2002 Location Scouting Mission

On June 24th a Mars Society Socuting Team arrived in Iceland to investigate potential sites for locating the Euro-MARS unit, and to meet with various officials and academics to discuss the MARS project and explore the opportunities for mutual co-operation.

The Scouting Team comprised 3 Mars Society European representatives, namely:

• Charles Frankel, from Association Planete Mars
• Bo Maxwell, President of the Mars Society UK
• Artemis Westenberg, Mars Society Netherlands.

As a part of the mission, they were joined by Frank Schubert, the hab's chief designer and engineer, who accompanied them to the locations under consideration for siting the Euro-MARS during the latter half of the Scouting Mission.

Meetings

An important aspect of successful MARS unit operations is securing the support and co-operation of the local government and, where possible, academic institutions within the host nation. To this end, an important element of the Scouting Mission was to meet with senior officials in Iceland to secure their support and backing for locating and operating Euro-MARS in Iceland.To this end, the Scouting Team met with:

• The Chairman of the Icelandic Research Council
• The Minister of Education and Science
• A leading Icelandic extremophile biologist

In addition, and at the invitation of Haflidi Gislasson, a leading Icelandic scientist, the team gave an afternoon of presentations on the Mars Society, the MARS programme and uro-MARS at the University of Iceland, Reykjavik.

Location Scouting

As mentioned elsewhere in ths wesbite, the Euro-MARS must be located in an environ which is both Mars-like in appearance, and which offers mission teams plenty of scope to perform the science and research that will be performed on Mars, thus enabling a database of protocols, procedures and general knowledge about Mars surface and habitat operations to be developed, which can be used in the training of crews who will travel to Mars.

To this end, a prime location for siting the Euro-MARS had been pre-selected prior to the trip to Iceland, and the main objective of the trip was to investigate the selected site in detail to confirm its suitability and to meet with the local landowners and gain their support for the project. In addition, time was also taken to examine a back-up location that might be used should the primary site prove unusable for any reason.

The primary site selected for locating Euro-MARS is the Krafla region in the north of the island, with Hofn selected as a back-up location. There were a number of reasons why the Krafla region had been pre-selected:

• Myvatn / Krafla is visually well-suited to locating a MARS hab
• The area has good ground-based lines of communication, and good air links, making logistical support easier
• The region is geologically sound for compartive research into geology and volcanology
• The area offers plenty of opportunities for life sciences research

While Hofn will remain a back-up site for the project, it's value as a primary site was negated by the following drawbacks:

• Logistical support is subject to the prevailing weather, and reliant on air support, dramatically increasing potential running-costs for Euro-MARS operations
• While the region offers significant opportunities for geological research, the opportunities for life science research is more limited

Scouting Mission Reports

During the trip, reports were filed on-line by Bo Maxwell and Charles Frankel, the overall Project Director for Euro Mars during the four primary days of the trip, and these reports can be read on the following pages:

Monday 24th June 2002 (Bo)
Tuesday 25th June 2002 (Bo)
Wedesday 26th June 2002 (Bo)
Thursday 27th June 2002 (Bo)
Friday 28th June 2002 (Bo)
Saturday 29th June 2002 (Bo)
Sunday 30th June 2002 (Charles)

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