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American Morning

NASA Scientist Describes Mars Experiments on Arctic's Devon Island

Aired July 20, 2001 - 10:27   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Researchers are trying to get a better idea of what it might be like to live on Mars, so they've taken a trip far, far away.

And so has our Miles O'Brien. He is on Devon Island. You can see by our map how far north it is. It took a long time to get there. And he's been doing some good work while there -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, yes, it was a long journey: Atlanta to Ottawa, and then Ottawa to Resolute -- finally, Resolute on to Devon Island, on a Twin Otter, which is the fabled aircraft of the Great White North. All and all, it's about a 3,000-mile journey, and it took us a couple of days to get up here -- well worth the trip, however.

It's an incredible place. It is starkly beautiful -- very, very few signs of life, and that is exactly why scientist have come here.

This is Earth in the extreme, and Earth in the extreme, as it turns out, sort of relates, pretty well, to a regular, sort of middle- of-the-road part of Mars, and that's why they're here: They're looking at the features, the terrain, where life might be and where not, in order to determine how better to study Mars in the future.

Joining me now to talk a little bit more about this is Kelly Snook, who is a NASA scientist. She just came in on the Otter yesterday.

Kelly, welcome to Devon Island again.

KELLY SNOOK, NASA SCIENTIST: It's great to be here.

O'BRIEN: What's chief on your list of priorities this year? What are the big questions in your mind, and other researchers' minds, as you begin this season in earnest?

SNOOK: Well, we have two questions that we would like to answer. The first one is how effective are robotic platforms in doing reconnaissance for human EDAs, what we call EDAs -- scientific exploration. So we will be sending out robots to specific sites that we selected for their scientific interest, and we will be taking the images and other data and sending back to a science team that we've got at NASA AIM, and they will be selecting the final target sites for human EDAs.

O'BRIEN: So robots are one part of picture here, but the other part of the picture here is there's a simulated Mars mission that is under way as we speak. Yesterday, we had an opportunity to go over to the place they call the Hab and see how the crew is living over there, a crew of six living under Martian conditions, if you will. Every time they set foot outside, they suit up as if the air were lethal. It's quite an endeavor, Kelly. I'm curious how much good science comes out of that. How much of it is just seeing what the experience would be like?

SNOOK: Well, that's what we're hoping to find out. We are doing some of our work before we go into the Hab, so we have a benchmark of what it's like outside those constraints, and then we will do our best to simulate the constraints that we would have on Mars, and compare them and see how it goes.

O'BRIEN: And see how it goes. It's not an easy thing to live in those small confines.

Kelly Snook with NASA, here for remainder of the season. Thanks for spending a little bit of time with us.

This is our last day on Devon Island. We will be catching that Twin Otter out and beginning the long journey home.

We have had some fun up here, and I feel like, in some sense, Daryn, we have been to another planet -- back to you.

KAGAN: Before you get on that Twin Otter, we're going to see you again next hour, Miles, so don't pack up too soon. We will see you next hour.

O'BRIEN: All right.

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