Mars Settlement Study

One of my favorite blogs is Anthonares, a beautifully written blog that covers a diverse range of subjects, often but not always with a scientific slant. Anthony Kendall is a Ph.D. student in hydrogeology at the University of Michigan, and one of his not-so-secret passions is the planet Mars. He spent a month in the summer at 2005 at the Mars Society's FMARS Mars analog research facility on Devon Island in far northern Canada, and he later reported on his simulated Mars mission experiences in a long, detailed blog entry. Very cool indeed.

Recently Anthony has been busy with other things and not blogging as much as he did early in the year (I know the feeling). But a few days ago he posted an entry on an exciting new project he has joined, working with 4Frontiers Corporation on an eight month "Generation II" Mars settlement study. As the Mars hydrogeologist on the 35-person study team, Anthony will be working on water issues using hypothetical Martian aquifier software models and ground-penetrating radar data from ESA and NASA spacecraft. Grant Bonin, one of my co-authors on the paper (300K PDF) I presented at the Mars Society Conference this past summer, is also on the Generation II study, working on mission planning and analysis. Great stuff, guys! I look forward to hearing more about this exciting project that aims to pin down many of the details and realities of future human settlements on Mars.