Haughton-Mars Project (HMP-2001 REPORT: 010702)

By: Dr. Pascal Lee

We are still in Resolute Bay tonight. Still waiting for conditions to improve for our first deployment to Devon Island.

We came close this evening, or so we thought. After dinner, a First Air Twin Otter plane was readied to fly a lightweight load of four people to Devon Island. We were hoping to establish a beachhead at Haughton Crater by landing a small party directly at our camp’s strip. John Schutt, Joe Amarualik, Gordon “Oz” Osinski and Frank Schubert got ready to go. While John and Oz would set out to open up the NASA Haughton-Mars Project’s Base Camp and prepare the airstrip for heavier landings, Frank and Joe would get started on readying the Mars Society’s FMARS habitat for the upcoming crew occupations this Summer.

Soon however, the weather closed in. In the short time it took to reach the Resolute Bay airport it was drizzling and sleeting again. Doug, the First Air Twin Otter’s commanding pilot, recommended a “no go”. We all concurred it was the right decision. The present front must be allowed to pass. We’ll have a look at the sky again tomorrow.

Outside the window of the CO-OP Hotel in Resolute Bay the view this evening is bleak, yet strangely serene. The sea remains frozen, mottled by a myriad of bluish melt pools but still unbroken all the way to the horizon. Such a scene must have presented earlier inhabitants and explorers of this land with a daunting challenge. Now is the time when the sea can no longer be safely walked, yet it still cannot be safely sailed. New lands will be difficult to reach.

The solution to their problem, however, was to be prepared for the worse and to be patient enough for the right time to come.