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Showing posts from June, 2009

Resolute Bay: staging ground for FMARS

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"Resolute is not the end of the world, but you can see it from here." That's how the saying goes in Canada's second most northern community Resolute Bay . The town of approximately 260 people rests on the south coast of Cornwallis Island , just to the west of Devon Island, where FMARS is located. It takes its names from the ship HMS Resolute , which was stranded in the ice here in 1854. Later, an American whaling ship found the Resolute adrift near Baffin Island and towed it back to Queen Victoria in England. She then had a desk fashioned from the ship's timbers and gave it to President Hayes in 1880, and to this day most US Presidents have used that desk in the Oval Office or their private study. Today, Resolute is a jumping-off point for expeditions to the north pole, and it harbors a Canadian government scientific research station called the Polar Continental Shelf Program . It boasts one school and one co-op store . The Inuit people here are ca

NASA's 2009 Astronaut Candidate Class

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The wait is finally over. NASA has announced a new crop of nine astronaut candidates ("ascans") to join the astronaut corps in Houston. Among them is friend of this blog Captain Jack Fischer, who has twice written guest blog posts on his astronaut interview experience and his passion for space . Congratulations to Jack and the other eight deserving selectees. I've excerpted descriptions of the new ascans from NASA's press release below: Serena M. Auñón , 33, of League City, Texas; University of Texas Medical Branch-Wyle flight surgeon for NASA’s Space Shuttle, International Space Station and Constellation Programs; born in Indianapolis, Ind. Auñón holds degrees from The George Washington University, University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, and UTMB. ( Auñón's JSC bio. ) Jeanette J. Epps , 38, of Fairfax, Va.; technical intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency; born in Syracuse, N.Y. Epps holds degrees from LeMoyne College

Let's aim for Mars

Buzz Aldrin wrote a very moving commentary today on CNN.com that I just had to reproduce for this blog's readers. It's all about how our space program, while achieving great things in the 40 years since Apollo, has failed to inspire the public with a worthy goal. Aldrin argues convincingly that the space program's focus should be "homesteading Mars," and I wholeheartedly agree. How we can get to Mars using existing technology and a scant few tens of billions of dollars is the subject of Robert Zubrin's seminal book The Case for Mars , which also happens to be the guiding inspiration to all of The Mars Society 's activities, including FMARS . I'll let Aldrin's words speak for themselves below:

Travel to the Canadian north

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I've made it to Resolute Bay , but the journey up here was a small adventure itself. When I entered Calgary, my passport was flagged, and I had to go speak with an immigration agent who subsequently asked me all kinds of questions about my previous trips to Canada. (Having a name change on my passport only confuses matters more.) He wanted to know why I had been denied entry once back in 2001. I explained it was due to a scientific experiment paperwork misunderstanding that was cleared up the next day (although I think the real reason was because one member of our group was an Iraqi-American). The agent also wanted to know why I still had a piece of paper stapled to my passport from my 2-month 2005 stay in Vancouver for ISU . I said I just left it there because an immigration agent had put it there. He removed it. I didn’t dare tell him about my crossing into BC and Yukon without any passport whatsoever during the 1999 JIRP expedition . From Edmonton northward, one of

FMARS Bound (and promotional video)

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In a few hours I'll leave sunny Hawaii and start my northward journey to Devon Island. First, I'll stop over with family in Oregon for a couple of days and then head up to Resolute Bay via Edmonton-Yellowknife. I'll be in Resolute for two days before the rest of the crew will join me. In that time, I'll check equipment and prepare for the mission, with particular emphases on testing our satellite internet dish and test-driving the ATVs we will take to FMARS. The map below illustrates my path and the easterly route my crew mates will take. Earlier in the mission planning, we had explored the option of chartering one plane to take all of the crew and gear from Denver to Resolute Bay, but that proved impractical, so we'll be flying on commercial airlines.

FMARS 2003 and 2007 Videos

The first group to inhabit FMARS for a 4-week-long mission was the 2003 crew . They were the eighth crew to call FMARS home; Crew 7 had been there in 2002, and Crews 1-6 built the simulated Mars habitat in 2001. The following is a 34-minute documentary on the FMARS-8 Mission in 2003. It is reproduced in four segments of approximately 8-9 minutes each with the permission of the mission's commander Dr. Steve McDaniel . The video gives a very good overview of what a FMARS mission is all about.

FMARS Training: Part 2

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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my FMARS training activities such as shotgun and ATV practice. Since then, it's been a nonstop marathon to prepare for the arctic adventure. This includes not only all of the logistical planning but also fund raising and purchasing gear. The preparations are building to a crescendo now in the final days before we all depart. Last weekend was the first opportunity for all six crew members to meet each other, Dr. Zubrin , and The Mars Society volunteers who will serve as our mission support. We also met with a representative of the production company that plans on filming our arctic adventure. The FMARS crew spent Saturday and Sunday at Pioneer Astronautics near Denver to discuss critical issues related to our expedition. The picture to the right shows myself, Joe Palaia (Executive Officer), and Vernon Kramer (Commander) posing with a prototype Mars aircraft ("gas hopper") in the Pioneer Astronautics lab. A press release out

Passion for Space

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Today we are privileged to have an inspiring post from guest blogger Major Jack Fischer, who also happens to be one of the astronaut finalists eagerly awaiting word from NASA on his selection. Enjoy!

The End of Kaguya and Beginning of LRO

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The Japanese lunar orbiter with the impressive HDTV camera has met its end as mission controllers guided it to the surface for a planned impact in a shaded region near Gill Crater at approximately 89°S, 266°E (In a June 11 press release , JAXA showed the impact site location.). As it approached the moon, Kaguya took a series of still images, which are available in the June 19 JAXA press release or in the animated sequence I created from them below: The LTVT wiki has collected a lot of information on the impact itself. Jeremy Baily and Steve Lee observed the impact from the Anglo-Australian 3.9m Telescope at Siding Spring, New South Wales, Australia. You can learn more on their webpage , or take a look at their image showing the impact in a sequence of four frames: More stunning lunar images from Kaguya are available in the mission's image archive . In other lunar news, the Lunar Reconnassiance Orbitor (LRO) had a successful launch yesterday from Cape Canaveral aboard

When will the ASCANS be Announced?

The question we're all eager to have answered is when will NASA announce the 2009 class of astronaut candidates. The Astronaut Selection Office's timeline has listed "April 2009" as the timeframe for the announcement since it was originally posted in October 2007. Since about mid-2008, all indications from NASA were that the announcement would be in May rather than April 2009, and that is how I reported it in the updated timeline that I compiled. June 8 update: NASA has updated its timeline and now says the new astronauts will be announced in June 2009. This likely supercedes the speculation presented below that the announcement may take longer. Note that I fixed a typographical error in the paragraph above that said August but was supposed to say April. Until recently, I thought May was going to be the big month for new astronaut announcements, with Europe , Canada , and NASA releasing their picks. Indications now are that the names of the selectees will