Dispatch from Mars Society Arctic Expedition – Robert Zubrin July 18, 2001
The new crew awoke bright and early, and after breakfast and a short briefing, began to suit up for their first EVA. Because it would be their first sortie, I kept the plan conservative. Three crew members would do a two-hour pedestrian excursion on Hayes Ridge, to continue the general geological and paleontological survey of the area begun by Vladimir, Katy, and I in our first EVA a week ago. The EVA crew, consisting of Charles Frankel, Cathrine Frandsen, and Christine Jayarajah, would be led by Charles with Brent Bos serving as their capcom in the station.
It was good we started early, because the EVA preparation took three hours, due to a combination of the new crew’s inexperience and various technical problems, mostly radio-related. So it was 1:30 PM before they were out the lock. But if the preparation phase was a comedy of awkwardness mirroring that experienced in the first efforts of the prior crews, the actual EVA was superb. The weather was sunny, and the crew took full advantage of it to not only survey the ridge, but to clamber all over the boulder-covered steep slopes leading down into the crater. In doing so, they demonstrated the ability of human explorers to cope with a type of terrain that would be completely impassible for any wheeled vehicles or other robots.
Their science return was high as well. To quote part of their report:
“On the north side of the Hab, the rocks contained many fossils. In a ten-minute span, we observed, photographed and sampled four varieties of fossils: a large, ‘brain-like’ convoluted specimen (probably a coral); a coiled shell, about an inch in size, that resembles a Murchisonia (Silurian to Permian high-spired shell); an elongate (round to prismatic in cross-section), quarter-inch wide rod which resembles a squid ‘belemnite-type’ rostrum; and a finely laminated rock that appears to be a stromatolite. In large rock slabs, we observed cross sections of laminated, ‘onion-ring’ pods that could be of similar algae-mat origin.”
Imagine getting a report like that back from Mars. If we hope for these kinds of results, we need to send human explorers.
In addition to the paleontology, the crew also returned mineralogical information, and took rock, soil, and microbial samples for analysis back in our lab. They also deployed Cathrine’s experiment, a Niels Bohr Institute dust magnetic properties instrument similar to that used on the Mars Pathfinder mission.
After the EVA, the crew sat down for a group debriefing. Then, while they prepared their report, I attempted to engaged in a direct interaction with the public gathered at the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS). The MDRS is currently on exhibit at Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex prior to its deployment into the American southwest for research operations after labor day. At around 4:30 PM we received a transmission containing voice files of three very intelligent questions posed by members of the public asking, from different angles, how our research here on Devon could help advance the exploration and/or settlement of Mars. This was very exciting. We had been waiting for this dats interaction to commence for weeks. I quickly taped a reply. But just as I was about to transmit, our power went down. By the time we got our transmitter running again, it was 5 PM here, (6 PM at KSC), and the exhibit was closed for the day. We’ll make it work tomorrow.
Then it was dinnertime. At Flashline Station, dinner together is a major group event, with attendance mandatory. Everyone takes a turn cooking. Going into the field season, I had thought that cooking for the group would be a chore that everyone would try to avoid until the fatal day came when they drew the short straw. But that is not how it has turned out. Instead, during the second rotation, a kind of friendly competition developed with each cook attempting to outdo the others in creating an interesting dinner out of our stockpile of canned and dried goods, or at least trying to avoid public disgrace through inadequate performance.
So working with our supply of room-temperature long-term preservables, Vladimir rendered a meal of tuna fish, rice and beans, Steve Braham cooked Chicken Alfredo (using canned chicken), Katy made beef stew and potatoes (using canned beef and powdered potatoes), I used the leftover beef from Katy’s stew to serve spaghetti with meat sauce, while Charles Cockell prepared chili and canned vegetables (he’s British.).
The first member of the new crew to volunteer to cook was Charles Frankel, a dual origin Franco-American who has lived most of his life in France. Now I am a man of simple tastes, one who would happily cross the street to avoid a French restaurant. I therefore awaited his production with some trepidation. It was, however, a hearty dish called Chicken Provence, made with canned chicken, canned tomatoes, rice, olive oil, and spices. It turns out that the absurd meals consisting of a quarter-ounce of lamb topped by a twist of broccoli with some weird sauce on the side, etc., served by irritable waiters at the establishments calling themselves “French restaurants” are just a kind of practical joke that the French like to play on Americans to test our gullibility. No one in France eats that stuff. They eat real food, just like us.
This means that a joint US-French mission to Mars is potentially possible.
