Simulating "Mars on Earth"

• Main Authors: Report From Fmars, William J. Clancey
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Devon Island; Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.8.2381; http://home.att.net/~wjclancey/SimulatingMarsOnEarth.pdf

By now, everyone who's heard of the Haughton-Mars Project knows that we travel to Devon Island to learn how people will live and work on Mars. But how do we learn about Mars operations from what happens in the Arctic? We must document our experience---the traverses, life in the hab, instrument deployment, communications, and so on. Then we must analyze and formally model what happens. In short, while most scientists are studying the crater, other scientists must be studying the expedition itself. That's what I have done in the past four field seasons. I study field science, both as it naturally occurs at Haughton (unconstrained by a "Mars sim") and as a constrained experiment using the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station.