LEAGUE CITY — League City resident Stacy Cusack left Sunday for a simulated Mars base in the Canadian Arctic, a two-story pillbox where she’ll don a mock spacesuit for Extra Vehicular Activity excursions and keep careful watch for curious polar bears.
“Of course this is a danger that Mars astronauts will not have to worry about,” she wrote in an e-mail interview.
Cusack, a veteran NASA Space Station training leader, will be sending a good many Internet messages during her one-month simulated Mars mission, posting reports and exchanging information with students.
Aside from the occasional polar bear, the mission will simulate many of the physical and psychological hazards of a Mars or moon habitat.
Cusack hopes to apply lessons learned to future astronaut training, as NASA plans for exploration of the moon and eventually Mars.
“Space flight is not like the movies,” Cusack said. “It is much more challenging, operated on a very small budget … and not always as glamorous.
“Astronauts spend a lot of their time being maintenance crews, janitors, medical guinea pigs and inventory specialists mixed in with moments of incredible EVAs and science experiments.”
Mission planners selected the polar desert of Canada’s Devon Island for the Flashline Mars Arctic Research station.
Planned research projects include:
• Use of an unmanned aerial vehicle and a prototype lunar rover;
• Testing techniques for finding useful mineral resources for Mars economic mineral production, liquid water extraction and building material production; and
• Seismic testing, groundwater surveys, detection of water with cosmic rays and the use of a class IV medial laser.
This is not the first simulated mission for Cusack. She spent two weeks living at the Mars Desert Research Station in the Utah desert in 2002.
“I made so many discoveries during that mission that were unexpected, but seem obvious in hindsight,” she said.
“Until you actually try to perform field geology in a bulky spacesuit, you just simply don’t think of certain limitations when sitting at a desk.
“On our first EVA, I realized just how hard it is to simply pick up a nice field specimen with bulky gloves.”
For the current mission, the six crew members will wear regular clothing when they’re inside. But when they venture outdoors, they’ll wear mock spacesuits — low-cost, unpressurized suits with thick gloves, large boots, a fully enclosed helmet with a spacesuit-sized field of view, and a heavy backpack with air fans and water.
The crew will eat foods with a shelf life of three years or greater, since a Mars mission will take about two years from launch to Earth return. They will make bread and cook pasta.
The habitat’s two levels include an airlock, the EVA preparation area, laboratory area, exercise station, computer area, galley and dining table and six closet-sized crew quarters.
Cusack has no complaints about the austere furnishings. It’s all part of a dream begun when she saw her first “Star Wars” movie.
“I was 4 years old when I first told my mom that I wanted to be an astronaut,” she said. “I don’t remember exactly when I learned about the planet Mars, but I was immediately drawn to it and knew I wanted to explore there some day.
“It’s unlikely that I’ll achieve all of these goals, but getting to work with astronauts almost every day is a pretty amazing compromise.”
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At A Glance
WHAT: Mars Simulation Mission, one of several planned by the Mars Society, an international space advocacy nonprofit organization that maintains multiple habitats for simulation missions
WHERE: Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station on Devon Island, Canada
WHEN: A one-month mission in early July, with the results of the scientific experiments to be discussed at the 12th annual International Mars Society Convention in College Park, Md., July 30 through Aug. 2.
WHO: A six-member crew, including Stacy Cusack, a New Jersey native who lives in League City with her husband, Bob. She has a master’s degree in planetary geology from the University of Houston-Clear Lake and has worked at NASA for 10 years, training astronauts and cosmonauts in the operations of the International Space Station.
WHY: Research to understand technical and human factors that may be faced by Mars and moon explorers.
ON THE WEB: Daily reports during the mission will be posted at the crew’s Web site at fmars.org.
CONTACT: Any area schools interested in setting up a contact with the crew can e-mail Mission Support for more information, fmars.cap.com(at)gmail.com. The Galveston County Daily News readers can send messages and questions to the Mission Support team who will them pass them on to the crew at fmars.cap.com(at)gmail.com.
