A FACILITY OF THE INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH SCHOOL OF PLANETARY SCIENCES
How to Explore: the means of Exploration
Exploration is an activity that is not limited only to humans. Our friends, called animals, share this necessity with us: exploration is a necessity for living things; it is part of the living realm.
Exploring is exploring. We can use the experience obtained by the Terrestrial exploration to move to other bodies of the Solar System. To explore, regardless whether you are in a desert or on the Moon, you must have an objective, as distant as possible, as tough as possible.
Getting oriented in the vast Sahara
Exploration must have a purpose. Our purpose is, both on Earth and on the other planets, to increase our knowledge and our boundaries. Similar rationale suggests similar means.
A Moon astronaut collecting soil samples
Collecting samples in the impact area of the Tissint Martian meteorite
Communications and Computers are also important even in remote places
A computer in a driving Land Cruiser
Setting up the satellite communication system in Algiers (see the sea) the day before leaving for Sahara
Testing mobile satellite communication above 80º North
To communicate in a chopper you need headsets
A computer jam session in Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic
Shelters, base camps and outposts are important and must be supported by heavy logistics.
An Arctic base camp in Axel Heiberg Island (Candian High Arctic) with tents and Weatherhaven shelters
Inside they provide a confortable environment
However, the explorer is a frugal person...
A Landy can become a great shelter when is prepared for overlanding
The room of a caravanserail near Tamanrasset
Travel is probably the most important action in exploration.
Animals have been essential in the entire history of the human kind (a murals near Guerrera in Algerian Sahara)………
…. and have been used in millions of explorations like these dromedaries in the Ethiopian desert...
... and in Himalaya and Tibet yaks are the hit!
The Twin Otters are the dromedaries of the Poles
They land everywhere
Carry on a lot of material……
…..and even humans.
Although expensive, choppers are also used for reaching remote places
The download of a satellite communication system in Ellesmere Island
ATV are also used in a variety of environments
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Means of transportation are important to extend the reach of the explored area.
You can use 4WD…..
...tractors...
...or motor sledge
But you have to remember that you must be safe. Safety is the first duty in an exploration.: climbing a mountain is optional, returning at the base camp is mandatory.
Sometime, in these days, you need to be escorted if you are travelling in treacherous places
But remember for geologists like us, the most daring exploration is the oil exploration
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