Newbie at the CSA

I started work (finally!) at the Canadian Space Agency on Thursday. The work itself hasn't settled down enough yet for a potted summary, but a few early observations:

The gorgeous building was designed by Starfleet (aka WZMH Architects), and is ready to to take off the instant we figure out what dilithium crystals are and how they work. In fact, that's my job for the next six months. Unfortunately, I'm neither a doctor nor a geologist, so that joke just isn't going to work.



Security is taken very seriously and seems very effective, but has its... moments. We have these cards that allow us to get through doors (six between the main entrance and my office, three between my office and the nearest toilet). Some of said doors are circular, miniature versions of those you find at better department stores. The catch is that, for security reasons, only one person is allowed in at a time. So, if the next person holds their card up to the sensor a moment too early, the mechanism immediately locks, causing the previous person's face to slam into the glass. One of these contraptions is at the cafeteria entrance, allowing for some excellent people-watching over lunch. [CSA security people: you're doing a wonderful job, and I'm sure these doors are absolutely necessary. Please don't purge me from the system.]

Here's the sweetest thing - my gym:



Better believe I'm motivated!

Thurs June 11

Technical Tour of The Institute for Biomedical Problems

On the last day of the conference, attendees were taken on one of three technical tours. I (with some regret, as all three sounded fantastic) chose the tour of the Institute for Biomedical Problems, Russia's main center for space exploration human factors research, and home of MARS-500. Our group was small -- better for conversation -- and included several top-notch HF researchers, such as the very charming Chiaki Mukai.

There were fascinating tidbits in every corner, such as a display of Russian space food, with a familiar-looking bottle in the middle:



and a doll kitted out with the Center's "Penguin" suit, which is threaded with bungees to force the body's posture muscles to work out in microgravity:



This is the center that monitors the astronauts' physical and psychological states:



The interactive highlight was getting to play with the lab equipment. I clobbered my way to the front of the group to volunteer for the dry immersion tank. The idea is to simulate weightlessness by floating in water, while protected from the actual wetness by a giant tarp. It was like being swallowed by a flabby waterbed. Here's me going...



...going...



...going...



...gone.



I hogged the dry immersion tank, so it was only fair that someone else got to try the vertical treadmill:



Finally, we got to see the MARS-500 facility, where a six-member crew is locked in, simulating the journey to Mars:



They're about 3/4 of the way through their 105 day pilot study, so we couldn't go in, but we did spend some time in the control center, watching the all-male crew pump weights (playing to the audience to some extent, I suspect). I'm going to submit a study for the full 500-day experiment, so who knows - I might be back!

Cosmonautics Museum

Today my target was the Cosmonautics Museum. I came out of the metro, and started my usual confused reorientation. "Let's see. The map shows that green area, and the station is here, so the museum should be in this general direct- oh."



Say what you will, the Russians can do monuments. Check out the march of progress:



Even Laika is gazing sternly at the future:



There was a row of stars approaching the monument, marking significant moments in the Russian space program. Oddly, there were several at the end of the row that hadn't been used yet. They'd clearly been saved for future accomplishments, and yet the last one inscribed with a date (there were several with just names) was from 1975:



Does this mean that Russia isn't as proud of its space program post-1975, or did I miss the point completely?

The museum itself was an excellent collection of hardware and mementos. I wasn't supposed to take pictures, but I couldn't resist this one:



Note the universal symbols for "this way up" (upper right) and "fragile" (upper left), and instructions for cosmonaut extraction. Sensible, of course, given that the capsule might go wildly off-course before landing, but I love the idea of the cosmonauts being urgently offered a glass of wine the moment the hatch opened!

Moscow, June 3, 09

In sharp contrast, the Russian shuttle-like prototype, Buran, has found its final resting place in Gorky Park, as part of a slightly shabby, slightly surreal fun fair (Other attractions include a haunted house shaped like Mount Rushmore. Go figure).



Buran's rusted shell is now home to a 4D (i.e. 3D plus shaking) cinema, showing a six minute feature ("Space Creeps") so unpleasant that, after one minute, I chose to shut my eyes and just endure the bumps and jolts for the remainder.

Poor Buran.

Air and Space Museum, Dulles, May 31


Any aviation enthusiasts with a longish stopover in DC should check out the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, a short bus or taxi ride from the airport. It's basically a giant hangar full of wonderful flying machines - anything that was too big for the Air and Space Museum on the Mall. The star of the show is the shuttle Enterprise:



I'd also like to recommend a book I picked up there, Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965, by Francis French and Colin Burgess. It is full of anecdotes in context from the people who made early space exploration happen in both the US and Russia. Some of the stories contradict each other, but that's part of the appeal.

Humans In Space Symposium

In two weeks, I'm off to the AIAA Humans In Space Symposium in Moscow, where I also hope to observe the MARS-500 100-day pilot study, which is in progress. Then it's back to Montreal, where I will be on sabbatical at the Canadian Space Agency. More on all of these later!

Public Service Announcement: Free stuff, food, refreshments, this Saturday

My computer just crashed (don't worry, it will recover), leaving me without easy access to everyone's email addresses, so I'm posting this here:

I just bought a house "as is", with a basement crammed to the brim with junk^H^H^H^H treasures. If you help me clean it out, you can grab the best of it! I get first dibs, but don't need any more junk in my life, so will only use it in the case of fist-sized diamonds and the like. Otherwise, you touch it first, it's yours. I have no idea what's in there, but there are rumors of "geology equipment" (the previous previous owner was a surveyor) and "paddling stuff". There are also major appliances (oven, fridge, etc) but I can't attest to their condition. You need to be able to haul away anything you want. I'll provide food and refreshments.

Hope to see you there!

Kim.

Some things I didn't need to spend four months in simulation in the Arctic to learn:

1. Indoor flush toilets are amongst the peak achievements of civilization.
2. Butter is delicious, as are fresh vegetables and nicely-cooked meat.
3. A comfortable bed in a dark, quiet, private room is more conducive to a good night's sleep than half of a hard bunk in a tiny hab without any soundproofing in 24-hour sunlight.
4. A change of scenery and company is nice every once in a while.
5. A long hot shower is an extraordinarily pleasant thing.

Something I did learn:

With sufficient motivation, training and luck, a crew can do without all of the above and do just fine, thank you very much.

Not that that first shower wasn't pretty amazing. We were using 10L of water per person per day at the hab (including cooking, cleaning, and drinking water), and I must have poured a crew-week's worth of water over my head (30min shower at 10L/min = 300L, so not far off). Worth every drop.

In Resolute now and heading south tomorrow - home soon!

DONE!!!!!

As of midnight (about 30 mins ago), we are done with sim. Done, I tell you. We immediately went outside, and toasted the sunset with some of James' fine Countdown Lager. Outside without a spacesuit for the first time in 100 days. The world is big and beautiful, and we have the island to ourselves. Breathtaking.

TVPtastic

This would be better with ground lamb, but it really wasn't bad. Honest.

'meat'balls: Mix reconstituted taco TVP, dried spinach, dried onion, garlic salt, lard and herbes de provence with enough powdered egg to make it all stick together. Roll the mixture into balls, and fry until brown and firm on the outside. They end up tasting a lot like falafel.

yogurt sauce: Make yogurt. Mix about a cup of it with garlic salt, lots of dill, and olive oil. Spoon over the TVPballs.

salad: Harvest the last of the lettuce from the Aerogardens. Top with chopped artichoke hearts, and dress with olive oil, lemon juice and herbs.

rosemary potatoes: Get instant scalloped potatoes, and save the sauce packet for some other dish. Reconstitute the potatoes by nuking them in water. Drain on paper towels. Put in a baking pan, coat with olive oil and season with rosemary and garlic salt. Roast at 400F or so until yummy.

I'll post a picture tomorrow, but really, I swear, it really wasn't bad at all.

Sunset



The sun finally set yesterday, dipping briefly below the horizon for a few minutes, before dawning bright and new just after midnight. As nights go, it wasn't much to speak of, but we celebrated it anyway. It has been a long day. Our last sunrise was in late April, in Resolute. It was -30 degC, the world was white, and we were just setting off on our great adventure. Now it's a balmy 7 degrees, the landscape is Mars red, and we're nervously contemplating reintegration into society. Will we smell funny? Hopefully not, after copious showers in Res. Will we flinch at social contact? Mmm, maybe. Will we remember to behave ourselves? Will we want to? I'll admit that I spent precious air miles on an upgrade for my flight to LA, to reduce the odds of being stuck next to a crying baby or some other challenging neighbor. Still, I'm not too worried - a salad bar, a hot tub, and a glass of wine, and I'll be right as rain.

And then there was one

Twice a day, we do the "sked", a radio check-in with the Polar Continental Shelf Project back in Resolute. They keep track of all the science teams in the field in this part of Nunavut, and send in the cavalry if anything goes wrong. When we first got here, it was just us and a team way out on the ice cap at the east end of Devon. For most of May and June, we got the personal attention of the Polar Shelf guy, at least for the time it took to say "read you five by five, weather's fine, no traffic". Then, in July, at the peak of the field season, the sked exploded from an intimate affair into a mass conference call, with more than fifteen camps calling in to schedule flights, discuss problems, and announce polar bear visits. OK, the camps were spread out over thousands of miles of the Arctic, but it still felt a bit crowded.

Now, we're back down to five, and one of those is finishing its pullout tomorrow. If we're not the last in the field, we'll be close (damn you, ice cap guys!). Although no snow has settled yet, there's a reasonable chance that they will have to put the skis back on the Twin Otters for our pullout flights. Winter is coming, the sked is getting quiet, and soon Devon will reclaim its title as the world's largest uninhabited island.

Nobu

Would anyone else like to go to Nobu when I get back? And does anyone else see a grinning triceratops in the Nobu logo?



I remember being bemused by this at the Tokyo restaurant many years ago, so it's not perceptual dysfunction brought on by isolation. At least, not just that.

News from the North

I own a house! Thanks to Jen, who has been bullying lawyers, scheduling inspectors, and signing things for me all summer, I am now the proud owner of #34 Kauhale Beach Cove, five units and a few hundred feet from #29, where I lived a few months and many thousands of dollars ago. Small steps, people. Small steps.

In other news, we went with a fiery theme for the Phoenix launch, and had creme brulee. OK, it was an eggy custard with some burnt sugar on top, but isn't that what creme brulee really is, when it's not putting on airs? Here's an action shot. fyi, the blowtorch is normally used for sterilizing the permafrost drill.

Welcome back, Winter

Believe it or not, mid-July was actually pretty warm here, peaking at about 18 degrees Celsius outside, and downright muggy in the hab. It has also been sunny and dry for weeks. Then, a couple of days ago, we woke up to a heavy wall of fog and a chill in the air. This morning, the snow started. None of it stuck, but it definitely feels like we're through the summer and sliding back into winter. There are still a few patches of white here and there, and I'm rooting for them to make it to the first real fall of new snow.

In cuter news, we had an outreach event with the Iqaluit Science Summer Camp a couple of days ago. We gave a presentation online, then video-chatted with the kids using Skype. Then, they had a space suit fashion show (image from the Nunatsiaq News):



How adorable is that??

Much to the disappointment, I suspect, of some of the human factors researchers tracking our mission, our crew has gotten along astonishingly well. I put this down in part to luck, but also in part to some common values, including the stereotypical Canadian ‘niceness’, which a lot of Americans (at least, the ones on our crew) obviously share. Matt is our poster boy for this trait: he’d make you breakfast in bed, then apologize for undermining your diet.

Even with all this harmony, however, sometimes a girl just gets up on the wrong side of the bunk. I had already snarked at both James and Ryan today for no good reason, when an issue came up that actually causes me some real stress: how to make sure that we get all the data we need before we leave (there’ll be no popping back for one more sample once we’re gone). Problem was, I was too irritable to deal with it in an even-tempered, rational way. So, what to do?

One of the human factors studies is looking at coping strategies, which seem to fall into a few broad categories: actively working towards a solution; seeking advice and support; emoting; denial; booze and/or prayer; and so on. Here, many of our habitual strategies just aren’t available: no pets to cuddle or oceans to swim in, for example. In this case, I just wanted to go somewhere else, and do something else for a while – but there’s nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. So, instead, I stopped working, went to my bunk, put in my earplugs, and played stupid computer games for a couple of hours. As coping strategies go, it may not be the healthiest, but when I came out I was able to discuss the EVA schedule without biting anyone’s head off. Mission accomplished.

Tragic News

The Weekly World News is ceasing publication. Not only did they introduce the world to my fave celebrity, Bat Boy, but they have been publishing insightful science stories on Mars for many years. It's a sad day for journalism.

Would someone mind grabbing a copy of that last issue for me?

C'mon, people. I need comments. It would be too sad if I were to crack up a mere month away from the end!

One more LOST parallel: webcams all over the hatch/hab...

LOST vs. FMARS: a side-by-side comparison

We've become more than a bit obsessed with LOST, partly because it's a great show that we have watched through, as a crew, from the first season; but mostly because we have a sneaking suspicion that we're on that island. Yes, I know, the human factors researchers will be delighted to take this as evidence that we've finally gone irredeemably nutso, but check the evidence (I don't know why the software's putting a big space here, but live with it):

LOST	FMARS
the hatch	the hab
polar bears	polar bears
Dharma-brand canned food	Safeway-brand canned food
Button must be pressed regularly; may be part of cruel experiment	Button must be pressed regularly; definitely part of cruel experiment
The Others, mysterious researchers who live on the other side of the island	The Others, mysterious researchers who live on the other side of the stream
Bulky suits must be worn outside; may or may not serve useful purpose	Bulky suits must be worn outside; may or may not serve useful purpose
Little bottles of booze from the plane, last way longer than expected	Little bottles of booze from the plane, run out almost instantly
Guys at polar station receive signal from island, send help	Guys at Polar Shelf receive signal from island, know help is not needed
Jack	Matt
Charlie	Ryan

...and so on. We even have photographic evidence.

Jack/Matt:


Charlie/Ryan:


Our hatch:

Mars Clock

If you'd like to know whether I'm up or not and can't be bothered to check the webcam, have a look at the FMars Time Clock. I particularly like that the 24th hour has 99 minutes.

Oddly, my circadian rhythm seem to be naturally on Mars time. On a 24hr day, I always want to stay up just that little bit later, and sleep in that little bit later, than a normal schedule allows. The extra 39 minutes in a Martian sol allows me to do just that, without throwing the whole day off. Kinda neat.