Three more...

[compilerbitch]

Dry Stream
(Photo: Haughton Mars Project/Sarah Thompson)


From base camp
(Photo: Haughton Mars Project/Sarah Thompson)


Base camp
(Photo: Haughton Mars Project/Sarah Thompson)

Comments

[pinguhateseng.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous shots, that really looks extra-terrestial!

And black and white over colour any day. At least, the way you do it. Damn you :D

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

It's worth saying that this place looking like the Moon or Mars isn't a coincidence -- it was chosen specifically for the reason that it is geologically similar, both in terms of terrain and in terms of the kind of rocks that you find. The impression you get from *being* here, though, is that you really have set foot on another world.

This is an uninhabited island. It's never *been* inhabited, except for the occasional expedition. It's roughly the size of Scotland (or West Virginia). You see absolutely no signs of human life here unless you look at our camp. This is very weird. There are plants, but you have to look hard to find them. I have seen three birds since I've been here, and no mammals (unless you count the fur in some decomposing polar bear droppings dangerpudding and I spotted on the trail from tent city to base camp.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

I love those first two, esp the middle one :-)

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :-)

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

Very pretty. I'm just rereading Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy ;)

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, those books seem to be regarded as inspirational by a lot of the people here.

I should probably dig out some photos of the Mars Hab and post them...

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

You look like you're in a Dr Who alien landscape! Wow.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I think this looks more realistic than any Dr Who set. :oP
In Dr Who you can usually tell it's in a quarry or similar somewhere, the first shot does indeed look rather alien.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Something that's hard to get across in a photograph is the *scale* here -- oddly, Meteor Crater in AZ looks *big* in photos, but it's 1.2km across, whereas Haughton Crater is 20km across. Subsequent erosion has made it look less 'cratery', which doesn't help, but still...

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

*nods* By the looks of it, there aren't many reference points like mountains in the distance, either.

[dangerpudding.livejournal.com]

I (and most folks up here) lose my sense of perspective up here - there's nothing to provide it. No trees, no people, etc. It's a very strange sensation.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I can imagine.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Last year, a team from Ames brought two robots with them of the K10 series. Which, of course, are the generation after the K9. Which, oddly enough, also supplied some of the infrastructure in software terms for the robotic drill I work on.

I'm expecting Cybermen at any moment.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, brilliant.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

Ooooo.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

One of the comments that brian1789 made to me was that the crater would pretty much fill the area from Mountain View to SJC, with the current drill site being in Santa Clara. That gave me a good sense of scale that I hadn't had before.