"Hard Work, No Pay, Eternal Glory"

The Mars Society is looking for a few good men and women to run its "Four-Month Mars Mission Simulation at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station" on Devon Island, which is way, way, way up north.

As currently planned, the crew will consist of four individuals chosen primarily for their skills as field scientists in areas including geology, geochemistry, microbiology, biochemistry, and paleontology. Two additional crew members will, be chosen primarily for their skills in engineering areas. Ability of crew members to support both roles is considered a strong plus.

Full details, including the memorable "hard work, no pay, eternal glory" line, an upbeat echo of the famous Shackleton trans-Antarctic expedition advertisement ("small wages, bitter cold…honour and recognition in case of success"), here.

And, of course, there's room for one stowaway with mixed loyalties, some sort of android/cyborg/hyper-rational half-breed human, and at least a couple of throwaway guys who prefer wearing red shirts (related har-hars, courtesy pro libertate, here).

Back in 1999, the NY Times' John Tierney wrote a story for Reason about Mars Society head Robert Zubrin's plans to get to the Red Planet. That potential Martian Chronicle is online here.

Comments

[Kramer]

"Goin' to Mars!....Giddyup!"

[Pro Libertate]

You know, I look at the red-shirted guy in that Expendability, er, um, "motivator", and I can't help noticing that he looks doomed. I mean, if I had never watched Star Trek before, I'd still expect him to die. Soon. And horrifically.

I'm not sure what I think of Zubrin. He's to be credited for popularizing "Mars Direct" and for continuing to beat the drum for the manned exploration of space (esp. of Mars, of course). On the other hand, he treats many of his opinions as Jesus' gospel and seems to demonize his opposition. Oh, well, there's room for all sorts in the space community, I guess.

[Larry A]

They forgot to plug the cuisine. There was a news report last night that NASA had a chef adding spices to make the freezedry taste better.

Which illustrates just how far out on the cutting edge NASA is.

[Jonathan Goff]

Nick,
My only issues with Zubrin are his fetish for big, government funded heavy lift vehicles (instead of doing orbital assembly with smaller commercially available vehicles like Real Men [TM] do), and that he more or less completely blows off any thoughts of doing exploration like this privately. His engineering ideas are interesting indeed, but he seems to still be stuck in a NASA-centric rut like far too many space activists.

~Jon

[Pro Libertate]

In reading The Case for Mars and, more particularly, Entering Space, I got the the distinct impression that Zubrin is no fan of commercial space endeavors. I think some of that might reflect his desire to keep all efforts focused on the Mars' grail, but I'd say it's safe to say that he's not a libertarian 🙂

[Nike Air Jordan freeruninnlon]

Ability of crew members to support both roles is considered a strong plus.