Mars Institute HMP Research Station Update for July 14, 2006

Status Report From: Mars Institute
Posted: Friday, July 14, 2006

Everyone at the HMP Research Station is settling in and research activities are ongoing. The weather has been good for several days. Today we have scheduled one Twin Otter flight to arrive bringing in more cargo and the return of Pascal Lee, principal investigator of the HMP. Tomorrow we have scheduled two Twin Otter flights which will ferry cargo and the NASA led DAME drilling team. The Drilling Automation for Mars Exploration (DAME) project, is developing automation for future Mars (or other planetary) drills. Also scheduled to be on the flight from Resolute to the HMP RS are Camille Desportes, another of the Mars Institute interns and Rhoda Akeeagok from Grise Fiord.

This week the Canadian Space Agency Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse team began upgrades to the greenhouse. Since 2002 the Dr. Alain Berinstain of the Canadian Space Agency has been principal investigator of the Mars Institute's Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse. Dr. Berinstain will provide a report shortly outlining this years goals and progress. You can view these earlier reports.

Also this week Alex Lasslop of CNES, the French Space Agency, began his psychology research project. His goal at the HMP RS is:

"On one side to be a participative observer, in order to get a personal experience of an isolated, confined, and hostile environment, and to observe how people interact in such special circumstances, which are close to what could be encountered on the Moon.
On the other side I wish to conduct a series of studies to analyze the group dynamics taking place in such environments (the impact of interpersonal and intercultural issues on the interaction of the crewmembers, and the influence of the crewmembers social characteristics, personality traits, and interpersonal needs on measures of behavior and performance at the end of their mission). "

There are currently 28 people at the HMP Research Station with that number expected to rise to 37 by tomorrow.

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