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Elaine Walker's Personal Journal - HMP 2004 Education and Public Outreach July 31, 2004 Today was windy! We had winds over 40 knots at one point, but mostly it hovered between 25 and 30. I tried to videotape a traverse that Pascal Lee (NASA HMP PI) was leading into the Von Braun Planatia, but could not hold the camera still in the wind. I am not one to use camera tripods (or a microphone stand, for that matter). I like to be free with my camera, but this is ridiculous! Still, in just about any weather, the HMP participants will continue onward with their research. Time here on Devon Island is valuable. John Parnell (University of Aberdeen), geologist and geochemist, and his research assistant, Paula Lindgren, went on a traverse into Haughton Crater. Accompanying them were Samson Simeonie (Deputy Base Camp Manager for the NASA HMP/Canadian Ranger) and Camille Desportes de la Fosse (Institute of Science and Technology, University of Paris). Along the way, they saw musk ox footprints and ptarmigan footprints. Samson saw caribou. This island may look lifeless from a distance, but indeed it is not. John and Paula looked at various snowy owl pellets full of lemming skulls, found arctic fox poo, and distinguished different types of musk ox poo (the squishy sort and the not so squishy sort, as John puts it). It seems they were on a poo mission today. Meanwhile, on their traverse in Haughton Crater, Camille distinguished many different types of polygons. In Camille's own words: "In a periglacial environment, we can observe many different landforms linked to the presence of ground ice and liquid water in a permafrost setting. Among these landforms, polygons are particularly important, as they are both widespread and diverse. Observing the terrain at Haughton Crater and its surroundings, we are investigating the formation of polygons in relation to their geologic and hydrologic context. By understanding the origin of periglacial polygons on Earth, in particular in the context of an impact crater, we hope to learn lessons that will help interpret polygonal features seen on Mars." The weather degraded as dinner was being prepared by the Hamilton Sundstrand team. I went to check on the "almost dry" laundry once the snow started, and I found the clothes lines in the mud! Drying laundry here can prove to be a lost cause. Pascal Lee and Brian Glass propped it back up, and we saved the lucky clothes that were near the top. This evening we had a talk by David Rosenbush on the Hamilton Sundstrand Spacesuit's Caution and Warning System (CWS). At Hamilton Sundstrand, David develops a wide variety of software from databases to automated test rigs, to embedded software. Recently, he developed the software that operates the new CWS with a number of improvements in the user interface and in detection of critical conditions. David has also developed software that is used on the space station to refresh astronauts' training in the use of the CWS on the space suit. This software is designed as a virtual reality game with a graphic display which simulates the controls for the space suit, and allows the astronaut to operate them. There is a mathematical model of the space suit which causes the software to simulate the results of what the astronaut does. It is possible for trainers to simulate malfunctions of the space suit to give the astronaut experience with diagnosing problems with the suit. |