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Showing posts from January, 2010

MDRS Midpoint

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Our simulated Mars mission has reached its midpoint.  In my last post , I thought that the snowy conditions here at MDRS would be just a short term anomaly in our mission. However, after 4 consecutive days of snow, my crew and I are having to re-think the strategy for our mission. When humans go to Mars, they'll also have to contend with inclement weather. Dust storms in particular could halt or severely limit EVA operations for days or weeks at a time. Yesterday we decided to do an emergency rescue operations EVA . Carla and I spent the morning constructing a sled out of materials we found at the Hab. The wooden sled had two runners made of PVC pipe and a rope to pull it from a rover or by hand. While we were busy carpenters, Darrel and Luis re-built and installed the carburetor for one of our rovers, Kiri edited our first two YouTube videos , and Mike got the radio telescope software working. It was a productive morning. By lunchtime, we had a sled, a nearly operationa

Snowy Days at MDRS

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We awoke yesterday to a beautiful white blanket of snow covering MDRS and its surroundings. In our morning crew briefing, we decided not to attempt a rover EVA in the snow. Instead, we opted to focus mostly on indoor projects like organizing and testing equipment, taking inventories, and writing. However, the snow beckoned us outside, and we all ended up crunching through the powder for more than an hour in the morning to enjoy the view while doing the daily engineering checks. Kiri found some interesting concretions on the hillside near MDRS. The snow continued to fall throughout the day. By mid-morning, the internet was down, presumably because of snow buildup on the satellite dish. We decided to brush off the snow on an EVA rather than break sim to do it. Luis wanted to collect some fresh snow samples to complement the older snow samples he had obtained on EVA 6 yesterday, so we decided to clear the satellite dish on our way to do EVA 7. We went outside, cleared the snow, an

Settling in on Mars

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After three and a half days at the Mars Desert Research Station , my crew and I have settled into a routine familiar to any Mars pioneer. Every morning we have a meeting to discuss the day's activities. Then we break up to finish any chores, projects, or EVA preparations. In the late morning, the first EVA commences. While that team is out in the field, the others are back in the Hab working on other things and finding some time for exercise. In the afternoon, we switch so the other three people can go on an EVA while the first three stay back in the Hab and try to get caught up on their tasks. You can learn more about MDRS living here . Boredom is the last of our worries. As I learned at FMARS , overwork and information management are concerns. By dusk when we're all back inside, it's a mad rush to get all of the reports written by 8pm when Mission Support comes online. It usually takes most of the night to sift through all of the photos, select the best ones t

MDRS Mission Underway

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My first full day at the Mars Desert Research Station has been very productive. We've completed all safety and engineering checks and conducted our first two EVAs. Donning the spacesuit again felt natural to me. The crew is getting along great, and we're keeping up with all of our duties so far. There are many similarities and differences between MDRS and FMARS. In general, MDRS is more well-worn but also more institutionalized. It has more infrastructure too such as the GreenHab and Musk Observatory . I'll likely devote a future post to comparing the two mock Mars habitats.

Meeting Astronauts Schmitt and Feustel at LunarGeo2010

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For the past two days, I have been at the Ground-Based Geophysics on the Moon workshop in Tempe, Arizona (aka: "LunarGeo2010"). This meeting is the first of its kind to bring together planetary and terrestrial geophysicists to review what we learned about the Moon from past geophysical studies and to plan future studies - robotic and human. Astronaut Jack Schmitt gave the first keynote address. He related his experiences doing active seismic experiments during the Apollo 17 mission.  He was the only professional scientist to ever visit the Moon and holds the record for the most EVA time spent working outside on another planetary body (22 hours).  The Moon is the only place in the solar system where humans have carried out ground-based geophysical studies such as seismology, heat flow, electromagnetic soundings, and gravity.  Without the data Schmitt and his Apollo colleagues collected, we would know significantly less about lunar interior and history, and by extension

Blastoff to Mars

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My bags are packed, and I'm ready to go. I can't believe the time has finally come. Today I'll begin my journey back to Mars. I'm not headed to the real Mars, of course - not yet. Instead I'm going to the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah. Like my FMARS adventure last summer, MDRS is a simulated Mars habitat owned and operated by The Mars Society . Below is the Commander's Welcome message that I posted to our crew blog : Welcome to the MDRS Crew 89 website! I hope you enjoy following our mission and learn something about what it takes to live on Mars. My name is Brian Shiro , and I am the Commander for the 89th crew of the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS). My crew and I will inhabit the simulated Mars habitat (the "Hab") from 23 January through 6 February 2010. Previously, I served as Geophysicist on the 2009 FMARS-12 expedition , and I am very excited to be commanding my first mission on analog Mars. In the three months

Mauna Loa Observatory

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While the devastating Haiti earthquake was happening, I was on top of Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano at the NOAA Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) .  Mauna Loa is the world's largest volcano , and if you measure it from its base on the seafloor, it's the world's tallest mountain too at 17,170 m (56,000 ft).  The massive mountain comprises half the Big Island of Hawaiʻi and amounts to about 85% of all other Hawaiian Islands combined. Below is a picture of colleague Roger Gernold and me at the MLO with Mauna Kea in the background.  If you squint, you can see the Mauna Kea Observatories on the top of that mountain.  We went to the MLO to scout for a location to install a new seismic station to record ground shaking from earthquakes.  This will help us better characterize earthquakes and to issue faster and more accurate tsunami warnings in Hawaiʻi.

Indians in Space

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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is looking for four people with the right stuff to be the country's first "vyomanauts" ( Vyoma = 'space' or 'sky' in Sanskrit.). The pool of eligible applicants includes 200 Indian Air Force pilots. The agency expects to narrow the field to the four finalists by 2012. The new vyomanaut ASCANs will train in an ISRO astronaut training school in North Bangalore. Two of the four candidates selected will fly on India's first manned space mission in 2015. If the success of the Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission is any indication, ISRO may be ready to support its own human space program. Maybe one day they'll even go to Mars .  You can learn more about the selection and the mission here . In 1984, Rakesh Sharma became India's first citizen in space as a cosmonaut on an 8-day mission to the Soviet Salyut 7 space station. His backup Ravish Malhotra trained for the mission too but never had the privile