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Mark Allen ’71 Guides NASA to Mars Research
It takes nine months for a
spaceship from Earth to
reach Mars, but don’t let
that fool you into thinking
the two planets are really so
far apart. What actually separates
one from the other, says
Mark Allen ’71, is a measly
25 miles; that’s the distance
above Earth where the chemical
and physical composition of
this planet’s atmosphere most
closely resembles that of Mars.
Allen, principal scientist at
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL) of the California Institute
of Technology (Caltech) in
Pasadena, is the NASA chief
scientist behind the planned
2016 launch of the ExoMars
Trace Gas Orbiter, a spacecraft
whose mission is to study the
chemical composition of the
Martian atmosphere and to try
to find evidence of primitive
life, or of magma and geothermal
processes, in the planet’s
subsurface.
It is a tremendously ambitious
pursuit –– the first truly
joint planetary mission between
NASA and the European
Space Agency –– and it would,
if successful, herald the first
detection of life or a habitable
region outside of the Earth. All
evidence to date has marked
Mars as a dead planet, both on
its surface and in its interior.
Outcomes aside, though,
for Allen the ExoMars mission
represents something more:
the culmination of a long and
impressive career first formulated
amidst the turbulence of
Columbia in the 1960s.
“The story starts with my
entering Columbia knowing I
wanted to be a research chemist,”
yet not having much more
than a vague notion of a career,
Allen says. Guided by people
such as physical chemistry
professor George Flynn ’64 GS,
’66 GSAS, “the strong Columbia
chemistry department allowed
me to see what world-class
research was like” and, with
graduation looming, a scientific
breakthrough in space finally
spawned one of his own.
“In my senior year, I learned
about the discovery of molec ules
in interstellar space (the region
between the stars), an environment
where conventional wisdom
at the time would suggest
that molecules shouldn’t exist,”
he says. “I chose this burgeoning
field of astrochemisry as my
future research interest.”
Columbia led to a Ph.D. in
chemistry from Caltech in 1976,
where Allen completed one of
the earliest research papers to
present “model simulations”
of the molecular clouds in
interstellar space, which was
published in 1977.
Not staying away from Columbia
for long, he returned to
New York for a two-year fellow-
ship at NASA’s Goddard Institute
for Space Studies, a Columbia
collaborator, where he met
Yuk Yung, a visiting researcher
from Harvard, and Gordon Chin
’70, ’78 GSAS. Both would later
play key roles in shaping Allen’s
career.
In 1978, Yung drew Allen to
return to Caltech as a postdoctoral
fellow in planetary sciences,
preparing him for a move
to JPL in 1981. In the mid-1990s,
Chin resurfaced with a new
opportunity: to jointly develop
B y roBert e. calem ’89J
WINTER 2011–12
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a mission proposal to NASA for
orbiting Venus and studying the
chemical composition of that
planet’s middle atmosphere,
which bears much resemblance
to Earth’s middle atmosphere.
Although NASA subsequently
did not undertake the
Venus mission, Allen says, the
experience was instrumental in
shaping his work. Building on
that mission proposal, 10 years
Mark Allen ’71 chairs a meeting of the joint European Space Agency/
NASA mission to Mars.
PHOTO: THOMAS (DUTCH) SLAGER
ago he was the first to create
the concept of a Mars trace gas
mission and led a team (including
Chin) to write a new mission
proposal to NASA. Through a
variety of twists and turns, this
proposal gave rise to the Exo-
Mars orbiter project last year.
In hindsight, Allen credits the
College for the foundation that
made it all possible. The Core
Curriculum “honed my skills in
articulation of points of view
orally and in writing,” he says,
adding, “I was told by a very
senior JPL program manager
that I prepared the clearest
mission proposals he had ever
read.” Four years on the Ferris
Booth Hall Board of Managers,
of which he was president in
his senior year, taught him leadership
skills that he still uses
today, he says.
Great study habits also con-
tributed to Allen’s successes,
especially in the late 1960s,
when Columbia was engulfed
in the societal and political
turmoil of the times.
“We were at Columbia during
all the turbulence, [but] he
was a serious science student
and he didn’t let any of that
distract him,” recalls his friend
and dormmate in what was
then known as Livingston Hall,
Richard Fuhrman ’71, a former
member of the Columbia College
Alumni Association Board
of Directors. “He took the industrial-strength
courses, and that’s
frankly what got him to what
he’s doing today. But, despite
the pocket protector, he was
a regular guy who had a sense
of humor. He was very sweet,
very thoughtful.” The two get
together once a year when Allen
returns to Long Island, where he
grew up and Fuhrman now lives,
to visit family and friends.
Allen gives the most credit
to his parents for setting him
in the right direction. “I was
admitted to MIT, but my parents
really didn’t want me to
go because they thought it too
specialized,” he remembers. “I
think they were remarkably on
the ball.”
When it launches in 2016, the
ExoMars orbiter will travel for
nine months to reach the outer
limits of Mars’ atmosphere.
“Aerobraking,” reducing its
orbit radius to where observations
can commence, will add
another seven months. Those
observations, once begun, will
stretch the mission out another
two “Earth years,” Allen says.
“That takes me to [age] 71” and
may make this the last project
he undertakes –– the zenith of a
journey that began in Morningside
Heights and extended to
the heights of outer space.
Robert E. Calem ’89J is a
freelance journalist based in
Hoboken, N.J., who has covered
a wide range of technology
and business subjects for
25 years.