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Discovery Channel and Mars Society Announce Joint Arctic Program

By Keith Cowing

June 22, 2000

Filed under Corporate, General Story

Update: 30 June 2000: Mars Arctic Research Station Effort Underway, SpaceRef.

Members of the Mars Society’s Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station team have begun to assemble in the Canadian Arctic for this summer’s field season on Devon Island. More Information

22 June 2000:
The Mars Society and the Discovery Channel have announced a significant partnership designed to involve the whole world in the construction of the society’s Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station. According to a joint press release, “The Mars Society announced today that the Discovery Channel, has become a major sponsor of the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, a simulated Mars
exploration base slated for deployment this summer on Devon Island in Nunavut, Canada.”

This facility is designed to support a wide range of scientific research in a “Mars on Earth” environment. According to the press release, “the station will act as a laboratory for learning how to live and work on Mars, offering researchers the opportunity to conduct systematic studies of the strategies, technologies, human factors and hardware designs necessary to prepare for the human exploration of Mars.”

The Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, so named as the result of another corporate sponsorship arrangement with Flashline.com, will be located on Devon Island in the Canadian high arctic. Additional funding for the project has been
provided by the Steve and Michele Kirsch Foundation, FINDS (the Foundation for the Non-governmental Development of Space), Bushnell Sports Optics, and the members of the Mars Society.

The most prominent feature on Devon Island is the 20- kilometer diameter Haughton meteorite impact crater. NASA and other space agencies around the world have been sending scientists to this location for several years as part of the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP). The environment within this crater and the surrounding terrain offers a collection of geological features strikingly reminiscent of what is expected to be found on Mars.

This year’s HMP field season runs from 1 July until 5 August. The Flashline Station is currently in Boulder, Colorado undergoing final checks before shipment to the arctic aboard several military transport planes. Construction is slated to begin on 1 July and be completed by the 19th. Inauguration will occur on 20 July 2000, the 31st anniversary of the first human landing on the moon and will be followed by several weeks of simulation activities. This year’s simulation will end on 5 August and the research team will report their findings at the Mars Society Convention in Toronto on 10 August.

Regular status reports will be issued by the participants in the project. In addition to Discovery’s extensive television and Internet coverage, a number of media representatives are scheduled to visit Devon Island. Check in with SpaceRef.com over the next 8 weeks for these updates including a regular series of reports from our own on-site SpaceRef reporter, Marc Boucher.