I sat alone in the back of the Twin Otter, two empty fuel barrels, two all-terrain vehicles and piles of luggage separating me from the pilot and co-pilot. Although my husband Jody Tinsley and I had intended to fly together when we left the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, a series of quick events had me traveling alone. Not cushy, sitting in the back of an island-hopping Twin Otter in the Arctic, but pretty cool.
THE TWIN OTTER needs only about 400 to 500 feet to take off and is pretty flexible about the surface of the runway: Ours was a thin layer of mud with a solid surface beneath. Once loaded, the plane taxied down the short runway, then rapidly accelerated, and we were airborne.
Being airborne meant for me that the stress of our last day at the Hab was over — but so was my month of serving as crew journalist at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station. Behind me, Steve McDaniel, Jody, Digby Tarvin and Jan Osburg were scrambling to get the last jobs done before loading their plane; ahead of me, Peter Lee and Ella Carlsson were waiting in Resolute Bay with our first load of gear. Cold already in spite of the multiple layers of clothes I was wearing, I wrapped my legs with my spare jacket (the Otter isn’t heated) and peered out.
Being alone in the Otter meant that I had an unobstructed view of what I was giving up by leaving this place. When I looked through the mud-splattered windows, I could see that the clouds had lifted enough so that we could fly just under them. On my right, the land was gray, splotched with white, and the dark clouds loomed low. On the left, the clouds hung over a brown and white landscape, strips of light gleaming from above. The snowmelt on both sides glowed black-bright.
Looking down, I saw streams that cut ribbon like across the land, sparkling as they curled their way to the sea. I looked right and left, trying to absorb what I could of Devon Island as I left it. Below me were places we had not explored during our extravehicular activities, places to dream of, not to visit. Gradually the land slipped away behind us. As we approached the coast, the rolling hills got steeper, the streams more narrow, and I saw cliffs. Then the waterways split and curved, opening up the path from the land to the coast. The delta led to the green-blue sea, edged with chunks of gleaming white ice.
Most of the flight was relatively smooth, but sometimes the plane danced on the wind, rising suddenly, then dropping gently on the currents of air that supported us. It was like riding an elevator with a split personality: up, hesitate, down — not dangerous, just disconcerting.
Near the coast, there was sea ice, but once we left sight of land, the ice was gone. Over the sea, blue-gray stripes of clouds were topped by pink, fluffy lavender strips; it was hard to distinguish the clouds from the land.
STRESSFUL DEPARTURE
The last two days have been stressful. None of us wanted to leave our station; we have enjoyed our mission and one another’s company. Though I had planned to write upbeat, lively postcards from Mars to Earth, our mood has been contemplative — we joked a little, but mostly we peered out the Hab windows checking the weather, checked and double-checked our to-do lists, and focused our anxieties on working harder and faster.
The weather has been uncertain at best, and though we wanted to stay on Devon as long as possible, none of us wants to miss our flight out of Resolute Bay this coming Saturday (there are only two flights a week, and we all have connecting flights to catch). So Steve began a couple of days ago trying to arrange flights to come for us as soon as weather permitted. Thus it was that we left Devon a day ahead of schedule: not being sure of the weather on Thursday, we chose to leave at the first opportunity.
We woke this morning to a snow-covered land and low clouds. Our task was to ready the Hab for shutdown; today was the last day of sim, and there was work to be done. But the incoming rain and 20 mph wind made outside work difficult, and Steve, Ella and Jody (who ended his sim a little early in order to assist them), came in and out of the Hab looking like wet blue bears in their matching rain jackets. By 2 o’clock almost all of the snow on the ground had been washed away by rain, and the rain had been blown away by the wind. The wind stayed to keep us company like an unwelcome guest.
InsertArt(1972299)In honor of the weather, Jan went through his music collection and chose Vivaldi’s “Winter,” out of the Four Seasons to play, along with “Ice, Ice Baby” and other seasonally appropriate songs for us to work to. I sneaked in and added Barry Manilow’s “Copa Cabana” to the end of the list just to cheer things up.
While we inside enjoyed the music, the outside crew gassed up the ATVs, took the pump out of the fuel barrels, ferried empty fuel barrels over to the airstrip, burned the last of the trash, secured loose items under the Hab that might blow away over the winter, brought in the backup generators, among other things, dashing in to warm their hands periodically and report to us their progress.
Those of us still in sim did much of the inside work — cleaning and unplugging the refrigerator and appliances, breaking down the comms, storing books and CDs in the loft, vacuuming the staterooms and common room, sweeping the downstairs, and cleaning the bath and toilet area. Steve took a break from outside duties long enough to join Peter in packing up the lab equipment and samples they were bringing back. In between crew tasks, we all packed our personal gear.
Then, suddenly, it was time to go. Their gear loaded onto the ATV trailer, Peter and Ella, the first to leave, were packed off to the airstrip. “But I haven’t said goodbye to my room!” cried Ella as Steve pushed her out the airlock door. Their flight got off without a hitch, and soon I found myself on my way to the airstrip with the sound of an approaching Otter drawing me away from the Hab.
OUT OF SIM, OUT OF SYNC
Out of sim for the first time in two weeks, I felt especially light on the four-wheeler. In a way, I missed the bulkiness of the suit and the weight of the backpack — I even looked down to see if I was wearing my jacket, I felt so free and unrestricted. My hair blew in the wind, and the air felt crisp and fresh in my lungs. It’s amazing how quickly we all adapted to the suits. Tonight, Ella caught Peter raising his forearm to look behind him, a gesture quite natural when wearing a mirror on the arm of an EVA suit, but one that looked rather silly sitting at a computer.
But the suits are back on Devon Island, and we are all safely in Resolute Bay. Our mission — a three-week full simulation at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station — is over. We are no longer analog astronauts planning EVAs, mapping waypoints, gathering and analyzing samples, writing reports. Our mission titles — commander, XO and the like — are used as endearments now. They no longer truly fit who we are. We are in limbo, really — not back to our “real” lives, yet not in sim at the Hab. These days we’ll spend in Resolute will give us time to think on what we’ve accomplished, what we’ve contributed, to write our last reports, to rest, to trade home mailing addresses.
I did some thinking on the plane ride this afternoon about all the effort that went into our spending a month in the Arctic. Many people worked together several years ago to design and build the Hab itself, once the money was raised from donations. Someone designed the EVA suits, made the helmets, bought the boots, gloves and radio equipment. Other work is more subtle: selecting the crew, coordinating pre-mission communications, ordering equipment and provisions, setting up accommodations in Resolute, arranging and paying for flights in and out of Devon Island. All these things are done by people who donate their time and money to make the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station a success, an asset to the space community.
Once at the station, we volunteers couldn’t do our work nearly as effectively without the sacrifices of the folks at Mission Support, also a team of volunteers. They live all over the place and spend their free hours (and many, many hours squeezed from time they ought to be doing other things) providing us with information we need, letting us bounce ideas off them, doing research for us, relaying our questions to the experts who have the answers, compiling news briefs and other information we ask for, finding and sending us maps electronically, and receiving and posting our reports to the Mars Society Web site so that people who are interested in what we are doing here can find out more about it.
I breathed a quiet “Thanks, guys” to Mission Support as the Twin Otter descended and Resolute came into view. Before long, I was at the comfortable South Camp Inn with Ella and Peter, waiting for our crewmates to join us. By 11 p.m. we were all together again in the dining room — Steve, Jody, Jan, Digby, Peter, Ella, and I. We ate and talked about writing a mission proposal for a future rotation at the Mars Society’s next station, to be built in Iceland soon.
I’d really enjoy sending postcards from there.
© 2003 April Childress. Licensed by the author to MSNBC.com.