This Week @ HMP (week 6 of 6) | Haughton-Mars Project | HMP Research Station

August 9, 2007

The HMP Research Station outline of this weeks scheduled activities.

Our sixth week at the Haughton Crater is our last week sadly. The last of the experiments are wraping up and we are preparing to close up the research station for another year. Weather permitting all of the participants should be in Resolute tomorrow getting ready to head home.

While all the participants will have left the reasearch station one project still underway is the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse which will run autonomously and be monitored by researchers remotely.

Spotlight On: The 10km Extravehicular Activity Walkback Experiment

The NASA/Johnson Space Center (JSC)- Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Physiology System and Performance Project (EPSP) is conducting studies of the metabolic/physiologic requirements to conduct efficient and successful planetary EVA exploration tasks. These studies include asking suited crewmembers to "walkback" 10km in a spacesuit, for a failed surface rover contingency, forcing the crewmembers to get back to the habitat on foot. The original testing was conducted at first shirtsleeve, and then suited, in building 9 at JSC using the POGO system to simulate 1/6x (Lunar) and 3/8x (Mars) gravity (see photos). During these studies, detailed measurements of biomedical parameters such a heart rate, carbon dioxide production, and thermal loading were obtained at various speeds of ambulation during the walkback scenario.

Due to limitations in the testing conditions, the studies were conducted on a specialized treadmill, with an extra-wide tread and equipped with force-load sensors. In order to allow higher fidelity lunar-like surface testing, the studies are being repeated at Haughton Crater on Devon Island, during the 2007 HMP field season. Three routes are being evaluated to simulate walkback from a remote location to the habitat lander on lunar terrain, designed to simulate the mare, highlands and south pole regions of the moon.

Precise distance of actual traverse froma 10km radial distance, as well as time to complete the walkback, will be measured during the testing in addition to the metabolic data.

The Co-Investigators on the project include Michael Gernhardt, PhD, astronaut and chief scientist of EPSP and Jeff Jones, MD, MS, FACS, FACPM, exploration medical operations lead, as well as from HMP- Stephen Braham, Simon Fraser University and Pascal Lee, Mars Institute, SETI Institute & NASA ARC. Study coordinators are Grant Schaffner and Jason Norcross from Wyle Labs, and Brian Glass from ARC. Lunar analog field traverse planning activities are led by Pascal Lee, Brian Glass, Steve Braham and Jeff Jones with support from John Schutt and Nick Wilkinson of Mars Institute, Sarah Huffman of NASA ARC, Addy Overbeeke of Hamilton Sundstrand, and Grant Schaffner. Marcello Vasquez, MD from the NSBRI, G. Schaffner and Pascal Lee will serve as test subjects. Larry Kuznetz, Daniel Ngyuen, Sue Torney from JSC, Azhar Rafiq from VCU, Bill Clancey and his team from ARC, Ed Hodgson from Hamilton-Sundstrand and Dan Buckland from MIT will be participating in the evaluation of biomedical sensing hardware and bio-advisory algorithm data display and communication development for planetary spacesuits.