News

Seventeen Australian university students are about to examine what it would be like to live and work on Mars and the human and psychological effects of isolation and close confinement for months on end.

The Australian National University (ANU) School of Psychology, with the close involvement of Mars Society Australia (MSA), is running an inaugural Coastal Summer School, which will require young people to put themselves in the place of those who might one day venture to the Martian surface. This event, to be held at Kioloa, a property owned by ANU on the NSW coast, on December 9-11 was advertised nationally, with 17 students selected to take part from a group of around 70 applicants.

Find out more here.

ABSTRACTS DUE 30 APRIL 2002

Mars Society Australia will be holding its annual conference AMEC - the Australian Mars Exploration Conference - in Sydney on July 12-14, 2002. Those interested in speaking at the conference should forward a short abstract (less than 300 words) detailing your proposed topic to Jennifer Laing pr@marssociety.org.au, on or before 30 April 2002. Queries may also be directed to the same address.

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You can now follow the progress of the MSA's analogue space suit project MarsSkin and its communications projects on newly launched homepages.

Project MarsSkin aims to design, produce and test analogue mechanical counter pressure (MCP) space suits which, when worn on Earth, will behave in a near identical fashion to those which may one day be worn on Mars. Communications projects underway include the satellite based SAFMARS (Store and Forward Mars Analogue Messaging System) project, Tools and Applications for Martian Exploration and Research (TAMER) being undertaken by the Software Engineering Research Centre...

The Mars Society Australia's analogue Mars rover project Marsupial is moving ahead, following the project's relocation to Fremantle, Western Australia. The design phase of the vehicle is nearing completion, after which time construction will commence at Byfield Engineering, at Riverton, WA. Find out more about the project on its newly updated homepage

HOP is currently seeking sponsorship to complete its internal fitout and for its testing phase. The Mars Society Australia is keen for its sponsors benefit from the extensive national media coverage the project has received to date, which has included prime time national television coverage.

If you would like to contribute in money or in kind, please contact Project Manager Dr Graham Mann.