Simulating "Mars on Earth"

By now, everyone who's heard of the Haughton-Mars Project knows that we travel to Devon Island to learn how people will live and work on Mars. But how do we learn about Mars operations from what happens in the Arctic? We must document our experience--traverses, life in the hab, instrument deployment, communications, and so on. Then we must analyze and formally model what happens. In short, while most scientists are studying the crater, other scientists must be studying the expedition itself. That's what I have done in the past four field seasons. I study field science, both as it naturally occurs at Haughton (unconstrained by a "Mars Sam") and as a constrained experiment using the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station. During the second week of July 2001, I lived and worked in the hab as part of the Phase 2 crew of six. Besides participating in all activities, I took many photographs and time lapse video. The result of my work will be a computer simulation of how we lived and worked in the hab. It won't be a model of particular people or even my own phase per se, but a pastiche that demonstrates (a proof of concept) that we have appropriate tools for simulating the layout of the hab and daily routines followed by the group and individual scientists. Activities-how people spend their time-are the focus of my observations for building such a simulation model.