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CNN Live At Daybreak

Scientists Attempt Mars EVA on Earth

Aired July 19, 2001 - 07:51   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Our space correspondent, Miles O'Brien, has an assignment far from the warmth of the newsroom, at the very least.

COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. He's actually above the Arctic Circle on Canada's Devon Island. You can say he's miles from nowhere.

Scientists there are studying how to survive terrain that's similar to Mars. He joins us now by videophone -- that wonderful technology that lets us get to all kinds of places, including -- well, almost Mars.

Good morning, Miles.

LIN: Good morning, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Miles from nowhere -- I like that.

You know, ladies, you can see for miles and miles here. It's a beautiful morning. It's very chilly up here in the Arctic Circle. The warmth of Atlanta actually sounds kind of nice to me right about now -- another busy day for these scientists is they try to cram in as much as they can in the way of scientific research over this short eight-week season here.

That essentially amounts to summer here in the Arctic Circle. A little later today, they will be conducting another EVA -- that's extravehicular activity. You and I call it as a space walk. Even though we're not in space, a group of people inside a simulated spacecraft on a ledge of an impact crater -- an asteroid impact crater -- will be conducting another space walk.

Three of them will come out and try to simulate what life is like and what a workday would be like for a real crew on Mars someday. We're going to try and get over there and bring some live pictures of that to you as it happens.

Earlier in the day yesterday, I took a ride in a helicopter over this barren landscape of Devon Island: 60,000 square miles, the size of West Virginia. Not a person lives here, except these scientists when they're here during the summer. And Pascal Lee, who is the director of this facility, the Haughton Mars Project, pointed out some interesting features about the terrain here. When you look down on it, it looks like pictures you've seen from Mars, from the Mars Global Surveyor, for example, the spacecraft which orbits that planet. And he said basically these valleys, which he's noted here, have been formed by the melting of glaciers over time.

And he thinks that might be very well what happened on Mars. So in other words, they're able to draw some analogies based on what happened here to what might be happening on Mars, and explain where in fact the water might be on Mars. And once you do that, you go a long way toward figuring out whatever happened to life on Mars. Could it still be there? Did it happen -- was there life a long time ago? And if so, where's the evidence of it?

So that's what's on tap for today: another day of hard scientific work above the Arctic Circle in the land where the sun never sets. And from miles from nowhere, I'm Miles O'Brien -- Carol and Colleen.

MCEDWARDS: Miles, before you go, I mean, we love to have fun with this because it's got all the elements of -- you know, it's just such a faraway place, and it's an interesting thing that they're doing.

You mentioned some of the specific scientific things they're after, but is that the main point here? I mean, do they really expect to learn very specific things that will be applicable to Mars? Or is it sort of going through the motions, the equipment, getting out there, is that's what's more important in terms of their simulation?

O'BRIEN: It's a little bit of both.

There's a lot of research here that can relate specifically scientifically to Mars. There's a lot of just the logistics of putting together missions in far-off places, living under these conditions. And I'll give you a third reason for doing this: For these scientists, this a lot of fun. They spend their whole year studying Mars, trying to learn as much as they can about it. This is like a giant sandbox for them.

MCEDWARDS: All right. So it's OK that we're having fun with it, too, then. Thanks, Miles.

LIN: Thanks, Miles. We'll see you later.

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