Mars geologist Michael Carr wins Mounted Patrol award Mars geologist Michael Carr wins Mounted Patrol award (January 08, 2003)

By Marion Softky

Almanac Staff Writer

Michael Carr of Woodside lives in two worlds -- literally.

This week the U.S. Geological Survey geologist is in meetings to pick landing sites for the two Mars landers expected to reach the red planet next May or June. The Mars team wants to get the most information on whether there is indeed life on Mars, without undue risk from rough terrain or violent winds.

By the weekend, Dr. Carr may be back home, riding his horse, Montana, along the trails of Woodside.

For these accomplishments, in both the extraterrestrial world and the local horse world, the Mounted Patrol of San Mateo County has named Dr. Carr its Outstanding Horseperson-Citizen of the Year 2002.

"He's really a treasure," says Bill Wraith of Portola Valley, chair of the award committee and last year's winner. "It's just wonderful to see that blend (of science and horsemanship)."

Dr. Carr will receive his award at the 60th annual installation of officers for the Mounted Patrol on Saturday, January 25, at the University Club in Palo Alto.

Last year marked 60 years since local horsemen founded a group to patrol the rugged Coastside against Japanese invaders in the nervous years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Ever since, the Mounted Patrol has been available to help the county sheriff with search-and-rescue missions, and other activities where horses are useful. It holds horse shows, rodeos, and training programs on its 23-acre site in Woodside. This is also a fully equipped Red Cross disaster shelter in case of a major earthquake or emergency.

During his 29 years living in Woodside, Dr. Carr has learned horsemanship from the ground up, and has held most of the positions in the Mounted Patrol, including captain in 1997. "He started from nothing; now he's an absolutely skilled rider," says Mr. Wraith. He is also a founding member of the Mounted Patrol's new charitable foundation.

Dr. Carr still carries the accent he grew up with in Leeds, England. After earning a Ph.D. in geology from Yale in 1960, he joined the new astrogeology group at USGS in 1962, where he helped plan the landings on the moon, before switching to Mars in the 1970s. Since then, he has become internationally prominent in Mars research, written the standard textbook on Mars, and garnered numerous national honors.

Early in the 1970s, Dr. Carr and his wife, Rachel, became interested in horses, and moved to Woodside in 1974. They have four children and three grandchildren.

Dr. Carr and Montana have also won a couple of silver buckle awards in the Patrol's gymkhana games, like pole bending and barrel racing. "He's a fabulous horse," says Dr. Carr. "I like to play the games. They are really fun; they are fast."

Exploring Mars

Montana will get a lot of free pasture time next summer.

The pair of Mars rovers to be launched in January should land in two locations on Mars in May or June, Dr. Carr says. Then he will be totally involved in helping control the mission for the three-to-four months the probes crawl the surface of Mars. "It's a very intense mission," he says.

Dr. Carr, a 40-year veteran of planetary geology with USGS, with 30 years devoted to Mars, will be heading one of six technical groups that tell the probes where to go and what to do, on a daily basis in "real time."

Every night the rovers send information and photos from their explorations back to earth to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Every morning a scientific team has to analyze the data, decide what the rover should do next, and send instructions back to Mars. "We decide within an hour what we do," says Dr. Carr. "It's incredibly intense."

While the instruments will examine the chemistry of Martian rocks -- some made with water -- and take lots of pictures, they will not give a clear-cut answer about the presence of life, cautions Dr. Carr. The instruments will tell a lot about the role of water in forming the now-frigid planet with its 20-mile high volcanoes and flood channels 70 miles wide. "But none are going to tell us whether life started on Mars."