Mars Week 2002, a three-day conference about the exploration of Mars, will be held at the MIT campus in Cambridge on October 4-6. Mars Week is an annual conference dedicated to the education of students about all things Mars. There will be presentations discussing the engineering, scientific, political and social aspects of Mars exploration. Although it is dedicated to University students all ages are welcome (youth to professionals). Marsweek will be a beneficial experience for all. Mars Week attracts scientists, engineers, astronauts, students, political activists and business leaders from throughout the United States. Topics will include present and future missions, prospects for the human exploration and settlement of the Red Planet, the scientific research of Mars, and much more.
Volunteers Needed For Desert And Flashline Station Crews
The Mars Society is requesting volunteers to participate as members of the crew of the Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah and Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station on Devon Island during extended simulations of human Mars exploration operations during the period of October 2002 through August 2003. It is anticipated that the Desert Station field season will include a set of two-week rotations running from mid October 2002 through the end of April 2003. It is anticipated that the Flashline Station field season will run from late June through early August 2003.
Expedition One: A 30-Day Mission to the Mars Desert Research Station
Call for Researchers and Volunteers by August 30th, 2002 deadline The centre-piece of the Mars Society of Canada’s international collaborative science program is the first of an intended series of special expeditions to each of the international Mars Society’s analog research stations. The first of these, Expedition One, will be to the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, from February 15th – March 16th, 2003.
Hakluyt Prize Awarded
The Mars Society is proud to announce that the 2002 Hakluyt Prize has been awarded to Yohan Ferreira of Sri Lanka. Yohan has been following the activities of the Mars Society on-line for the past year and his entry shows both comprehension and enthusiasm. His list of email recipients included not only the major space faring governments, but several third world leaders as well.
German Mars Society Balloon Mission Moves Ahead
The Mars Society Germany, supported by numerous companies, universities and the German Space Agency DLR, is currently leading an effort to design, build and fly Germany’s first interplanetary mission; a super-pressure balloon born aerial reconnaissance survey of the planet Mars. The mission, known as Archimedes, will fill the current gap between orbital and surface missions, and combine long-range mobility of planetary dimensions with close up surface measurements and imaging.
Trans Life Stage 1 Update
STAGE-1 (STudent Artificial Gravity Experiment 1), the University of Colorado design team for the Mars Society Translife mission, gave their final briefing of the year on Thursday, May 9, completing the first year of design, implementation and testing of the ISS (International Space Station) centrifuge ground unit. The STAGE-1 team began design in September 2001 of the ground prototype unit, intended to demonstrate the feasibility of key concepts necessary for placing an artificial gravity centrifuge on the International Space Station. STAGE-1, a roughly 1 meter diameter unit, was designed and built to demonstrate these concepts, namely three key ISS verifiables including life support, active mass balance control and spin control.
Bill To Enable Human Space Exploration Introduced
The House Science Committee put out the Press Release below today, dealing with the bill to promote humans space exploration introduced yesterday by represenatatives Lampson and Hall. In addition to setting bold goals for human exploration of the Moon, near-Earth asteroids, and Mars, the bill would also authorize $250 million over the next two years to start developing the technology to achieve those goals. This is exactly what the Mars Society has been campaigning for in its Operation Congress.
Mars Desert Research Station Field Season Concludes
On May 8, the first field season of the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) concluded. The season, which began Feb 7, included 6 two-week crew rotations, thereby more than tripling the total amount of Mars Society mission operations research field time undertaken to date. For 84 days, crews of selected volunteers conducted a systematic program of field exploration of the Utah desert, while operating under many Mars mission-like constraints. In the course of doing so, many improvements in exploration methodology and insights into exploration human factors were gained. The MDRS crews consistently demonstrated the ability to operate with a daily total water use of about 20 liters per person without significant negative impact on morale. This compares quite favorably with the NASA estimate of 32 liters per person. As (even with 90% recycling) water is by far the single largest mass that needs to be transported on a human Mars mission, this finding promises to significantly reduce the mass and cost requirements of human Mars exploration. The MDRS crews also debunked a number of myths pervasive in certain sectors of the space human-factors community.
Poll Shows American Support For Humans To Mars Program
Anti-Mars cynics are currently making much of a recent poll by the Ipsos Reid agency which reports that “only” 38% of the American public support launching a humans to Mars program. For the record, 38% of the American public is 109 million people, which is more than the number who voted for George Bush, Al Gore, and Ralph Nader COMBINED in the most recent US presidential election.
Mars Society Convention Proceedings to Be Published
The Mars Society and Apogee Books announced today that the proceedings of the Mars Society 1999 and 2000 conventions will be published by Apogee Books this summer, as part of Apogee Books popular Space Series. The book will contain over a hundred written papers submitted at the 2nd and Third international Mars Society conventions dealing with every technical, scientific, social and political question facing Mars exploration and settlement. In addition, the book will also contain a transcript of the debate held at the second convention between Robert Zubrin and Chris McKay concerning the ethics of terraforming Mars, as well a special CD containing an updated version of the movie “The Mars Society,” produced by independent film director Sam Burbank.