FMARS Mission Support Summary - Thursday, August 2

Mission Support Staff 8/2/01:
Mission Support Director -Dewey Anderson
CapCOM -Katya Muscat
Engineering Officer -Jim Rankin
Journalist/Liaison -Kim Wheeler

The current FMARS Crew 4 consists of: Pascal Lee, Carol Stoker, Larry Lemke, Peter Smith, John Blitch, Steve Braham. They are currently planning on the best way to transition to Phase 5. They cannot go on EVAs (the fog greatly aggravates the polar bear encounter risk). The specific plans for the day will be communicated to Mission Support ASAP. Audio files were received from Pascal Lee containing science reports for August 1st.

Science Ops received audio files from the FMARS Crew and they were pleased with the content. They suggest that they should not be sent as email attachments because of their size, but rather to post the files to "postdoc" and send a pointer to them via email. He asks the FMARS crew if they would prefer their transmissions to be in audio rather than text. The video file is still creating problems. They are also suggesting a hab/backroom science team teleconference to discuss the experience when they all get back at the end of the field season. Science Ops is currently working on science plans for future EVA traverses as requested by the Hab team.

Mission Support received the following questions from KSC:

Scott -- How long do you stay in the Arctic on these missions?
Noni -- How many people on the missions?
Forest -- What's the pressure difference between the Hab and the surface of Mars
Russel -- What is the water source in the Arctic and on Mars?
Jim -- What's the average temperature there?

These questions were addressed via voice file by Dr. Zubrin, and KSC did not receive responses from Devon Island (as of this writing). Nonetheless, the presentation went well, with roughly 60 people in attendance.

The rest of the evening was quiet.

The journalist compiled the Daily news. The news from Nunavik (www.nunatsiaq.com) was not included today because the news at this site is only updated once a week. Dr. Zubrin suggested that the daily earth news should contain weather reports for the region. A good website was found at http://weather.ec.gc.ca/textmap/arctic_e.shtml. These sites were noted in the Mission Support CapCOM binder under the journalist's responsibilities.

CapCOM forwarded emails as needed. Mission Director prepared reports.

There were no engineering questions for the Engineer.

Dr. Zubrin showed the Mission Support staff the photographs he took during his phase.