This year's Flashline crew is made up of the following members, some of whom have previously served at the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) near Hanksville, Utah:

Crew Commander and Chief Biologist Steve McDaniel is an attorney and entrepreneur out of Austin, Texas, with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University and a J.D. degree from the University of Houston. His law firm specializes in intellectual property litigation. He served on two MDRS missions as biologist and engineer. His scientific interests revolve around technology involving enzymes capable of detoxifying certain types of neurotoxic compounds found in soil bacteria. He hopes to replicate in the arctic environment the successful biological mission he and others developed during his previous MDRS rotations. Steve's personal interests include Martian studies and boating.

Jody Tinsley, who will serve as crew geologist and Executive Officer, is a veteran of MDRS Crew 15. He holds an M.A. in English Literature and an M.S. in Hydrogeology from Clemson University, in Clemson, South Carolina, where he is currently a lecturer in Geology. Having previously spent six weeks on Ellesmere Island doing geological research, he brings Arctic experience to Flashline. He is interested in the interplay between science and society, passive solar design and alternative energy systems, and long-distance canoe trips. His interest in rivers led him to co-edit the American Canoe Association's River Safety Anthology.

Jan Osburg is a German-born aerospace engineer specializing in manned spaceflight systems and interdisciplinary design methodologies. While working on his doctoral degree, he ran international workshops on space station design at the University of Stuttgart. He holds an

M. S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, where he studied probabilistic design methodologies and worked on the conceptual design of supersonic passenger aircraft. On this crew, he will be the Safety and Security Officer as well as the radio communications system engineer. Additionally, he will perform Human Factors and atmospheric science research. Veteran of MDRS and president of the Georgia chapter of the Mars Society, he resides in Columbus, Georgia, with his wife and daughter.

Australian-born Digby Tarvin is a software engineer specializing in real-time and embedded control systems and operating systems. He holds a Computer Science degree from the University of New South Wales in Sydney and is now studying for a degree in Physics, Astronomy and Planetary Science at the Open University in the UK. He has worked on projects from Australian submarines to Russian steel mills and Korean broadcast systems and has spent several years at the University of New South Wales, where he taught operating systems and computer organization and design. He holds both Australian and UK citizenship and currently runs a software consultancy in the UK. He enjoys skiing and other adventure sports, travel, and reading.

April Childress is an Instructor of English at Greenville Technical College in Greenville, South Carolina. She holds an M.A. degree in English from the University of Arkansas and was the journalist on Crew 15 at MDRS, where she continued to teach her classes through the internet; as Communications Officer at FMARS, she will record the day- to-day lives of the crew and create an archive of the mission. When not in sim, April and her husband and fellow crew member Jody Tinsley live in the upstate region of South Carolina, where they enjoy listening to the Atlanta Braves on the radio and spending time in the woods.

Peter H.U. Lee is a German-born Korean-Canadian who holds a Master of Space Studies degree from the International Space University. Currently, he is completing an M.D./Ph.D. at Brown Medical School in Providence, RI, with plans to complete residencies in Emergency Medicine and Aerospace Medicine and to pursue a career in aerospace medicine and space biological research. He will be serving as the Health Officer and biologist at FMARS. His research interests have been in biotechnology and muscle atrophy, as well as various aspects of aerospace medicine. Peter is a licensed EMT, a private pilot, and a Captain in the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary, as well as a 6th degree black belt Master in Taekwondo.

Ella Carlsson grew up in northern Sweden and spent 8 years as a flight mechanic for the Swedish Air Force. In that capacity, she was decorated for action in Bosnia. After leaving the service, she enrolled in the Luella University of Technology in Sweden, where she received a degree in physics. She is a veteran of MDRS Crew 9, and was recently accepted as an intern with the Astrobiology program at NASA Ames Research Center. She is an avid mountain climber, having climbed Kilamanjaro, and likes to sing and play the piano.

The crews operation in the field will be supported by Mars Society volunteers working with the Mars Society Mission support group in Denver led by Dr. Tony Muscatello. In addition, the teams field work will be further supported by a telescience team led by Dr. Penelope Boston of the New Mexico Institute of Technology and including members from Texas A&M, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Brown Universities.

A special report on the 2003 operations of the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station will be presented at the 6th International Mars Society convention, to be held at the Hilton Hotel in Eugene Oregon, August 14-17 2003. Registration for the convention is now open at www.marssociety.org.

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