we'll have a human presence in Mars sometime in the near future," he said. "I think we'll have people on Mars in my lifetime. ... I just hope to be part of it and, hopefully, this mission is the first part of it."