Pascal Lee

Chapter 1 · 1980s Four hundred and two days in Antarctica

Before working on Mars, Pascal Lee learned to live and work in extreme cold. His training began in Paris; his first great field site was Antarctica.

The Sorbonne

He studied physics at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, then earned an engineering degree in engineering geology and geophysics from Polytech-Sorbonne. Wikipedia dates that degree to 1987 and says that from 1982 to 1987 he was general secretary of the Cosmos Club de France.

Wintering at Dumont d’Urville

He then spent four hundred and two days at the French Antarctic base Dumont d’Urville, staying through the winter. In 1988 he was the station’s chief geophysicist; according to Wikipedia, that stay, from November 1987 to February 1989, was his national service. The United States would later award him its Antarctica Service Medal.

That stay made him a polar field scientist. He would return to Antarctica five times for summer campaigns, three of them with the American meteorite-search program ANSMET, and lead seventeen summer and five winter campaigns in the Arctic. In all, more than thirty polar expeditions to study Mars by comparison with Earth.

Sources: SETI Institute, “Pascal Lee” page (degree in geology and geophysics from the University of Paris-Sorbonne, 402-day winter-over at Dumont d’Urville, U.S. Antarctica Service Medal, more than 30 expeditions); National Space Society, “Pascal Lee Biography” (physics at Paris-Sorbonne, engineering degree from Polytech-Sorbonne, French base); English Wikipedia, “Pascal Lee” (1987, Cosmos Club de France, national service from November 1987 to February 1989; tertiary source); The Planetary Society, “Pascal Lee” profile (chief geophysicist at Dumont d’Urville in 1988, five Antarctic summer campaigns including three with ANSMET, 17 summer and 5 winter Arctic campaigns).

Chapter 2 · 1990s Carl Sagan’s last teaching assistant

From Antarctica, Pascal Lee moved on to Cornell University, in New York State, one of the great centers of American planetary science.

Cornell

There he earned a master’s degree and then, in 1997, a Ph.D. in astronomy and space sciences. His thesis dealt with the physical properties and processing of asteroid regoliths and interiors, that is, the layer of debris covering these small bodies and what lies beneath it. Wikipedia dates his master’s degree to 1993.

At Cornell he was the last teaching assistant of Carl Sagan, the astronomer who brought planetary science to the general public. According to Wikipedia, he returned to teach there for one semester as a visiting assistant professor in 2004.

Small bodies

From that training he kept a lasting interest in the small bodies of the solar system, in particular the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos.

Sources: SETI Institute, “Pascal Lee” page (Cornell master’s and Ph.D., Ph.D. in 1997, thesis topic, Carl Sagan’s last teaching assistant); National Space Society, “Pascal Lee Biography” (“Carl Sagan’s last T.A.,” Phobos and Deimos); English Wikipedia, “Pascal Lee” (master’s in 1993, teaching semester in 2004; tertiary source).

Chapter 3 · 1997 – 2005 Mars on Earth

In 1997, the year of his doctorate, Pascal Lee launched a project that would occupy his life: studying Mars in a crater in the Canadian Arctic, on Devon Island.

Haughton crater

Haughton crater is an impact structure about twenty kilometers across on Devon Island, in the Canadian High Arctic. Its ice-cemented impact breccias make it, according to NASA, an excellent Mars analog. There Pascal Lee launched the Haughton-Mars Project, a research project in planetary science and preparation for human exploration. He set up a research station that The Planetary Society describes as now the largest privately operated polar research station in the world. NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the Mars Institute and the SETI Institute conduct research there. The place is nicknamed “Mars on Earth.”

Valleys like those on Mars

In 1999, with researchers from NASA Ames, the University of Arizona and the Geological Survey of Canada, including C. P. McKay and John W. Schutt, he described small valleys at Haughton that might serve as analogs for the small valleys of Mars. Those Martian valleys are often cited as evidence of a warm, wet early climate in which rain ran off the surface; but their shapes have unusual features, and climate models struggle to make early Mars warm enough for rain.

Other work followed: an airborne geomagnetic survey of the crater with Brian Glass of NASA Ames, in 2001 and 2002; and a study, with Charles Cockell and Gordon Osinski, of the crater as a habitat, where microorganisms live inside rocks shocked by the impact.

The Mars Institute

In 2002, according to Wikipedia, he co-founded the Mars Institute with Marc Boucher, a research organization whose board he chairs. From then on he worked for the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, where he is based.

Sources: NASA, “HMP 2014 Field Team leaves for Haughton Crater tests,” August 4, 2014 (20 km impact structure, ice-cemented breccias, excellent Mars analog); SETI Institute, “Pascal Lee” page (director of the NASA Haughton Mars Project, “Mars On Earth”); The Planetary Society, “Pascal Lee” profile (launched in 1997, the research station, “now the largest privately operated polar research station in the world,” co-founder and chair of the Mars Institute); NASA blog, “Haugton Mars Project – Sea-Ice Traverse Mission Completed,” May 24, 2010 (NASA, Canadian Space Agency, Mars Institute, SETI Institute); P. Lee et al., “Possible Analogs for Small Valleys on Mars at the Haughton Impact Crater Site,” 1999 (NTRS 20000092052); B. J. Glass and P. Lee, 2001 and 2002 (NTRS 20010045180 and 20020046532); C. S. Cockell, G. R. Osinski and P. Lee, “The impact crater as a habitat,” Astrobiology, 2003 (NTRS 20040087638); English Wikipedia, “Pascal Lee” (Mars Institute in 2002 with Marc Boucher; tertiary source); University of Maryland, March 26, 2024 (SETI Institute and Mars Institute, based at NASA Ames).

Chapter 4 · 2003 – 2005 Always cold, sometimes wet

For decades, early Mars was thought to have had a warm, wet climate, with rain and rivers. From what he saw in Earth’s polar regions, Pascal Lee proposed another idea.

A contrarian hypothesis

In 2003, with Christopher McKay of NASA Ames, he presented a synthesis with a question for a title: “Mars: Always Cold, Sometimes Wet?” Bringing together water-related landforms seen in two polar regions on Earth, Devon Island in the Arctic and the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, the two researchers questioned the need for long warm, wet periods in Mars’s past. Brief, local episodes of water activity, triggered by impacts, by stronger internal heat or by small orbital changes, under a global climate that stayed cold and at low pressure, might be enough to explain the traces of water seen at the surface. Such a Mars would also fit the difficulties climate models have in warming the planet.

The Planetary Society presents this “Cold Early Mars model” as an idea he was the first to propose, counter to conventional wisdom.

Measuring how craters wear down

In 2005, with M. Boucher, B. J. Glass, C. P. McKay, G. R. Osinski, J. W. Schutt and others, he compared the wearing down of Haughton crater, recently shown to be much older than thought, Eocene rather than Miocene, with that of Martian craters of the same size. Craters keep a record of climate: their state of erosion, infilling and mantling tells what they have undergone since they formed. The team derived upper limits for Mars’s erosion rates since the Late Noachian, far lower than those published before. Mars may never have been warm and wet for geologically long periods.

Sources: P. Lee and C. P. McKay, “Mars: Always Cold, Sometimes Wet?,” Lunar and Planetary Science XXXIV, 2003 (NTRS 20030111298: Devon Island and the Dry Valleys, transient episodes, cold low-pressure climate, models); The Planetary Society, “Pascal Lee” profile (“Cold Early Mars model,” “counter to conventional wisdom”); P. Lee et al., “Mars, Always Cold, Sometimes Wet: New Constraints on Mars Denudation Rates and Climate Evolution from Analog Studies at Haughton Crater,” 2005 (NTRS 20050170975: coauthors, Eocene age of Haughton, crater comparison, upper limits on denudation rates). Christopher McKay has his own biography in this collection.

Chapter 5 · 2003 – 2014 Driving toward Mars on the sea ice

At Haughton, the work is not only geology. In the cold and isolation, teams rehearse what future explorers of the Moon and Mars will do: drive, drill, treat injuries, communicate with a distant mission control.

Simulating an injury on the Moon

In 2006, with NASA and Canadian Space Agency teams, he took part in a simulation on Devon Island: how to extract an astronaut injured during a lunar moonwalk, stabilize them, bring them back to the habitat and send their medical data to several control centers. The scenarios drew on the Apollo moonwalks and on conversations with astronauts of that era. According to Wikipedia, in July 2008 he led NASA’s first simulated pressurized-rover traverse at Haughton, and in August 2008 he tested a crewed rover prototype in Arizona as scientist-pilot.

The Northwest Passage

To bring to Devon Island a vehicle simulating a future pressurized rover, the Mars Institute organized the Northwest Passage Drive Expedition, led by Pascal Lee. In April 2009, the first leg covered nearly 500 kilometers over sea ice, from Kugluktuk to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut: the longest distance ever driven on sea ice in a road vehicle, according to a project post published by NASA. During that drive, the crew collected samples inside the rover and on the undisturbed snow around it. The analyses would show 69 kinds of bacteria and 16 of fungi inside, but almost nothing outside: a useful result for the planetary protection of future human missions to Mars.

On May 5, 2010, the team set out again from Resolute Bay, on Cornwallis Island, aboard the Moon-1 Humvee Rover and two snowmobiles: Pascal Lee, Joe Amarualik, John W. Schutt, Jesse Weaver, and two documentary filmmakers from Jules Verne Adventures, Jean-Christophe Jeauffre and Mark Carroll. Snowstorms pinned the convoy down for several days; the ice was very rough. The vehicle had to be repaired on the sea ice, and Lee sent two men by snowmobile to fetch spare parts from the station. On the evening of May 16, after thirteen days and 150 kilometers, the rover reached solid ground at Domville Point, on Devon Island. “It’s both a great joy and a relief to get our Moon-1 onto solid ground on Devon Island,” said Lee. “This final sea-ice crossing was quite a challenge, but we had a fantastic team and vehicle, and we just kept working at it.” The expedition is the subject of an award-winning documentary, Passage to Mars.

Robots and drills

The station also hosts robots and drills. In 2010, for the project’s fourteenth season, NASA Ames’s K10 robots followed up on the geological traverses Lee had simulated in 2009 with Mark Helper and Essam Heggy, to study how robots might continue the work of astronauts. In 2014, with Brian Glass, he returned to Haughton to test a new drill designed to reach the Martian subsurface.

Sources: R. A. Scheuring et al., including P. Lee (Mars Institute), “Haughton-Mars Project (HMP)/NASA 2006 Lunar Medical Contingency Simulation: An Overview,” 2006 (NTRS 20060056230); English Wikipedia, “Pascal Lee” (July and August 2008; tertiary source); A. C. Schuerger and P. Lee, Astrobiology, 2015 (NTRS 20150020808: April 2009, Kugluktuk–Cambridge Bay, 496 km, samples, 69 bacteria and 16 fungi, planetary protection); NASA, Haughton-Mars Project blog posts, May 2010 (May 5 departure, crew, Moon-1 Humvee Rover, repairs and snowmobiles, May 16 arrival at Domville Point, 13 days, 150 km, quotation, 494 km in 2009 and the sea-ice record); SETI Institute, “Pascal Lee” page (the documentary Passage to Mars); NASA, “NASA Simulates Lunar and Planetary Exploration at Harsh Arctic Impact Crater Site,” August 3, 2010, and blog “HMP-2010,” July 20, 2010 (14th season, K10, Helper and Heggy); NASA, “HMP 2014 Field Team leaves for Haughton Crater tests,” August 4, 2014.

Chapter 6 · 2015 – 2024 Noctis, a place for the first humans

After years of preparing for human exploration, Pascal Lee ended up proposing a specific spot on Mars where the first crews could land. Nine years later, he discovered a volcano in that same Noctis region.

Noctis Landing

In 2015, with colleagues from the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute, NASA’s Ames and Johnson centers and Cornell, he proposed a landing site and exploration zone for human missions: “Noctis Landing,” at the crossroads of the great volcanic region of Tharsis and the Valles Marineris canyon system. The site, they argued, offers many targets for study, channels, gullies, craters, water-related deposits, and hydrogen detected from orbit suggests 4 to 10 percent water in the top third of a meter of soil.

A hidden volcano

On March 13, 2024, at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Pascal Lee and student Sourabh Shubham of the University of Maryland announced the discovery of a giant, deeply eroded volcano just south of the equator, in eastern Tharsis. They had spotted it while studying the geology of the area where they had already found the remains of a glacier. It rises more than 29,600 feet and spans more than 280 miles; spacecraft had photographed it as early as 1971 without anyone recognizing it. “It’s an ancient and long-lived volcano so deeply eroded that you could hike, drive or fly through it,” said Lee. Glacier ice is likely still preserved near the surface, in a relatively warm equatorial region.

A man of many hats

Pascal Lee is now a senior planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, a planetary scientist with the Mars Institute and at NASA Ames, a professor at Kepler Space University and chief scientist of Ceres Robotics, a company providing lunar delivery services to NASA. He sits on the U.S. National Academies committee on a science strategy for the human exploration of Mars. He advocates human bases at Clavius on the Moon and at Noctis on Mars.

He has received the Sagan Prize for the Popularization of Science, the National Space Society’s Space Pioneer Award and the Space Frontier Foundation’s Vision to Reality Award. In 2013 he published a children’s book, Mission: Mars. He is also a commercial helicopter pilot and flight instructor, and paints in oils on the theme of Mars exploration.

Sources: P. Lee et al., “Noctis Landing: A Proposed Landing Site/Exploration Zone for Human Missions to the Surface of Mars,” 2015 (NTRS 20150021128: institutions, Tharsis and Valles Marineris, regions of interest, 4 to 10 percent water in the top 0.3 m); University of Maryland, “UMD Geology Ph.D. Student Helps Discover Giant Volcano on Mars,” March 26, 2024 (March 13, 2024, 55th LPSC, Sourabh Shubham, equator, Tharsis, more than 29,600 feet and 280 miles, 1971, quotation, the ice, the glacier found earlier); Astronomy, “Scientists discover an ancient volcano near the martian equator,” March 2024, as summarized by a web search (location in Noctis Labyrinthus, provisional name); SETI Institute, “Pascal Lee” page (positions, Ceres Robotics, Academies committee, Clavius and Noctis, awards, Mission: Mars, helicopter, painting); National Space Society, “Pascal Lee Biography.”