Sights set on Mars
On the top of the world

Apr 28, 2007 04:30 AM

Joseph Hall
staff reporter

Toronto's Ryan Kobrick will be travelling to the top of the Earth this month. But he has his sights set on a much longer trip – and a far different planet.

Ever since he was a boy he has wanted to be an astronaut. Now the University of Colorado graduate student will spend four months on Devon Island in Canada's high Arctic to help simulate several key conditions of a mission to Mars.

Kobrick's Devon Island trek will be based on the lip of the Haughton impact crater, created when a meteor hit land 23 million years ago. Today, with its minus 40C windchill and stone-strewn, polar desert conditions, it's viewed as one of the world's best analogues to the red planet.

"It's extremely cold, but the main issue is how isolated it is from anything," says Kobrick, who will spend four months at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station or FMARS beginning in May.

More at: http://www.thestar.com/News/article/208278