Journalist Report
02/04/2013
Melanie Newfield
The Proving Ground
MDRS is a place for ideas, but more than that, it is a place to try out
ideas. The thing is, an idea that sits in someone¹s head, or is bounced
around a random conversation in the pub, never actually does any good. You
know those conversations where someone always knows a better way, but
never bothers to actually fix stuff. If an idea remains an idea, untried,
untested, unproven, it¹s no good to anyone.
Eventually, someone has to stand up and say ³right then, let¹s see how
that works², and then go and do it.
³Proving ground² is a military term for a test area a place to try out
the latest bomb and see if it explodes with a satisfactory boom, or to try
out the latest jet and see if it actually flies. It¹s a rather old
fashioned term, because the word ³prove² has shifted in meaning over the
years. We usually use it to mean ³show something to be true², but once it
was simply another word for ³test².
The thing with ideas is, not all of them are going to be winners. They
might seem great when you¹ve woken up in the middle of the night, and some
even seem good the next morning, but they just might not work. But you¹ll
never know unless you try, and sometimes it¹s not just a case of trying it
once, but living with it.
That¹s where MDRS comes in. It¹s not just a dream of a future Mars base,
it¹s a concrete test a proving ground for all the dreams, crazy ideas
and wild theories that might just turn out to be genius. Or not, as the
stairs in the hab show.
You can see the idea behind it alternating steps which are supposed to
fit with our natural way of walking. The tallest person in the hab finds
them quite good. Those who are a little shorter, however, end up adopting
a rather curious climbing action knees turned out, hips twisting,
helping ourselves up by hauling from the underside of the handrail. Sound
awkward? Try carrying a bulky vacuum cleaner, or two weeks¹ worth of food.
It¹s fair to say that this stair design is unlikely to make it into a
future Mars habitat.
The crew quarters are a slightly different example. The challenge of
providing sleeping quarters for people in the minimum of space is well
established. The most space-effective option is to use temporary beds, so
that the sleeping quarters can be used for other purposes. The Captain
might have had his stateroom, but the men aboard early sailing ships got
to sling their hammocks below decks when they wanted to sleep, and put
them away when they got up. Then someone had the bright idea of stacking,
and bunk beds were born. Even today, they remain a popular choice.
One thing that bunks don¹t give especially in places like backpacker
lodges is privacy and personal space. Catering for the budget-conscious
business traveller, the Japanese invented the capsule hotel. It combines
the spatial benefits of stacking people on top of each other, while
providing everyone with their own private space. Admittedly there¹s not
much more space that most of us get in our final resting place, but it
does the job for a night or two.
In the age of sail, men survived months in extremely close proximity in
the hostile environment of the open ocean. Most did not have privacy or
personal space, let alone anything we would recognise as ³comfort². But we
live in a different time and culture, and recognise that brutal discipline
and deprivation are not a particularly good way to get people to perform
at their best particularly when they are hurtling towards the unknown in
the vastness of space.
Which brings me back to the MDRS bunkrooms. These are a strange
combination of bunk and capsule hotel. Basically, there are three sets of
bunks (for the usual number of six crew members), but the top and bottom
bunks are accessed from opposite sides, and enclosed so that the top and
bottom bunks are actually in separate rooms. Each crew member gets his or
her own private space, which is a real luxury for those of us used to
sharing in field bases. I¹ve shared rooms with strangers for similar
lengths of time, and I know I can cope, but it is lovely to have my own
room, to have somewhere to keep my stuff and set up as I like it. If you
were looking with an eye to create the perfect bedroom for a Mars base,
you might suggest some changes or improvements, but that¹s kind of the
point.
Without testing it out, you never get to know an idea well enough to
perfect it. That¹s MDRS, a place where ideas evolve and our dreams take
shape.