by Robert Schorry

At the Mons Olympus Ski Park you can ski on the tallest volcano in the Solar System, and for just dollars a day!

This may happen someday, but at present we can only see this in the mind's eye. Posing a future Martian society, why can't we ski on Mars? It's certainly cold enough. And although the top slopes of Mons Olympus are quite gentle, the side escarpments have steeper gullies that could easily hold any number of ski runs. The snow would be water ice, of course, with a north facing slope to lengthen the season.

It follows that wearing an advanced pressure suit, with suitable skis, boots, bindings, and poles, we may be able to ski on Mars. With a lightweight life support backpack and a bubble helmet, we'd be ready to go. The 3/8 gravity would allow very steep slopes to be skied; only our courage would be needed.

This skier, in IT'S ALL DOWNHILL, may have bitten off more than he can chew, er, ski. Just look at his surprised face! For non skiers, the double black diamonds on the sign indicate an extremely challenging slope. As a skier, I have been in the poor astronaut's predicament more than once. Just starting the run down the slope and realizing that it was too steep for me! Always surprising.

The figure is a converted Academy IDF tank crewman in 1:35 scale. I cut and modified the standing pose to a skiing posture, with the hands cut and bent into fists to grip the poles. Tamiya Epoxy Smooth Surface Putty was used to fill the joints, and to make the wool ski hat. The backpack is a block of wood covered with styrene with hoses of styrene rods. The straps and waist belt are of styrene strip. The helmet was stretch formed over a 3/8 inch ball bearing from Squadron .010 Clear Thermoform sheet.

The skis were made from styrene strips. The tips were curved by wrapping the strip around a 3/8 inch brass tube, dunked in boiling water, and then cut and sanded to shape. They were detailed with styrene blocks for the ski bindings. Ski poles are .015 inch steel wire, with snow baskets from 1/8 inch styrene discs.

I painted the figure with Polly S acrylics and used Testors Flat White on the backpack and straps. The skis were painted Testors gloss red and the bindings flat black. I used a metallic silver ink pen on the edges of the skis to simulate metal edges. The warning sign was made in MS Word, glued onto the styrene and brass sign with Avery Permanent Glue Stick.

The base is made from open cell Styrofoam. I cut out the pieces and glued them together with hot melt glue. Faster to use than epoxy, although as the hot melt glue set, it tended to shrink and pull the pieces out of line. I covered the Styrofoam with DAP Fast N' Final Spackling Compound. The stuff doesn't shrink and it dries in about an hour. I then created the snow with Woodland Scenics Soft Flake Snow (SN-140), glued on using Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement. The rocks were salvaged from a castoff cactus planter.

Image: Fun on the snow

Image: From behind

Image: Side view

Image: Top view

Image: Warning!

Image: Making the helmet