NASA’s attempt last year to drive a modified Humvee all the way to its simulated Mars base on Devon Island nearly ended in disaster.
Thick snow concealed a lead of open water ahead of the vehicle, which narrowly avoided falling right into the ocean.
At a presentation at the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum in Iqaluit on May 3, Mars Institute director Pascal Lee showed a Power Point presentation of the trip from Kugluktuk to Cambridge Bay, 500 km across the ice of Coronation Gulf, made between April 17 and April 25, 2009.
The journey was supposed to proceed on to Resolute and then to Haughton Crater on Devon Island, often called the most Mars-like environment on Earth.
But days of whiteout conditions and the near-loss of the vehicle through the ice made NASA change its plans, instead bringing it by air from Cambridge Bay to Resolute for the final trek to Haughton Crater.
The “Moon-1 experimental vehicle” is a customized Humvee equipped as if it were a manned vehicle on Mars.
Mars simulator vehicle nearly lost in sea ice Nunatsiaq News
Mars project puts greenhouse on Devon Island Nunatsiaq News
Nunavut’s own wannabe Mars explorers are back on Devon Island, poking around the Haughton Crater in space suits and souped-up ATVs. And if you want to see why gardening in Nunavut is like gardening on Mars, you won’t want to miss descriptions and photos of the greenhouses they’re building on Devon Island. The first greenhouse, already up and running, is the pet project of a group of Mars enthusiasts and scientists with the Haughton-Mars Project, a yearly field camp that receives support from NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the Mars Institute and the SETI Institute.
Looks like Mars, sounds like the Arctic Nunatsiaq News
If there are any native Martians on Mars, they may be shocked to learn that U.S. scientists are renaming places on their planet as fast as they can, in the same way that explorers and every wave of newcomers gave their own foreign place names to the Eastern Arctic. A little bit of Canada’s North has been transported to Mars as names for places, people and events on Earth are transported to locations on the Red Planet. Borrowed place names for Martian craters include Inuvik, Nain, Nutak and Thule. The names of vessels used in past polar exploration are also now on Mars.
Tabloid finds Inuit on Mars Nunatsiaq News
The NASA rover that landed on Mars this year has found Inuit colonists living on Mars! At least, that’s according to the August 2, 2004 cover story of the tabloid, the Weekly World News, that shows a family of Inuit dressed in fur and eating country food on Mars
Mock Mars spacemen camp on Devon Island Nunatsiaq News
Would you like to take a spin in the MARS-1 Humvee, short for “High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle” or HMMVV? If you’re a researcher with Mars on your mind, you might end up driving the sturdy, 8,800-pound refurbished rover around the NASA Haughton-Mars Project camp on Devon Island. If plants interest you, then the project’s Arthur C. Clarke greenhouse, named after the science fiction writer and author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, may be just what you were looking for. Or would you prefer an EVA, that is some Extra-Vehicular Activity?
A little corner of Mars on Devon Island Nunatsiaq News
The landscape of Devon Island is bleak, just rocks, frozen rubble, canyons, dry stream beds and steep ledges, but for space researchers and enthusiasts, the scenery is nearly perfect. That’s because this barren place reminds them of Mars.