Snow conditions at Haughton Crater on Devon Island still do not allow a safe landing by Twin Otter. There is too much snow on the airstrip for a wheeled landing, too little for a landing on skis. The only way in at this time is by helicopter. There is no helicopter available in Resolute Bay right now, but the one chartered by the Noranda mineral exploration company will be arriving tomorrow and we’ve arranged to use it to fly a few team members to Haughton Crater at the earliest opportunity.
June 28th, 2001
FMARS 2001 First Status Report
Snow conditions at Haughton Crater on Devon Island still do not allow a safe landing by Twin Otter. There is too much snow on the airstrip for a wheeled landing, too little for a landing on skis. The only way in at this time is by helicopter. There is no helicopter available in Resolute Bay right now, but the one chartered by the Noranda mineral exploration company will be arriving tomorrow and we’ve arranged to use it to fly a few team members to Haughton Crater at the earliest opportunity.
June 27th, 2001
Arctic setting serving as Mars substitute Rocky Mountain News
Devon Island is a bleak, windswept wasteland in the Canadian Arctic. It’s as close as you can get to Mars without leaving Earth, and that’s the lure for a band of space-suited “colonists” who are gathering there this week. During a two-month simulated mission to the Red Planet, the Mars enthusiasts will live inside a cylindrical fiberglass “habitat,” and they’ll send dispatches to mission control in Lakewood. They will trudge across the alien landscape in helmeted canvas spacesuits with back packs, gloves and rubberized military cold-weather boots. And they will be guarded by an Inuit native with a rifle who will watch for polar bears from an ATV.
June 26th, 2001
Simulating a Martian Colony in the Arctic
Once again, an island in the Canadian high arctic, a polar desert of a world, will serve this summer as a little bit of Mars on Earth. Starting this week, new arrivals take up residence in the Mars Society’s Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station for the second summer in a row. The site at Devon Island also serves as home-away-from-home for members of the NASA-led Haughton-Mars Project. This cosmic campsite is prepared to trial run off-world technologies and research strategies. And it is another type of proving ground: A site to hone the esprit-de-corps needed to open up the frontier of Mars to human exploration.
June 25th, 2001
SFU prof starts mock Mars mission Vancouver Sun
Beginning this Thursday, a Simon Fraser University professor will spend the rest of his summer vacation rehearsing the trip of a lifetime: a manned mission to Mars. If all goes well, Steve Braham and five others will be the first Martian enthusiasts to spend eight weeks living inside a two-storey metallic cylinder — resembling two huge tuna-fish cans stacked one on top of the other — built on the lip of a giant crater in Canada’s barren arctic. “Some people think I’m thoroughly crazy,” said Braham before he left for Canada’s high arctic last week. “The question is usually, ‘Why?'” It’s all part of a project jointly engineered by NASA, the SETI Institute, and the Mars Society, which attempts to simulate the experience of living on Mars.
June 22nd, 2001
Mars Society Poland Rover Project Moves Forward
The Polish chapter of Mars Society is working on the final details of their analog Mars Pressurized Vehicle (MVP), a project which began a few months ago in response for the contest organized by the Mars Society headquarters. The main component and structure solutions are ready, some changes are still needed to cut down the costs. The project gathered massive press interest, including extensive articles in major newspapers and several short programs in local TV and radio stations. Also, several companies contacted our team and offered help and resources in exchange for publicity. If everything goes well we hope to start the production of the vehicle within 1-2 months. For now, a 1:20 model of the MPV is being prepared and will be displayed during two public events in the upcoming weeks.
June 18th, 2001
Convention 2001 Update
On July 1 registration fees will increase so now is the time to register. Our abstract deadline has been extended until July 15th. There are few dormitory rooms available, book now while you can. And for a second year we have a matching donor program.
June 18th, 2001
Hakluyt Prize Winner Announced
The winners of the 2001 Hakluyt prize for the best letter written by students to world leaders advocating a humans-to-Mars initiative have been announced. First place goes to Bridget Gallaway of Portland, Oregon. Bridget just graduated from high school and will be attending college in Texas next fall. Bridget wrote to the heads of state of 26 countries, to Pope John Paul II, and to all the members of the Science committees of the US House and Senate about the need to inspire the human spirit with the dream of a Martian civilization.
June 18th, 2001
Sheet Metal Workers Become Mars Desert Research Station Sponsors
The Sheet Metal Workers International Association (SMWIA) has become the newest major sponsor of the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station. Founded in 1888, the SMWIA has about 160,000 members. Together with the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters (UA) the SMWIA sponsorship brings to over half a million the number of skilled union men and women represented in the Mars Desert Research Station project.
June 13th, 2001
Mars Desert Research Station to be Exhibited at Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex
This summer the Mars Society’s second analog habitat, the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), will be exhibited at the Kennedy Space Center visitors complex. The exhibit is scheduled to open July 1 and will run through the labor day long weekend. The Mars Desert Research Station was fabricated for the Mars Society by Built on Integrity (BOI), of Boulder City Nevada. Founded by Scott Fisher, of the Fisher Space Pen company, a longtime supporter of space exploration in general and the Mars society in particular, BOI has developed a proprietary construction technology combining a steel frame, foam core, and elastomeric skin to produce an ultra lightweight structure with extremely effective insulation properties. The MDRS used this technology to produce a station that is the same size as the fiberglass honeycomb Flashline Station, but which weighs less than half as much. The Mars society intends to take advantage of the lightweight nature of the MDRS to make it mobile, moving it to support exploration at several different desert locations in the course of its operating lifetime. Engineering support for the design of the MDRS is being provided by the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.