The University of Maryland is hosting the 2009 Mars Society Convention in College Park this weekend. The four-day conference — sponsored in part by the university’s A. James Clark School of Engineering — features presentations by scientists from the nearby NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, roundtable discussions with noted authors on Mars and a tour of the Clark School’s facilities that are dedicated to human space exploration.
July 22nd, 2009
FMARS Crew Webcast To Occur On NASA Distance Learning Network
There will be a live webcast with the FMARS crew broadcast on the NASA Distance Learning Network on Thursday, July 23 at 10:30am EDT (9:30 CDT, 8:30 MDT, 7:30 PDT). The webcast will be between FMARS crew members and Georgia educators. We will give an overview of the research being conducted from geological studies to the use of air vehicles for remote sensing. Anyone can watch for free online.
June 3rd, 2009
Phonecams could boost hunt for Mars life New Scientist
Anyone strolling by the Mars Society’s Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah, in February would have been baffled to see two men in spacesuits bouncing around while pointing cellphones at rocks.
No, they hadn’t taken leave of their senses. The pair were testing out an imaging algorithm designed to automatically pinpoint areas of geological interest on future crewed or robotic missions to the Red Planet. These might include unusual rock formations or signs of organic matter that could indicate life. The algorithm should give astronauts the eyes of a trained human geologist – though, for now, it is fed its pictures via a regular Nokia camera-phone.
April 1st, 2009
Mars Society Christens “Colbert Mars Desert Research Station”
The Mars Society has been closely monitoring the voting process for the naming of the new node of the International Space Station (ISS). We would like to congratulate Stephen Colbert for the impressive number of votes that were cast for him. However, all indications are that NASA will not name the new node “Colbert.” The Mars Society would like to recognize Mr. Colbert’s efforts that successfully focused attention on the U.S. space program and inspired far more people to vote in this process than would have otherwise. Assuming that that the ISS node is not named “Colbert,” we believe Mr. Colbert deserves a much better consolation prize than having a space toilet named after him, as has been suggested. The Mars Society will therefore rename our Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) near Hanksville, Utah to the “Colbert Mars Desert Research Station” for one week in April, 2009.
January 13th, 2009
Getting Ready for the Mars Migration Popular Science
The Mars Desert Research Station, located in the Utah desert near the town of Hanksville, is a simulated Mars habitat that serves as a testbed for field operations studies in preparation for future human missions to Mars.
Volunteer crews live at the station, testing habitat design features and technologies. From December 27 to January 2, six college students served as the MDRS crew, as participants in NASA’s Spaceward Bound program.
August 19th, 2008
‘TEMPO 3’ Artificial Gravity Satellite On Mars Society’s To-Do List InformationWeek
A tethered spacecraft will spin through increasingly hi-fidelity testing in a lab, in zero gravity, and eventually space, as part of the next project chosen by the Mars Society.
The Mars Society announced Tuesday that the Tethered Experiment for Mars inter-Planetary Operations (TEMPO 3 or TEMPO cubed) is the favorite proposal chosen from members’ ideas for the group’s next project. The project aims to supplement research on the feasibility of long-term space flight for humans. Mars Society president Robert Zubrin said that while space agencies around the world have “chosen to study the effects of zero gravity on humans with no end in sight,” his group seeks to develop technology to provide humans with gravity in space.
“Similar problems existed in the past, when aircrews flew at high altitude and low oxygen levels,” he said in a news announcement. “The technological solution of providing oxygen was frowned upon by aviation doctors in favor of trying to ‘negate the effect’ of the low oxygen through medication. Today, flight crews use oxygen at high altitudes, and we expect astronauts to travel with gravity.”
August 12th, 2008
Debate To Highlight Candidates’ Views On Space Exploration InformationWeek
Senators John McCain and Barack Obama will send representatives to a space policy debate this week.
The presidential candidates’ representatives will meet Thursday to discuss how their administrations will fund, prioritize, and advance space policy over the next several years. “This will be a perfect opportunity for the campaigns to articulate their policies,” Mars Society Executive Director Chris Carberry said in an announcement. “The next president will be in a unique position to move the space program forward. Space policy could also be key in the election; many of the ‘space states’ are too close to call in recent polls.”
McCain will send Apollo VII astronaut Walt Cunningham and Obama will send former NASA Associate Administrator Lori Garver to speak on the candidates’ behalf.
The Mars Society will host the debate at the University Memorial Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Attendance is free and the event is open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. Reserved seating is available for groups.
The debate will take place during the 11th Annual International Mars Society Convention, which begins Thursday and ends Aug. 17. During the convention, industry leaders will review the latest developments from the Phoenix Mars Lander and recent data from the Cassini-Huygens mission orbiting Saturn.
June 2nd, 2008
Mars on the brain? Red Planet pioneers to face cosmic mind trip
If Dr. Robert Zubrin could take a trip to Mars, he would be sure to pack a bread maker in his suitcase. Not just because bread is a pretty reliable expeditionary food, but because the act of cooking, according to Zubrin, seems to help people get along with each other, especially when they are in slightly dire, less than luxurious and more than stressful circumstances. And Zubrin would know, too. He has, after all, led almost a half-dozen mock Mars missions on barren Arctic ice fields and scorching Utah deserts with volunteer teams made up of students, scientists, journalists and anyone else willing to wear fake spacesuits and live in tiny tin-can-like habitation modules for days on end. The simulated expeditions were made, in part, to research ways to live and work on the Red Planet. But they also revealed something else: what personality types might best be suited to make the 35 million-mile journey and who would be better off watching from Mission Control. “Some of these crews have worked out very well,” said Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, a 7,000-member multinational group determined to reach what it calls the New World. “Others were at each other’s throats.”
May 30th, 2008
Website of the Week — The Mars Society Voice of America
The world’s attention turned again this week to the surface of Mars, as the U.S. space agency’s Phoenix Mars Lander touched down Sunday to begin a 3-month mission digging in the Martian soil for signs of water and life. The mission is generating heavy traffic on the website of the Mars Society – a private worldwide organization dedicated to the robotic and human exploration of the Red Planet. Mars Society Webmaster Alex Kirk says the Phoenix Lander’s arrival on Mars has bumped traffic to more than 100,000 hits a day on the www.marssociety.org website. “We have all the latest news on the Society, a nice RSS [Really Simply Syndication] feed that gives you all the latest news that we are collecting from around the web, and a news letter that tells you what is going on with both mars and the Society.” The Mars Society has 139 affiliated chapters with members in all 50 U.S. states and 70 foreign countries. Many chapters have websites of their own linked to the site.
November 13th, 2007
Mars Simulation Sites Fogonazos
The Mars Analogue Research Station (MARS) Programme has two sites used to simulate the conditions of living and working on Mars. One is on Devon Island in the Arctic; the other is in the desert in Utah. Participants have a strict protocol of Mars simulation conditions they follow as they test equipment and develop procedures for Mars exploration.