Innovation Anthology #162: Founder and CEO
Two new missions to Mars will benefit from the expertise of Canadian crater scientist Dr. John Spray.
Dr. Spray holds a Canada Research Chair in Planetary Materials at the University of New Brunswick. He’s also the director of the Planetary and Space Science Centre there.
One mission is led by NASA and the other is led by the European Space Agency. Both will deploy rovers on the surface of Mars. And both will explore for signs of life, either past or present. And they will do this by sampling rocks from the surface of Mars and assessing potential sites that could harbour lifeforms.
DR. JOHN SPRAY: Our role is to provide geological mineralogical insight and to help with, in the first case, fission systems Interpreting geological textures so that we can understand what the cameras see in terms of science know how, determining rock types. And also we’ll be helping to determine geochemical data from one of the analytical tools led by Canada. The APXSanalyzer which is Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer.
The NASA mission launches in 2009 and the European one is scheduled for 2011.
Thanks to today’s sponsor, the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
Learn more at InnovationAnthology,com.
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Guest
Cristian Scurtescu, MSc, PEng,
SmileSonica Inc, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada,
Sponsor
Canada Foundation for Innovation
The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) is an independent corporation created by the Government of Canada to fund research infrastructure—state-of-the-art equipment, laboratories, databases, and the buildings necessary to conduct research. The CFI’s mandate is to strengthen the capacity of Canadian universities, colleges, research hospitals, and non-profit research institutions to carry out world-class research and technology development that benefits Canadians.
Since its creation in 1997, CFI investments in research infrastructure have lead to breakthroughs in areas such as health, natural resources, information and communications technology, energy, and the environment.
La Fondation canadienne pour l’innovation (FCI) est un organisme autonome créé par le gouvernement du Canada pour financer l’infrastructure de recherche—l’équipement de pointe, les laboratoires, les bases de données de même que les bâtiments nécessaires pour mener des travaux de recherche. Le mandat de la FCI est de renforcer la capacité des universités, des collèges et des hôpitaux de recherche, de même que des établissements de recherche à but non lucratif du Canada de mener des projets de recherche et de développement technologique de calibre mondial qui produisent des retombées pour les Canadiens.
Depuis la création de la FCI en 1997, les investissements qu’elle a faits dans l’infrastructure ont mené à des percées dans des domaines tels que la santé, les ressources naturelles, les technologies de l’information et des communications, l’énergie et l’environnement.
Program Date: 2008-08-21