Mock Mars spacemen camp on Devon Island

Would you like to take a spin in the MARS-1 Humvee, short for “High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle” or HMMVV?

If you’re a researcher with Mars on your mind, you might end up driving the sturdy, 8,800-pound refurbished rover around the NASA Haughton-Mars Project camp on Devon Island.

If plants interest you, then the project’s Arthur C. Clarke greenhouse, named after the science fiction writer and author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, may be just what you were looking for.

Or would you prefer an EVA, that is some Extra-Vehicular Activity?

First, you’ll have to put on a protective suit and oxygen tanks. Then, pretend you’re an astronaut on Mars and can’t breathe the air outside, rather than on Devon Island in Nunavut’s backyard, just like seven wannabe space explorers who are toughing it out by the edge of the Haughton Crater in the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station.

The “crew” of this Mars habitat, a group chosen from volunteers around the world, is mid-way through a four-week “rotation” in the station.

The three-year old white fibreglass station, which looks like a giant can of tuna, is temporary home to Jason Held, crew commander, Blajez Blazejowski, a paleontologist from Poland, Ákos Kereszturi, an Hungarian geologist, Judd Reed, a computer engineer, Shannon Rupert Roble, an ecologist, and two journalists, Joan Roch and Louise Wynn.

In the past, visitors have been welcome to see Nunavut’s Mars-on-Earth project for themselves, but increased security measures are in place this year in response to the global war on terrorism.

The Mars Society, an international group committed to the exploration and settlement of Mars, funds the station, which sits at the edge of the 20 km-wide, 23-million-year-old Haughton Crater. It’s among those sites on Earth where environmental conditions, biological characteristics and geologic features may be similar to Mars, although Mars has far colder minimum temperatures, harsh radiation conditions, dust storms and low atmospheric pressure.

Their crew’s “logs” give a glimpse of mock-Mars life and are on-line at: www. marssociety.org.

“I WANT you to know the difficulties of living with six others in a confined space, or the length of time to put on a space suit, or… the joy of screaming across a desert on an ATV on a mission of exploration. On a Mars mission, it is vital for the people back home to feel the same passion for exploration as the explorer,” Commander Held says in one recent entry.

The entries range from the philosophical to the gritty, often written in a stirring style that echoes the starship logs of Star Trek captains James Kirk or Luc Picard.

July 20: “The crew is thinking of today more than other days, for today is Space Day, the 35-year anniversary of the Apollo-11 landing and the first true day of human exploration of another orbiting body. What we do here at FMARS is nothing more than a continuation of that work – it is our intention that the lessons we learn here are written down and used in the science of human space exploration… and to me this is a perfect end to a good long day.”

The crew has been there since July 9, arriving with 2,200 pounds of food, equipment, an all-terrain vehicle and a trailer, shipped from Resolute Bay via a community they call “Inukshuk” – apparently confused with “Iqaluit.”

Inukshuk is a place, according to Held’s entry, that is “completely devoid of suburbs” where both children and adults offered him “polished art stoneworks (for a price).”

By July 12, Held writes the “habitat, after several days of occupation, has become muggy with sweat and steam from boiling the water. The moisture runs down the walls like tears and the windows show raindrops on their inside.”

Outside excursions are no picnic either. During an EVA, Held writes, “both of us wore long wool socks to protect our feet, drank plenty of water, and stretched before departing. We made sure the suit’s pack, providing air and water, was tight and as high on our backs as would fit. This is an interesting way to wear it – very uncomfortable to drive in, but perfect for a bush-walk.”

These space enthusiasts could comfort themselves with the words spoken by the late U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, after the first successful manned space flight, works which are often quoted by people at the Haughton-Mars camp on Devon Island.

Kennedy said exploration and manned travel of space had to be done “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”