Space Research In Antarctica

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31306, 28 February 1967, Page 18

Space Research In Antarctica

Within 10 years the Antarctic could become the test laboratory for deep space missions said an American atmospheric physicist (Mr J. P. Katsufrakis) in Christchurch yesterday.

He said the primary test would be the placing of a selected team of astronauts on the Polar Plateau for 18 months or so. This was the time that would be required for a journey to Mars and back. “It would not have the artificiality of a research chamber in some laboratory in the United States. I believe Antarctica is the only place on earth where you can duplicate realistically the physical

t and psychological conditions i of a space flight,” he said. > “Down there in the middle * of nowhere they would really ! feel the loneliness of space, 1 particularly in the winter I darkness, whereas in a test chamber they have the know- ■ ledge that there are plenty •of people outside always ! ready to assist them if things ■ get difficult,” he said. i The use of the Antarctic for ■ a deep space mission, —“by I that I mean after the moon has been conquered”—would probably be a joint N.A.S.A.National Science Foundation project. Mr Katsufrakis said he believed it would be foolhardy to send four men on a mission to Mars without first seeing how they got along together in a similar, realistic ' environment, such as could be realised in the Antarctie. Mr Katsufrakis, who. is from 1 Stanford University, has spent 1 the last six weeks with French ' scientists at the Dumont ■ D’Urville Station as an ex- ’ change scientist. It is his fifth ' year on the continent.