George James, Personal Journal – The Mars Society Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station – 10 Aug 2001
I had the best night sleep in over a week. We were scheduled to go to the island between 5:00 and 6:00. I took some time in the morning to catch up with my journal. I got everything packed up to leave and then got ready to go for a walk. However, Ozzie offered an ATV. So I took the opportunity to get some practice on the manual shift ATV. I drove up to the top of the ridge and took a couple of pictures of the town. I headed to the CO-OP store and checked out what they had to offer. I bought a wrench and some soap for Eric. Eric and I both had our radios on. He was back at the hotel working on the Internet. We did a few checks on the distance and reception of the radios and were pleasantly surprised. I also headed out along the road that runs along the bay. I spotted a tower that looked a lot like the one attached to the hab.
There were two ships that came in today. The first was a supply ship. The second was a cruise ship. For a while there were tourists all over town. The picture below shows the town with the bay and cruise ship in the background.
After taking a nap, I was informed that the crosswind was too strong to land tonight and our flight was cancelled. Eric and I had dinner and then went to see Colleen. I quizzed her about several things. We went over who is on the island now and next week’s schedule. She was surprised to hear that Frank was not coming out. It sounds like there is other engineering issues with the hab that need to be resolved. I can see my time filling up fast. I hope I get to be involved in a little bit of the science going on as well as the engineering issues. She told me about some of the resources she could draw on if needed. She checked on the remote station packages and used her connections to make sure they would be on tomorrow’s flight into Resolute Bay.
She told us that two bears had been spotted near town today. We also told here that a helicopter had gone down on Baffin Island to the south. After we got back, I sat down with Ozzie and discussed the tower at the hab and the wind turbine installation. I found out that he had sold the tower to the Mars Society. He took me out to look at some identical tower sections. Figure 2 shows the picture of the end of one section. There is a top plate on the tower that will have to be modified or removed. The top rhomboidal shaped fixture will have to be rotated or removed for the attachment pipe of the turbine to fit cleanly along the inside of one leg of tower. Ozzie stated that the tower is safe to climb with a safety belt (which I brought).
I talked to Colleen a little bit about my ideas of the hamlet as an analog of a Martian outpost. Since nothing is manufactured here, the town is highly dependent on outside shipments. This is a very poor model for a Mars colony. However, I later talked to Ozzie about the jobs in Resolute. A lot of the labor is spent on governments – municipal, provincial, and federal. There are also three hotels. The labor associated with such jobs as these could be used to create a more independent existence on Mars.
As I was writing this journal entry I became involved with a couple of crewmembers of a mining expedition on Devon Island. They had visited the HMP & FMARS sites on the way out today. One person was a geophysicist. He told me about his work on geothermal exploration in Japan. I gave him a contact for wireless, miniature sensors that he might use in his work.
