Mars discovered at Albuquerque Convention Center Published April 26, 2006 By Eva D. Blaylock AFRL Directed Energy Directorate Public Affairs ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- An estimated 1,100 students from 34 New Mexico schools are expected here April 28 to construct inflatable shelters that they will link together to form a simulated Mars colony. The event will take place at the Albuquerque Convention Center. The students will construct their colonies in the over 100,000-foot space, while various organizations from nearby Kirtland Air Force Base will display information in exhibits in an adjoining reception hall. The name for this year’s event is the Mars Membrane Mirror Mission, which will put the student’s three months of study about the “red” planet to use. This includes demonstrations by five-to-seven-person student teams on life support systems they developed for Mars. These support systems include air and water supply, waste management, temperature control, food production, communications, transportation and recreation. In its twelfth year, the AF STARBASE® La Luz Mars Missions Project, (formerly the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Mars Missions project), a total of close to 3000 New Mexico students and 60 schools are participating in four regional events. The first one took place March 17 at White Sands Missile Range. Other Link-Up Days were at Cannon Air Force Base April 7 and in Farmington April 12. The project is based on the Challenger Center’s Marsville Program and is designed as a learning experience to teach students about teamwork and problem solving, and to enhance the study of math, science, and engineering. Students are exposed to technological and environmental space exploration issues. During this five-hour meeting, the students will construct their habitats, undergo a “uniform” inspection, brief each other on the life support systems they have built and complete a mission log. They will also weigh their bag lunches because every cargo-pound must be accounted for as though they were actually rocketing to Mars. During the course of this project, the student teams have stayed in touch with each other with computers, fax machines and on the telephone, but this event will be the first time they will meet each other face to face.