"A genuinely weird experience": A video of Steve Squyres explaining a photo of Steve Squyres

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla

2011/01/12 10:09 CST

Topics: podcasts and videos, personal stories, Mars, Mars Exploration Rovers, Opportunity, Spirit

In a lovely talk, in his uncommonly engaging way, Steve Squyres presents the portrait of him that now hangs in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. Of course his portrait is a panoramic photo! After his five-minute introduction, it goes on to a less-well-miked interchange between him and Jim Green that's a little more of a strain to listen to, but it includes him discussing the "dirty little secret" of how he can see the panoramas before anybody's at work at JPL because amateurs in Europe get to the rover photos before he does!

National Portrait Gallery

Steven Squyres talk, National Portrait Gallery

Dr. Steven Squyres speaks at the National Portrait Gallery about his pioneering role in launching unmanned missions to Mars. Squyres is the principal scientist of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, launched in 2003. A portrait of Squyres by Susan Gamble and Michael Wenyon is on view in NPG's "Americans Now" exhibition, through September 25, 2011.