AFTER days kicking their heels in the tiny stormbound settlement of Resolute
in the Canadian Arctic, a team of researchers set off last week to study Mars.
Well, a pretend Mars, anyway.
The team headed for the 21-kilometre-wide Haughton Crater on Devon Island.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a landscape that looks eerily like Mars,鈥� says team leader Pascal Lee, a
planetary scientist with the privately funded SETI Institute.
The team has been studying the area since 1997 because of its similarity to
the Red Planet, but now the team will get a taste of what it will be like to
actually live on Mars. 鈥淲e鈥檙e piggybacking onto our science programme a
programme in exploration research,鈥� says Lee.
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The independent Mars Society has built a 鈥渉abitat鈥� in the crater where the
team will live and work as if they were on a real Mars base. The habitat is
shaped like a landed spacecraft鈥攁 giant tin can on legs. It is 8 metres in
diameter with living space upstairs and workspace below.
Like an Arctic version of the Big Brother house, the habitat will be
home to six people at a time. The crew, who come from NASA and the SETI
Institute, will have precious little privacy and minimal contact with the
outside world. Their physical and mental well-being will be monitored as they
learn to live with each other in the cramped conditions.
On a real Mars mission, crews will have to survive such conditions for at
least two years, since travel time between Mars and Earth is nine months each
way. Radio signals take more than 20 minutes to travel the huge distances
between Mars and Earth, so interplanetary conversation will be a bit stilted,
says Steve Braham, who is developing communications for the project. Astronauts
will have to rely on e-mail to keep in contact with home.
Researchers will go outdoors only in simulated spacesuits. This will restrict
their vision and means prevent them from handling rocks directly. The team
members鈥� ability to keep their cool in an emergency will be tested too, by
simulating an air leak on the habitat in the dead of night so that everyone will
have to clamber into their spacesuits.