MDRS 120
Campus Martius Crew
Mission Summary
(15 Dec-29 Dec) 2012
Written By: Derek Pelland
“Coming from universities around the globe, six individuals were selected to represent their different fields of specialty to conduct research on Mars. The Campus Martius Crew was formed and tasked with the important mission to determine if it would be possible to live and conduct field science in such a harsh isolated environment.”
Commander John Reynolds
Executive Officer/Crew Journalist Derek Pelland
Crew Geologist April Davis
Crew Engineer Erick Tijerino
Crew Scientist/HSO Nora Swisher
CrewAstronomer Diane Turnshek
Social Media and Public Outreach-
Public outreach began long before arriving at MDRS, as Derek was able to leverage fundraising and social media to build relationships with community and corporate sponsors in Los Angeles to cover all his expenses and secure gear for the crew. Some of the donated gear included personally embroidered crew polo shirts and professionally made patches, custom Skechers M-Run athletic shoes, pocket utility knives, and fleece pullovers. This was assisted by the creation of a crew website and blog, which communicated daily reports and the experiences he had with Crew 120. This later scaled up to include the blogs of the entire crew and convenient method to share current photos. This was a learning experience as our crew had to manage a small Internet bandwidth allotment. Despite the limit on Internet usage, he was able to use less than 1% of daily allowance to operate the website, daily blog feeds and picture sharing components.
As the amount of online followers grew, we began to notice that more and more media sources wanted to feature our story and share our blogs. In the two-week “Mission to Mars” we have had thousands of people read about our work and experience with The Mars Society. Some of the included platforms include Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Weebly, Mashable, SlashDot, The Verge, Whatever, SF Signal, I-09, Livejournal, and also 365 Days of Astronomy.org. Now that we are winding down, local and online newspapers are responding in volume about requesting interviews with the crew to share our story. Pepperdine University and Carnegie Mellon University have been conducting internal and external publicity about their faculty and students participating in the Mars simulation. The results have been overwhelmingly positive publicity for the individual crewmembers and for The Mars Society, with potential for more to come. Several crewmembers are scheduled to visit and speak to elementary schools and high school science classes about how our work with MDRS relates to space exploration and future goals of sending manned missions to Mars.
EVA’s and Geologic Science Expeditions-
We were isolated five days inside the Habitat due to harsh weather conditions of snow and ice. Under Commander Reynolds supervision, we planned and executed ten EVA missions, covering up to ten kilometers in all directions outside the Hab. During these EVA’s the crew worked with our geologist to chart and analyze the geologic features in this part of simulated Mars. April was able to test the functionality of various geological tools that are currently being used in field research. This research is being used to make recommendations for new tool design and development.
On our scientific EVA missions; the crew was able to navigate to extremely secluded research sites by using USCG maps, handheld GPS unit, and personal scouting visuals. We combined all this information to correlate with the supplementary reports of previous MDRS crews who have charted much of the immediate area. The majority of these missions were pedestrian EVA’s, though we were able to send three mounted ATV EVA missions at the end of our rotation. The mobility added was extremely useful to us as we were able to cover a much larger distance, and conserve energy as we did not have to walk out to the sites and then explore on foot.
The Campus Martius Crew spent most of their research time looking for highly metamorphosed minerals, petrified wood, and mottled fossil soils. In respect to the field science, we focused on the Dakota Sandstone and Morrison formations. April led the crew to collect mollusk shells from the Gryphaeidae family, which shows indicators of an ancient seabed in the Dakota Sandstone region. This area is estimated at an age ranging between 66-100 million years ago. We also discovered many fossilized feeding burrows and worm tubes. The Habitat rests on the Morrison Formation, dating back roughly 150 million years (+-5Ma). It was here that we collected many minerals such as jasper, quartz, various types of petrified wood and interesting fossil soils. Other notable research sites we visited include the Curtis Formation, Summerville Formation and the Entrada Sandstone.
In the laboratory we recorded the variance in strata; noting the changes in substrate characteristics. We also used the microscope to analyze the rock samples from EVA missions and view their morphological structure.
Engineering-
During the mission, we have had to make many repairs and manage the day to day routine operation systems which includes: controlling water levels, monitoring fuel consumption, and keeping a daily monitoring of the HVAC system, in order to maintain a pleasant temperature inside the Hab.
We operated the NorCal Rover, inspecting the Habitat exterior; providing live feeds of outside conditions. Erick and Derek successfully mounted a Rescue EVA to retrieve the Rover and then determined the cause of battery failure.
Erick worked constantly with the EVA packs, troubleshooting the internal components when failures arose. He mended multiple charging ports, repaired the soldering on many connections, replaced hoses and fixed two battery brackets. He managed to keep the ATV’s operational, starting them in the mornings despite the freezing outdoor temperatures, ice, snow and wind!
Astronomy-
Diane and Nora were able to use the Musk Observatory and 14” Cassegrain Telescope to navigate the night sky. During the nightly star gazing we located and showed the crew: Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon, Andromeda Galaxy, Alberio (a double star), the Pleiades, the Orion Nebula, the Ring Nebula, and Mizar and Alcor (a double-double star). We were able to take an image of the Andromeda Galaxy with the CCD camera, testing the functionality and operation ability of the device.
We worked out the procedure of how to observe eclipsing binary stars, identifying which stars needed further study above tenth magnitude. We determined the times and durations of eclipses, noting RA’s and Dec’s to print star charts (fifteen minutes of arc). Diane was able to use the sky condition chart from Goblin State Park to plan observation times and schedule data collection. We involved the AAVSO and were grateful to all the amateur astronomers who gave Nora advice on astrophotography with her new digital single lens reflex camera, capturing images of lunar craters. We designed and refitted the closing sensors on the dome shutter of the observatory. Erick pointed the main telescope to Mirafak, and aligned the viewfinder by gradually turning the adjustment screw; enabling full function ability of the Musk Observatory.