Increasing Time Helps Prepare for Martian Habitation
Anyone who knows much about Mars is aware they have a longer time frame than on Earth, with the length of a Martian sidereal day being 24h 37m 22.663 hours, which is the time it takes Mars to turn a 360 degrees rotation, and is considered shorter than a solar day. And there is talk of Martian time zones in the future, with the present time being each lander’s own local time. But meanwhile, every day is an additional 39 minutes later that accounts for pure exhaustion and fatigue for Martian team members, over extended periods of time when they are in Martian time.
The Mars Exploration Rover avionics systems engineer requested help for this problem from famous, well-known watchmakers. But they were refused unless an order of 10,000 plus for quartz-controlled watches was made, and besides—it couldn’t be done, anyway. But a very special man, a humble master watchmaker indeed, by the name of Garo Anserlian of Executive Jewelers in Montrose, Calif., has now perfected a timepiece for people traveling to Mars and its irregular time frame. Why could this “non-chain” little neighborhood family store succeed when the big brand-name boys could not? Because at the age of eight years old, he was an apprentice to his father and to a career he learned to love—and succeeded in two months doing what the big boys and their chain store assembly lines could not do. Of course, this included designing, fine tuning, and streamlining the complete process that guaranteed the watch to perfection along with $1,000 out of his own pocket to search for the best possible way.
Another idea being scientifically done is a study that adds another hour into a day, which is to assist humans for a life on Mars. Twelve people, according to an article in dnaindia.com, agreed to live for 65 days to accomplish this goal. Individual rooms with no windows, clocks or any other clue about what time it was, were prepared for the scientists’ study at sleep medicine division of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital ahd Havard Medical School. The purpose of this study was to see “if such a thing could be used to treat circadian misalignment associated with space flight, shift work and circadian rhythm sleep disorders,” said the researchers. They felt if the body-clocks of astronatauts were not re-set from Earth time to Martian time, a permanent jet-lag would set in.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Mission Objectives, Technical Concerns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
