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Read their founding declaration and statement of purpose.

"We must go for the youth"? Puh-leaze. If the wealth of neat-o keen scientific advancements here on boring ol' Earth isn't enough to inspire young Billy to become a scientist, what makes them think a journey to Mars will? Sending advanced robots to Mars that have the ability to observe and communicate data 63 million miles back to Earth isn't enough to get little Sally interested in science? Well, little Sally's probably a dumbass that wouldn't amount to anything no matter what you did, then. Go waitress, Sally. Billy can be the cook. Spend that $450 billion (or whatever outrageous amount it would take to do a roundtrip manned mission to Mars) on killing terrorists and reducing the $6T national debt.

Read their founding declaration and statement of purpose.

"We must go for the youth"? Puh-leaze. If the wealth of neat-o keen scientific advancements here on boring ol' Earth isn't enough to inspire young Billy to become a scientist, what makes them think a journey to Mars will? Sending advanced robots to Mars that have the ability to observe and communicate data 63 million miles back to Earth isn't enough to get little Sally interested in science? Well, little Sally's probably a dumbass that wouldn't amount to anything no matter what you did, then. Go waitress, Sally. Billy can be the cook. Spend that $450 billion (or whatever outrageous amount it would take to do a roundtrip manned mission to Mars) on killing terrorists and reducing the $6T national debt.

Actually, the Mars Society is also sponsoring a seperate study called Translife that will involve putting mice in orbit, then spinning up their craft to simulate a 1/3 g environment and see what (if any) effects prolonged low-gravity exposure will have on small furry mammals. A later step will involve a larger orbit and more direct exposure to the sort of radiation levels that Mars-bound astronauts will encounter. The research stations (the first up in the Canadian Arctic, the second in Utah, with Europe and Australia in the works) are just intended to simulate the actual operational side of Mars exploration...

Actually, the Mars Society is also sponsoring a seperate study called Translife that will involve putting mice in orbit, then spinning up their craft to simulate a 1/3 g environment and see what (if any) effects prolonged low-gravity exposure will have on small furry mammals. A later step will involve a larger orbit and more direct exposure to the sort of radiation levels that Mars-bound astronauts will encounter. The research stations (the first up in the Canadian Arctic, the second in Utah, with Europe and Australia in the works) are just intended to simulate the actual operational side of Mars exploration...

"There would be areas of Antarctica that would be more like Mars than Utah with a constant hostile environment due to the extreme cold."

Close.... more like the Arctic..

The Mars society has been using Devon island in Canada's north for a couple of years.

more info at the Mars society homepage

Although not new, have a read of this speech given by James Cameron to the Mars Society.

http://www.marssociety.org/cameron_one.asp

Okay, you people are all out of your minds, you know that. You do understand that Mars is really, really far away, and its really, really cold. And you can't breathe the air, which is so thin it would make your blood boil, so you're sort of freezing and boiling at the same time. And if you did go there, you couldn't come back for years. And it would cost millions of dollars per pound to get you there. And there's nothing there, anyway. We're talking about the same Mars, right? The Mars Society Mars.

Pardon me for being rude, but have you considered starting up, say ... The Fiji Society? You might get more members.

It's a great read.

http://www.marssociety.org/

US donations are Tax Deductable.

We'll do it ourselves then. Click here.

I was able to find a few images of mars, this one here is particularly good. In terms of color it seems fairly ok to me, though the other color references are a bit limited. Also, a basic overview of Raleigh Scatter for those who are interested can be found at www.people.cornell.edu/pages/eac26/RaleighScatteri ng.html. A quick quote from it, Have you ever seen a brilliant red sunset? After all of the colors have scattered out of the white light, we see the oranges and reds. Where on the horizon are the red colors found? The reds are found close to the horizon because the sunlight must pass through many particles before we reach the point that red is scattered out. So if the atmosphere of Mars is particularly dusty for instance then you'd get a more red hue (at least if I'm reading this right), making the Mars sky closer in hue to a reddish color.

Really, the significance depends on who you're talking to. To the geochemists, I'll bet it means that there are probably mineral formations being made by percolation of soda-water through rocks (place a CO2 glacier on top of an H2O glacier and you'll get things dissolving into each other near the bottom where the pressures get up there). To the xenobiologists, it means that they've got a place to look for life. To the planetary scientists, they've got something against which to test their models of atmospheric/hydrospheric formation and evolution. To the Mars Society, it's a guarantee of the raw materials for rocket fuel, agriculture and an eventual technological society on the Red Planet.

If NASA starts concentrating on Pluto now, I can't imagine where the Mars Society crackpots will setup their formica space station to train for the planet's environment.

I'm a team member for the Mars Desert Research Station, which is about to begin assembly on site in Utah. Just wanted to clarify some things...

First, MDRS, here in the U.S., will be the next simulation to begin, not the one in Australia. They are still looking for sites in Oz.

The first field season of a Mars Society hab (this past summer in the Arctic) featured a completed hab and at least three mock suits.

Also, several teams are developing pressurized rovers to test engineering designs. Some of these rovers will be tested as part of the mission simulations.

I was on the site selection committee for the MDRS and I was also a field scout. The Mars Society uses a combination of satellite and aerial reconnaisance, GIS data, and on-site scouting to locate potential sites. This is the phase Mars Society Australia is currently in.

The field season for Utah will be focused primarily on the cooler seasons, but it will be equipped with air conditioning.

That's a good point. The Mars Society should make a deal with some sleazy network like Fox to do a Mars Project reality series. They did the live web-cam thing last time around. A reality show would make for some great funding, and the Mars Society wouldn't even have to offer a prize because people will volunteer just for the experience.

Hell, I'd watch the first episode.

Opps, ok... worked in the preview. lets try this again... :)

All in a days work!

Mars is absolutly within our grasp. We can get there with Apollo era rocketry and when we get there we can live off the land. Robert Zubrin has been writing about this for years and has built prototypes of the equipment we'll need to generate rocket fuel, oxygen, and water out of native materials.
The big issue is that we can't go for a month. For a Mars trip to be worthwhile, in scientific terms, we've got to stay for a year.
For anyone that needs convicing check out the The Mars Scociety. Mars awaits us. Its our next step.
There is nothing for us on the Moon. It's not a good lauch pad for future missions, or fuel depot. It might be a good place to put a telescope but we could do that with an unmanned mission. Save the moon for the tourist, at least not until we can build fusion reactors that depend on all the helium-3 up there.

About the most I can do now is join the mars society. They have lofty goals, but as the previous poster said, we need to go to the moon again and build a base there.

What happened to SimMars? Maxis released a trailer for the game over a year ago, and then redirected the web site to http://simsville.ea.com/, which is now defunct. Many members of the Mars Society were hoping to play the game, and hoping that others who played the game would become interested in supporting a real-life mission to send humans to Mars.

Even though there is probably nothing else to do on Mars other than work on having babies, I doubt any woman could churn them out faster than they would manage to kill themselves. There are biological limits here...

Thousands of users watched the crew's last agonized struggles over two of the three newly-operational web cams. Again, a prosperous project has been killed by the mindless hacking activities of a group of anonymous cowards.

Thousands of users watched the crew's last agonized struggles over two of the three newly-operational web cams. Again, a prosperous project has been killed by the mindless hacking activities of a group of anonymous cowards.

Remember this is from nasa.gov

Not *just* NASA. It's on a gov't site, but the other project involved is FMARS, which is private. It isn't all tax dollars at work, so I suppose that justifies the departure from the usual NASA drollness. Non-profits can't afford not to have a sense of humor.

I think what's interesting are the shotgun classes. :-)

FMARS is the Flashline Mars Analog Research Station, which is a project of The Mars Society (Flashline is the name sponsor for the mission). It is a simulated Mars base. There is an article about it in the print version of this month's Scientific American.

This is one of The Mars Society's projects for establishing a human presence on Mars. There will be a series of these simulated bases placed in analogous Mars environments throughout the world. The first is on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic. The next will be placed in the American Southwest. Currently it is on exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors' Center. It will begin its field season this September in the desert.

Additionally, The Mars Society has a prototype pressurized Mars rover program. It also has a trust fund established to raise money for a privately funded mission to establish a permanent presence on Mars. It may take a century or two of saving, but The Mars Society will *do* it.

Remember this is from nasa.gov

Not *just* NASA. It's on a gov't site, but the other project involved is FMARS, which is private. It isn't all tax dollars at work, so I suppose that justifies the departure from the usual NASA drollness. Non-profits can't afford not to have a sense of humor.

I think what's interesting are the shotgun classes. :-)

FMARS is the Flashline Mars Analog Research Station, which is a project of The Mars Society (Flashline is the name sponsor for the mission). It is a simulated Mars base. There is an article about it in the print version of this month's Scientific American.

This is one of The Mars Society's projects for establishing a human presence on Mars. There will be a series of these simulated bases placed in analogous Mars environments throughout the world. The first is on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic. The next will be placed in the American Southwest. Currently it is on exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors' Center. It will begin its field season this September in the desert.

Additionally, The Mars Society has a prototype pressurized Mars rover program. It also has a trust fund established to raise money for a privately funded mission to establish a permanent presence on Mars. It may take a century or two of saving, but The Mars Society will *do* it.

Oh, you mean like this treaty? Article 4 bans weapons of mass destruction. Those crowbars would count.

Well, if they were not funding the defense contractors with the ISS they would have to do with weapons. The former, even if useless, is better then the latter.

Of course, perhaps we could have gone to Mars instead. That would have better.

I was fortunate enough to attend a presentation by Robert Zubrin when he was on my campus about 3 months ago. He provides a compelling argument for a direct-to-Mars project, utilizing technology which currently exists. We could be on Mars in under 10 years. Specs are located here. Zubrin, a succesful author, is also one of the leading supporters of the Mars Society. The most fascinating aspect of their proposal, is that they want to use "private" funding (ie not governmental funds). I really don't know of a cooler open source project. This could be the next SETI@Home.
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> We've heard things like this before, but not as strongly worded

Well, really, we have. And that was 2 years ago. And not much has changed - except a couple more Mars probes have been lost, and the budget has gotten a little smaller. Sigh...

People are working on it: see www.marssociety.org. According to Robert Zubrin in "Mars Direct", we could go this decade if we really wanted to.

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I know that orbits and plans are not that simple, Way way more complex, and mathmatical.

Yes, they are, I was giving the "executive summary" since I was pressed for time, and both of my orbital dynamics and mechanics textbooks are in storage. If you'd like a source, check out Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars or the Mars Society's website

There is a group called The Mars Society which is doing just that. Current work includes running a simulation of what life would be like on Mars in the Canadian Arctic called The Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station.

Starfighter looks nice but may just end up being a prettier version of Rogue Squadron. I'm really excited about Z.O.E., which not only features anime style giant robot fighting over martian colonies but will contain a demo of Metal Gear Solid 2, which recently had some of it's thunder stolen as it will not be faithful to PS2, but will gussy itself up later for M$ with Metal Gear Solid X.

Don't get me wrong, I'll buy the damn thing, but the wait shouldn't kill anyone.

Here's a comprehensive list of Internet resources about this story:

The original Arctic Mars homepage was providing regular updates about the research station, but they stopped around two weeks ago. They still have a lot of background material about the story.

From that point on, current news has been posted to the Mars Society Homepage.

Marc Boucher, CEO of SpaceRef is also the webmaster for the project, so SpaceRef has a tremendous amount of coverage of the project, as well as a live webcam.

In my opinion, though, MSNBC has had the absolutely best coverage, providing stories almost daily; unfortunately, they overwrite the older stories so there's no archive:
July 31 - Mars simulation begins in Arctic

And, of course, my own coverage at Universe Today:

• Arctic Mars Simulation Begins - August 1st
  
• Arctic Mars Habitat Gets a Roof - July 27th
  
• Arctic Mars Construction Begins - July 24th
  
• Mars Society Gives Green Light for Arctic Mars Station - July 20th
  
• Arctic Mars Base Damaged in Parachute Drop - July 11th

Fraser Cain

Here's a comprehensive list of Internet resources about this story:

The original Arctic Mars homepage was providing regular updates about the research station, but they stopped around two weeks ago. They still have a lot of background material about the story.

From that point on, current news has been posted to the Mars Society Homepage.

Marc Boucher, CEO of SpaceRef is also the webmaster for the project, so SpaceRef has a tremendous amount of coverage of the project, as well as a live webcam.

In my opinion, though, MSNBC has had the absolutely best coverage, providing stories almost daily; unfortunately, they overwrite the older stories so there's no archive:
July 31 - Mars simulation begins in Arctic

And, of course, my own coverage at Universe Today:

• Arctic Mars Simulation Begins - August 1st
  
• Arctic Mars Habitat Gets a Roof - July 27th
  
• Arctic Mars Construction Begins - July 24th
  
• Mars Society Gives Green Light for Arctic Mars Station - July 20th
  
• Arctic Mars Base Damaged in Parachute Drop - July 11th

Fraser Cain

Information about the Mars Society conference can be found here.

The Mars Society is currently working on the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station in the Canadian Arctic to simulate what going to Mars would be like.

Check out http://www.MarsSociety.org We're currently working on simulating the trip to Mars through the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station. Very Cool.

There are a number of organizations who are interested in developing space for its commercial applications. These include (but are not limited to):

• Artemis Society
• PERMANENT
• The Mars Society
• The Island One Society
• The Lunar Society

At the current time, there is to obvious economic benifit to going beyond geosyncronous orbit. Yet all of these organizations believe that we should so proceed. Why? Because there are abundant resources available on the moon, Mars, and asteroids. No, they are not in the forms that we are used to using them, but they are the same 100 odd elements of which everything here on Earth is made. I will not repeat the cases for going to the various bodies in our solar system... the different organizations which I listed above, and others like them, make a better case that I have time or space for here.

Currently, the chief restriction to executing any of these exploration and development programs is the high cost of getting materials into orbit. Face it, the space shuttle is overpriced, and alternative launch vehicles are not much better. However, several private firms (in addition to several government contractors) are in a race to develope low cost launch systems. Will they succeed? Almost certainly so within the next five years.

And once we have low cost (relative term) launch systems, I expect we will see a space tourism market begin. That will probably be the early economic force in the development of space.

And beyond that? As Robert Heinlein said in his writing, "Once you reach Low Earth Orbit, you are half way to anywhere in the Solar System."

Sadly, there were no sites available that were simultaneously cold, arid, and otherwise Mars-like, while also having a lot of easy access to local news outlets. On the other hand, the Discovery Channel connection should provide enough coverage without the local news doing a "Look at these weirdos" human interest stories...

Regardless, I'm psyched; this was vaporware at last August's Mars Society convention and now the final product was packed up for shipping just last Monday. The plan is for a report on the first trial to be delivered at the next Mars Society convention in Toronto, August 10-13... A private organization has done more towards a manned Mars mission in the 3-4 years it has existed than NASA has in decades. I better shut up now, before I trigger my Anti-NASA rant... ;p

That's why we need to do it privately. Avoid all the politicians and bureaucracy and budget cuts and do it with a private company. A company with dedicated individuals of any and all nations who all work toward a common goal.

As mentioned, The Mars Society, as well as the Space Frontier Foundation, the Artemis Project, and the X-Prize are all great examples of stimulating private space exploration and development. Click here for another site with some good links.

Actually, Robert Zubrin has written a compelling and detailed description on exactly how to "launch with today's tech" in A Case For Mars and used his "Mars Direct" plan to a) found the Mars Society, and b) convince NASA to tone down their $150 billion "Battlestar Galactica" approach to Mars Exploration to ~$25 billion "Mars Reference Mission" all using off-the-shelf tech.

I like to see stuff like this, but its progress is like software only much much slower; my first encounter with a "Plasma" drive was an ad on the back of one of my father's Analog magazines from 1963. I think the point that was being made was that if we hold out for "vapor"-ware to become hardware, we're in for a long wait. And I, for one, want to go to Mars now.

This machine, as described, does the same exact thing as Dr. Robert Zubrin's oxygen extracting machine, designed nearly a decade ago while he was working at the Martin Marianetta labs (sp?). The idea here isn't terraforming the planet, but providing the Martian explorers with breathable air, as well as propellant for the return to Earth.

All of this is described in his book, The Case for Mars, in great detail. If you're interested in the details of the chemistry involved (ie byproducts, etc, it's explained in the aforementioned book).

Terraforming the planet, by comparison, is much, much grander. As well as a very long way off. First let's concentrate on getting another probe there in one piece, eh?

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Yeah, nuclear rockets have a lot of potential. But what's really sad is that we had high impulse nuclear rockets in test back in the 60's. A couple of the speakers at last year's Mars Society Conference had a number of speakers who were involved in those studies and they all had the same, depressing message; they (and their experience) won't be around forever. If we stall research into nuclear propulsion for much longer, we will have to re-learn everything that they learned 30 years ago 'cause their experience will be retired or dead....

You might expect that Gore might say some pro-Mars stuff, given the VP's involvement for the space program (or has that changed now?) as well as his supposedly tech-friendly record. I guess Bush Sr. did this after becoming President, trying to drum up enthusiasm for a manned Mars mission in 1989, but nobody much cared ...

Zero Gs is really harsh on the human body (bone loss, and worse), there are little if any plans to deal with a medical 'situation' in space (how do you perform even basic medicine when blood turns to aerosol?)

Easily solved, don't do the trip in zero G. Get the upper stage of your booster, tether it to the habitation with a piece of cord, and set it spinning. Artificial gravity.

and the problem of background radiation is even worse given that shielding is heavy and fuel is scarce.

It's just not that bad - the maximum probable dose is about 50 rem over a two year period. This is not lethal over the short term, and poses only a slight additional cancer risk in the long term. Robert Zubrin, a vociferous and convincing advocate of Mars exploration, suggests using smokers for the crew, but keep tobacco out of their cargo. Quitting smoking would reduce their cancer risk far more than the radiation dose!

Check out The Mars Society or read Dr. Zubrin's book The Case For Mars for more information.

Our space agency has become an outdated dinosaur, capable only of ponderous movement, when it isn't mired in the swamp of bureaucracy. A number of up and coming private companies (including, but not limited to Cerulean, Pioneer, Kistler, and Kelly) are working on inexpensive launch systems. One or more is certain to manage it in the next few years.

Once we have this cheap access to space, there are any number of Entrepeneurs waiting to exploit it. Most well known is Bigelow, but there are others.

Space, and our activities therein are popular with a lot of people. The growth of such private organizations as Permanent, The Mars Society, and Artemis is strong evidence of this.

NASA may not be prepared to go fetch some rocks from Mars anytime soon, but they may find others already there when they do.

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If you enjoy pulp science fiction, try Ben Bova's _MARS_. It's an easy breezy read.

If you want a 3-book-long lovemaking session to the planet Mars, I highly suggest Kim Stanley Robinson's _RED MARS_, _GREEN MARS_, and _BLUE MARS_. They get progressively more boring and uninspired as the series progresses through more and more abstract characters, but they are still extremely decent reads that make a slight effort to represent Mars in all it's beauty. The franchise milker _THE MARTIANS_ is also out as of a few months ago. Haven't checked it out, but I expect it to be just as fatally flawed as the others. Oh well.

Oh yeah, and there is now an official Mars Flag or something. It's three vertical stripes going [RED] [GREEN] [BLUE}. Quite cool.

Mars is vastly more interesting than you might expect. Read up on it if you like.

http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/t np/mars.html is an EXCELLENT start if you want to learn more about the planet at a glance.

http://www.marssociety.org links you to the Mars Society, a delusional group of Mars Freaks who want to settle the planet or something. But they're still cool.

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/ has a very supercool solar system simulator that can show you what the planets look like from almost anywhere at almost any time. It's quite accurate and cool. Not open source yet, but i'm sure with some coaxing and good project management, they might be willing to release it. It's written in C and shit, so it'd port pretty easy i'd imagine. The data sets might not be public domain though. Oh well. Go see it anyway.

Enjoy.

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