In attendance: Dewey A., Brian E., Brad J., Ray Mc C., Farin W., Cherie W., John B., Tony M., Jim W.

Cherie and Farin gave a slide show and talk about their experiences in the Antarctic working several seasons, including a winter-over, at Mc Murdo and Palmer stations and various field locations inland, at sea and on the shoreline doing analytical chemistry and water analysis and other research/data gathering as required. The pictures and descriptions of the environment, work conditions and tentativeness of survival in this extreme locale were well demonstrated throughout the talk. The difficulties of transportation, food, power, and doing field research under extreme conditions provide many analogues to a Mars mission as does the winter-over isolation and personnel/crew psychological dynamics. There would seem to be a need to look more closely as to how to promote crew cohesion and interpersonal cooperation in a command-and-control situation (especially dealing w/Mission Control) while being sensitive to the need for a strong consultative and mutualistic communications structure so that everyone feels involved, important and has buy-in to the overall mission goals as well as the day-to-day survival tasks. Creating a friendlier, more home-like and nurturing living space(s) would seem crucial as would figuring out how to prevent/treat possible mood disorders and environmentally-induced dysphoria. Altogether a fascinating talk and would highly recommend to others.

Brian gave a report about his attendance at the ISDC conference including various panels and speakers including some technical discussion of how to do a Mars landing with aerobraking for a payload of more than a few tons and the difficulties we have with current technologies, the need to develop and test a better system before we can get there. Wing and inflatable shields were considered as were balloons, ballutes and parachutes (all of which have serious limitations), but clearly much work remains to be done. The Centennial Challenge for a hovering, maneuverable and multiple-take-off/landings lunar orbiter for a 10 million dollar prize was also discussed. Mike Griffin's interview in Nature (with its rather misleading headline) was passed around and reviewed, as was an article about using a skyhook or crane to lower payloads onto Mars.

Dewey discussed the RMMS chapter looking into further improving the Mars Society spacesuit designs with focus on a better helmet design and cooling systems (phase-change gel vests?); part of this could include talking to Hamilton-Sunstrand to offer field-testing some of their current designs at MDRS or Flashline. Further work is needed for dust mitigation/management through the use of jumpsuits or dust covers or even suit-ports to handle forward/backward contamination along with the dust problem.

The next meeting will be 6/19/06 at CU, 7 P.M. On to Mars.

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