HMP e-Logbook
As the field season progressed, the MIT team recorded and posted daily a record of their activities, along with a few selected photos.
The field site's logbook has been duplicated here.
July: 8 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 August: 1 2 3 4-6
July 25, 2005
Written by Sarah Shull
....and then there was two. Today, Jaemyung and I said goodbye to Matt Silver and Mike Li. It was with mixed emotions that both of them left Devon Island for the two day journey back to Cambridge, MA. Mike and Matt made tremendous progress on the MIT logistics project during their stay despite having to live through some "interesting" artic summer weather (see July 21 e-log for details). Also on the flight back to Resolute Bay today were 5 members of the CSA Greenhouse team and a Professor from Georgia Tech involved with the DAME (Drilling Automation for Mars Exploration) Team. The rest of the DAME team will be flying out tomorrow. Over the past three days, the DAME team was able to drill to a depth of 2.06 meters through permafrost and rock bed.
Back at camp today, Jaemyung and I added all of the MIT tent inventory items into the relational database. Now anytime one of our items enters or leaves the MIT tent the RFID tag on the item will register in the database. This inventory will also give us an excellent starting point for MIT's participation in the 2006 field season. A thorough inventory of the waste management equipment was also taken today. The Haughton-Mars Base takes great pains to ensure that human presence at this base has minimal effect on the surrounding landscape and ecosystem. As such, waste management is a tremendous effort here. All human waste is contained and flown off the island (if liquid) or burned (if solid) and the ashes flown away. This may seem excessive but if the nutrient rich waste were introduced into the environment, plant life may thrive off of it that would not otherwise be able to survive in this area — we would in effect be terraforming Devon Island.
After dinner Jaemyung and I were able to tag the remaining ATVs with RFID tags. All 14 ATVs at camp have now been tagged, so we should be able to gather complete data on ATV usage over the next few days. I am also pleased to report that the Humvee that had been stuck in the mud out near the DAME drilling site was successfully returned to camp this evening. Tomorrow we will begin inventorying the contents of this all-terrain (except, apparently, mud) vehicle.
P.S. Our project made the home page of www.spaceref.com today! http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=17471
