Posted on 05/25/2013 5:10:32 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The Arctic’s a lot like Mars, according to the Mars Society. It’s cold, it’s isolated, and it’s kind of dangerous. And, the society says, it’s ready to bring humans to the Arctic for a year to make a mission there even more Mars-realistic.
The proposed Mars Arctic 365 (MA365) mission on Canada’s Devon Island would take place at Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, where missions have been sent since 2001 for periods of a few months each. This mission would encompass all seasons, though, including the bitter winter.
In a press release, Mars Society president Robert Zubrin drew comparisons of his latest venture with the Mars500 mission that saw a group of people put into a simulated Mars spacecraft in Moscow. But, he added, the Mars Society will go “much further” as the work will include field exploration similar to what Mars astronauts would do: geology, climate and microbiology. Also, the Arctic — like Mars — is a “cold and dangerous remote environment.”
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
And if someone gets hurt they are within flying distance to a hospital.
Yeah. That’s big. When I was 12, I camped out at 32 below zero and determined to learn more about winter camping. That was 44 years ago. Today, after decades of winter camping, skiing, snow shoeing, ice fishing and various other winter sports, I have determined that I’ll stay inside.
Good luck, Martian mission!
The best bet for a Lunar, then Mars mission, is to send nuclear powered tunneling robots first. Give them a year or two to prep the place, and everything becomes a lot easier, and missions can last a lot longer.
For example, a habitat on the surface of the Moon has to deal with cosmic and enhanced radiation, extremes of heat and cold, vacuum, and extremely abrasive Lunar dust. But if you put your habitat inside a tunnel, you avoid the worst of a lot of that. Plus each mission can build on the last mission.
Another technology that would be a great help would be a literal “space shuttle”, a rocket constructed and fueled in orbit, to take the spaceship from the orbit of one body to the orbit of the other and back. Thus saving the spaceship a lot of fuel, weight and space that it can use for other things.
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