Dispatch from Mars Society Arctic Expedition Robert Zubrin July 10, 2001
Late last evening the report came in that the first crew had completed a four person motorized EVA surveying
some of Devon’s canyon systems that closely mimic those found on Mars. Led by Pascal, and including Charles
Cockell of the British Antarctic Survey, Rainer Effenhauser of NASA JSC, and Frank Schubert, the excursion
was a spectacular success that really illustrated the unique capabilities for wide ranging field exploration
over unimproved terrain that human exploration teams will bring to Mars.
Frank Schubert and Charles Cockell survey canyons during motorized EVA July 9.
Today was brilliantly sunny, although rather cold. As it was our last day operating out of the station, we decided to use the time to do a test deployment of Vladimir’s seismic sensing array experiment. The device, known at a geophone flute, consists of an array of 24 sensors stuck into the ground in a line roughly 100 meters long. You then in initiate a seismic signal, either with a sledge hammer, a gun, or an explosive. The sound goes into the ground and reflects off of various layers, and is then read by the sensor array. After sounding with the line in one direction, say north-south, you move the sensors 90 degrees to direct the line east-west. The combined soundings then produce a three dimensional map of the subsurface. The purpose of such an array on Mars would be to search for underground water or ice.
Vladimir Pletser and Katy Quinn test seismic sensing array July 10.
It is believed that there may well be a liquid water table on Mars, on the order of a kilometer or so deep. In certain places, for various exceptional reasons such as a local geothermal heat source, it could be closer, perhaps within range of the kind of small drilling rig an astronaut crew could bring to Mars. Accessing this water would be of extraordinary scientific value, as if there is extant life on Mars today, that is where it could be found. Sampling such water would tell us much more than we could ever find out from surface fossils. Surface fossils of bacterial colonies, called stromatolites, would tell us that Mars once had life, but living organisms acquired underground would show us their structure, thereby letting us know whether life as we know it on Earth is generic to all life everywhere, or alternatively, informing us that terrestrial life is simply one esoteric example of a much vaster and more varied phenomenon.
An equally fascinating possibility would be to find bacteria similar to terrestrial types, but to also find ancestral free-living forms that are simpler than bacteria. One of the great mysteries of biology is the fact that we do not find any evidence for the presence on Earth, either now or in the past, of any free-living prebacterial life. This is amazing, because bacteria are actually quite complex. Imagining that bacteria were the first life to emerge from chemistry is like believing that automobiles were the first machines. There had to be simpler things first, but we don’t find them here. If we were to find bacteria’s precursors on Mars, it would not only reveal the probable source of terrestrial life, it would show us the intermediate steps in the creation of life from chemistry. It would be like reading the book of life itself.
But we might not find liquid water. Even so, simply finding underground ice lenses in low latitude regions of Mars would still be of extraordinary value to a future Mars base. In short, Mars is like the ocean; most of its secrets are to be found beneath its surface. For this reason, the ability of astronauts to deploy underground exploration equipment is key.
So Vladimir, Katy, and I loaded Vladimir’s equipment into an ATV trailer and set off from base camp. We forded the Lowell Canal, which is still running high with ice cold Arctic meltwater, and then scaled Haynes Ridge a few hundred yards west of the hab. It took about two hours to deploy the array, with some delay self-imposed as we made Vladimir do the wiring connections on the control box wearing thick ski gloves, since that is the way he will be impaired when we deploy the experiment under EVA simulation conditions. We strung out the array north-south, and then Katy used a sledge hammer to create a series of ten seismic signals. Amazingly, we got beautiful data from as deep as 300 meters on our very first try. Vladimir was delighted. Many thanks to the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, who supplied the gear. We’ll put it to good use.
Carnegie Mellon team prpepare Hyperion robot for testing July 10.
On our way back to camp we passed by a group from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) who were preparing their new Hyperion robot for testing. The CMU team is part of the NASA-SETI led Haughton Mars Project (HMP) with whom we share a common base camp. The solar powered Hyperion robot will be tested soon on Devon’s flat Von Braun Planitia, where it will guide its course so as to keep its large photovoltaic panel flat-on to the Sun. Since in the high Arctic summer the Sun moves in a circle around the sky, this will send the Hyperion on a circular course over 24 hours, during which it will use its sophisticated hazard avoidance capability to evade rocks in its path. There aren’t that many rocks on Von Braun that are big enough to stop the Hyperion, so their chances of success are fairly good, provided that the robot’s large solar panel does not cause it to be capsized by the wind. Why someone would want to have their robot’s course determined by the Sun angle is unclear to me; I would prefer to set the vehicle’s course towards a given objective and swivel the panel to track the Sun. But the test is coming in a few days and CMU will have their chance to show everyone exactly what Hyperion can do.
DHL has still failed to deliver the water testing gear I entrusted to them June 28. We move into the station tonight.
