We were in San Jose, California, at two a.m., which is not a good time for travel. I left the airport at five to go to his house. Six more team members would fly from Boston, San Diego, and Washington state. We weren't going to rendezvous until we met up in Canada.
The Haystack Observatory team would be leaving Boston with three of them. Sawan Dalal, our safety officer, just completed a medical school rotation. Gabriel Dubé, the recipient of this year's Apollo Fellowship from the Haughton-Mars Project (supporting him to pursue research at the HMP), would drive up toOttawa airport from his home near Montréal, and finally, John Schutt, his partner in running the business
Each group had a somewhat different schedule of flights. It took us 22 hours to fly first to Denver, then to Toronto, where we would go through Canadian immigration to join the rest of the group. We would fly to Iqaluit, Pond Inlet, and the small coastal port of Resolute Bay, all on small planes. The lookout point for the Northwest Passage is located in Resolute Bay, which is also home to the Inuit.
OnMars is preparing to visit the Red Planet.
After arriving in Resolute, we met the small air operator that would take us toDevon the following day. There has been relatively little spread of the virus out on the frontier, despite the fact that the Canadian air carriers had restrictions on carbon dioxide in their cabins. When we woke up the next morning, we were told that the first group of people should be on the tarmac in about an hour. After returning to our rooms, we hurriedly packed up and headed to the airport.
We flew over the watery passage that abuts Resolute Bay in a twin otter aircraft. If the plane went down, the waves would be covered in broken pack ice, a reminder that survival would take minutes. The shoreline of the island was blue and white, but the rocky plains replaced it. The geological features were spectacular as we flew on.
The Haughton-Mars Project base has six tent-like buildings and a large greenhouse to the north. The AM General donated a humvee to the project. Despite three years of non-occupation due to the Pandemic, everything appeared to be in good shape, with just one outbuilding that was not repairable due to the extreme weather.
We climbed out of the plane after it came to a stop on the gravel runway. We took in the view as we unloaded our luggage. The site is a barren, bleak, ruddy expanse of rock and earth stretching as far as one can see. It would be impossible for a person to stand on Mars without a pressure suit. It is one of the few times that a view like this has taken my breath away.
We went to the base to unpack and prepare for our stay as the plane flew on to its next destination. It would take many hours of cleaning, repairing, and rehabilitating the compound, and it would take a lot of elbow grease to make our home presentable for three weeks. The summer field season began when we arrived.
There was a month of adventure ahead of us after we arrived on Mars.
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