Science should be about the data, since the data are what support a scientist's hypothesis. One of the things we are evaluating with the Mobile Agents Remote Science Team is how it differs from the way we operate the MDRS RST throughout the rest of the field season. One obvious difference is the technology. With Mobile Agents, we have an amazing amount of technology available to assist us with data collection. But two key differences, beyond the technology, have struck me as being worthy of further investigation-1) the way the RST communicates both with each other and with the crew, and 2) our access to the crew's data. I will have more on the communication differences later. For now, I would like to focus on the data.

Most crews at MDRS either have their own science objectives or they work with the RST to develop science objectives prior to their rotation. This can take the form of the RST providing the crew scientists with a project that suits their background and expertise, or, as in the case of one crew this season, directing the entire rotation as a single geology project which was carried out by a crew of non-geologists. All of these iterations of scientific investigation are valuable and contribute to the science being done at MDRS. However, regardless of what form our interaction with the crew takes, the outcome, with rare exceptions, is usually the same; we only have access to the data provided to us in the crew's reports.

Until this week, I hadn't thought of this as a problem. It's been the way scientific information has been disseminated at MDRS since the first field season. The crew goes out, investigates, then presents their findings to the general public via the website, or in the case of this season, to the RST for review first and then to the general public. But what exactly is the RST reviewing when it gets a report from the crew? What we are getting is only the information that they are able to provide to us from their perspective. There are probably a lot more data that we don't have access to, either because the crew takes it with them or leaves it at the Hab when their rotation is over. The problem is that without all of the data, the RST can't really review the crew's science in a meaningful way. For example, what if the crew went out to investigate a site of scientific importance and completely missed something that was in a photo they took but never used in their reports? We would never know. We are limited in our analytical capabilities when we are only given a small part of the data. In effect, what we get from a crew's reports is the distilled version of their investigation. There is little opportunity to collaborate effectively, because we don't come to the table with the same set of tools that the crew has.

Mobile Agents changes all that. With Mobile Agents, we have access almost immediately to all of the crew's data and we can make our own analysis of that data, even before we get the crew's interpretation of what they found. That gives us an edge-the ability to interpret the data with complete objectivity. We may even find things that are counter to the crew's interpretation of the data, or something that they missed entirely. We can collaborate effectively and contribute to the science being conducted by the crew, because we have access to all of their collected data. They still have an edge, because they are actually in the field, but the gap between Earth scientists and scientists on Mars will be narrowed considerably by the use of Mobile Agents, simply because they allow real time data collection that is shared completely by both teams.