2001 FMARS: Katy Quinn's Journal

Disclaimer: the opinions and views in this web document are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Mars Society, MIT, or NASA.
Copyright © 2001 Katy Quinn - All rights reserved. The contents of this web document may not be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, or stored in a public database retrieval system, without prior written or electronic permission of the author. 

Hi all! I'm one of the lucky people selected to go to Devon Island this summer to be a crew member for the Mars Society's Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS). I won't go into detail about the project here, the Mars Society and Haughton-Mars Projects web pages listed below are wonderful resources. What I'd like to do here is provide a journal of my experiences in the Arctic this summer and give folks a taste of what it's like to be an astronaut wannabe with the Mars Society. I'll update as often as I'm able. My crew rotation only lasts 10 days so we'll be very busy.
A quick intro on me. I'm Australian born, living in the United States right now. I'm a geophysics graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts - just a whisker away from getting my Ph.D. My interests are space based geodesy, remote sensing, and polar regions. Head over to my main web page for more details on my research. I'm a Devon Island neophyte so anticipate high levels of enthusiasm and low levels of Arctic geology expertise in the journal entries to come.
On to Mars!

Timetable

Friday, May 11 - Sunday, May 13: Denver Crew Briefing
Tuesday, July 3: Fly from Boston to Ottawa (stay overnight)
Wednesday, July 4: Fly from Ottawa to Resolute
Sunday, July 8: Crew rotation starts - changed to Tuesday evening, July 9th
Tuesday, July 17: Crew rotation ends
Wednesday, July 18: Fly from Resolute to Ottawa
Thursday, July 19: Fly from Ottawa to Boston
NB: all dates depends on weather, changes in flight schedules, etc

Journal

Denver crew briefing - added June 14
Thoughts on leaving - added July 1
Arrived in Resolute - added July 5
Waiting in Resolute - added July 6
Still waiting in Resolute - added July 7
I'm on Devon Island! - added July 8
HMP camp life - added July 9
T-minus 1 hour and 40 minutes - added July 10
First day in the FMARS habitat - added July 11
Busy days - added July 15
Muddy day blues - added July 16
Back at HMP base camp - added July 18

Note: while in the Arctic I won't be able to update this website in real time. However I'll still be sending journal entries south, with luck they'll be on the SpaceRef: Mars of Earth website or the Mars Society Arctic website. Regardless, when I get back I'll put everything up so the whole record will be available here.

Links

SpaceRef: Mars on Earth
This is the best site to go to and it has links to all the other major sites. Has live webcams, news, updates, journal entries, and lots more.

Mars Society Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station
The Mars Society's main webpage for this field season and previous ones.

NASA/SETI Haughton-Mars Project
This website covers the ongoing NASA/SETI project at Haughton Crater. There is lots of cross-over between this project and FMARS.

Discovery.com - Mars on Earth
The Discovery Channel is a major sponsor of FMARS. The link right now is for last year's website, which is well worth a look for background and multimedia. There should be a new website for this year and televised coverage, although I don't know when that'll be yet.
 

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