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CNN Live Saturday
Scientists Simulate Mars in Canada
Aired July 14, 2001 - 17:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: Man has fantasized for a long time about life on Mars. Now scientists are hoping to simulate it here on Earth. They plan to do that on a remote Canadian island north of the Arctic Circle and CNN plans to be there too.
Space correspondent Miles O'Brien and producer Linda Sather are now on route to Resolute Bay in the Northwest Territories. From there they will travel to Devon Island where there are two separate camps set up in a barren crater. Scientists plan to simulate spacewalks and practice robotics, all the while trying to say warm in the freezing temperatures there.
Miles O'Brien is on the phone from Ottawa, Canada, not exactly frigid conditions there, Miles, but we are glad to be able to talk to you before it gets cold.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, only in the mid 60s Fahrenheit, Stephen, I guess it's just a small taste of things to come. I'm told the temperature range is about 20-60 and that's both on the positive side and on the Fahrenheit scale, so for those of us who have spend any time in the Northeast of the United States I guess we can handle it.
FRAZIER: Miles, is it just the cold that is a mimic, a copy of Mars or is it other conditions too, there on Devon Island?
O'BRIEN: There's a host of conditions here, Stephen. First of all it's a very rocky dry surface. It's really a desert. It's very cold, very dry and of course that matches Mars in many ways.
This is an old impact crater from an asteroid. There's not a twig to be found and if you look at pictures from that site, which I hope you are seeing right now, you might very well, if you put on some Sepia colored glasses, think they were an image shot by Pathfinder.
So, scientists think this is a great way to learn how you might actually do a real Martian work day one day.
FRAZIER: We are in fact looking at those pictures, Miles, and they look pretty technologically ambitious. It looks like they're trying to set up a steel wall of what might be some king of a habitation unit.
O'BRIEN: This is some images which were shot last year, Stephen, and they air-dropped in this habitation unit which is their simulated spacecraft, if you will. When it was dropped in it was damaged severely and the team had kind of cobble together a habitat to save the season, if you will.
They learned a lot about how you handle things and how you stay resolute when you're near Resolute Bay.
FRAZIER: But the remoteness is nothing compared to the kind of distance involved in travel to Mars. Surely there's a feeling that we are here on Earth and help is at hand.
O'BRIEN: That's true. You have to remember we are having a conversation here in real-time. If I truly was on my way to Mars the round trip lag time for any sort of communication would be 40 minutes, 20 minutes out, 20 minutes back. So you can imagine how self reliant a crew would really have to be if it was truly on its way to Mars, if you had to wait 40 minutes for the answer to the most basic question, you really better have the answer yourself.
FRAZIER: Last question before we let you go: I know there's a a lot of work in laboratories around the country into the effects of prolonged space travel on the human body. Is any of that work going on where you're headed?
O'BRIEN: It's impossible of course to simulate the weightlessness aspects of a Martian mission. What is interesting about this mission, though, is it gives these researchers an opportunity to try the rigors of working inside one of those space suits on that rocky tundra.
No one is sure how hard it really is to conduct a work day in a space suit like that on the rocks, and if an astronaut arrived on the real surface of Mars and was so weak, the bones were brittle, the muscles had atrophied, the heart wasn't pumping as well, and then had to get into one of those suits and try to do a work day, he or she might have a big problem. So this will help them understand how physically fit they need to be.
FRAZIER: Good luck on your own trip up there Miles. I hope we'll be talking to quite frequently during the whole thing, and thank you for filling us in now.
O'BRIEN: If technology serves us well, we will be checking in all week, Stephen.
FRAZIER: Miles O'Brien and Linda Sather on their way to the Arctic Circle.
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