MARS DESERT RESEARCH STATION

Journalist report Sol 2 – 170412
Mathieu « Mitch » Vander Donckt
Crew Journalist and Scientist
Crew 178 – UCL to Mars

Second day on Mars. This time I wasn’t surprised at wake up – but of course still excited thinking about the day to come. I guess I got accustomed to my room. A bit cramped but we all knew that we would have to sacrifice comfort for effectiveness. Nevertheless, my personal effects on my shelf give a little warmth to the place and make it mine. The sleeping rooms of all the crew members open up on a half circular shared living room /kitchen /workroom. In a place with so much use, there is always someone. Today I found “Coach” and Elke, that we all call “Patch” now, cooking pancakes – what a delightful way to start a day on Mars! We quickly adapted to local food, composed mostly of dried meat, dried fruits, all sorts of unidentified powders, wheat flour and cereals. So, with water to rehydrate and a bit of imagination we can almost compete with the “Plat du Chef” from French restaurants, as our pineapple chicken from yesterday evening can testify.
Pancakes in the stomach, it was time to examine the package that got here yesterday by orbital convoy. It should have arrived days ago, before our arrival to prevent any delay in our tight schedule, but poor management at the Delivering Heavy Loads company deferred the shipment. The use of private companies in scientific space programs is now unavoidable, space being a place of high competition since the opening of the market a few years ago. It has its advantages, like the variety of solutions proposed for space travel and lower prices than when governmental space agencies had to take care of research and development all by themselves, but also bring its lot of difficulties. Due to the cheaper and faster trend, the reliability of those companies diminishes with time, and without news we were afraid that our package missed the connector in Mars orbit and got lost in the darkness of space – this happens more than you would know. After that it would have been a nightmare to get refunded and send another convoy – space law is complicated. But finally, we were glad to receive the last part of our equipment which was too heavy to bring in our shuttle.
With the approval of Mission Control and the arrival of the last pieces of equipment, Patch, the Crew Geologist, and myself could proceed to the first Extra Vehicular Activity. So we slipped our spacesuit on with the help of our crewmates, and felt a growing awareness of being in a very unique place at a very special time. Our first foot on Mars, prepared for years and dreamed for decades… The impatience rose even more when we got into the airlock.
Five minutes of depressurisation.
Our apparatus is ready: Patch, skillful geologist, is bringing a radar to survey the underground for a geophysical study, hoping to map the subterranean composition of Mars. As the airlock opens, we forget about everything else, like we’re in a dream. We walk to the area that we identified on our satellite map, accompanied by the encouragements of our team coming from our radio. However, the disillusion strikes hard! The spacesuits designed to protect us from the cold (-60°C outside) and solar radiations, weight hard, even in the weak gravitational field of Mars. All the systems conceived to protect us eventually seem to turn against us. We feel like in an oven, a box of lead, inescapable under sentence of death. A thought germs in my head. This is a settlement where humans are not welcome. This is a beautiful nature, full of hostility. This place is a trial of strength for our bodies and our minds.

Victoria LaBarre, XO and Chemist for Crew 177, on March 27.2017

Today four crew members went out on EVA to Candor Chasm and collected five rock samples to conduct chemistry experiments on, later this week in the lab. The most significant geological feature noted on this EVA was the large strata of Gypsum at the bottom of Candor.

While four members were out on EVA, the rest of the crew spent their time delegating tasks. Caleb swept the floor and cleaned the kitchen to provide more useable counter space. Estaban set up his manual bike generator in preparation for testing and hung up the McLennan Community College flag.

After receiving a radio message from the four crew members out on EVA that they were on their way back to the Hab, the rest of the crew began cooking lunch together. Hot bread, beef stew and a strawberry-jam crumble were served still-steaming as soon at the four crew members were helped out of their space suits.

After lunch, the five rock samples were taken to the lab and prepared for testing later this week by breaking them down into 2 gram samples. Estaban then had Pitchayapa test out his generator by having her petal on the bike to produce enough voltage to recharge a battery, which was measured with a multimeter. Elijah and I then took some time to reassemble our robot and solder together wires. I later gave other members of the crew who were interested a tutorial on how to properly use a soldering iron.

Joseph our cook, decided to delegate cooking duties in a rotation in to promote fairness when assigning who cleans the dishes and kitchen afterwards. Today, Pitchayapa and Caleb cooked a potato casserole and chicken fried rice. This was a new experience for Caleb, who has trouble reading in English (his second language) and cooking American food, instead of Chinese. Overall, Caleb mentioned that he genuinely enjoyed cooking American style food and that he was very proud that everyone enjoyed his cooking.

During cooking, a storm started with 20 mile and hour winds. The roof cap blew off and Elijah, our engineer, was kept busy pulling it back down into place, securing it and then going outside to adjust the satellite when we all noticed that the lights on the wi-fi had gone out.

After dinner, the crew sat down to brainstorm solutions for fixing the toilet and how to remove waste in the meantime after some crew members discovered that it was near to overflowing and would not go down. A report on the situation has been sent to CapCom, but due to the internet cutting in and out, we are still waiting for directions.

Note: pictures are by our photographer and microbiologist, Pitchayapa Jingjit.

Crew 176 Press Officer // 24 March 2017
Krzysztof Jedrzejak
24 March 2017 – Sol 13

Dear Mission Support,

I am sending you my journalist report. This time it concerns the last three days at MDRS which focused on the following activities:

•    Video interviews conducted with 2 out of the 5 crew members, namely Crew Commander Natalia Zalewska and Green Hab/Human-Robot Interaction Officer Karolina Zawieska. These recordings were one of the most important parts of a documentary movie we are working on. In the interviews, crew members shared their subjective experience related to the two weeks spent at MDRS.

•    Preparation of the documentary photography and video session while conducting field tests of the rover Ares.

•    Preparation of the Social Media content.

These are the last days of our simulation. Right now, we are focus on taking last video shots of our crew and spectacular landscapes. Moreover, we are preparing MDRS for the upcoming rotation and a new Crew.

Best regards,
Krzysztof Jedrzejak

Press Officer, MDRS Crew 176

Dear Mission Support,

I am sending you my journalist report. It concerns the last five days at MDRS. The journalist activities we undertook over the last few days include the following:

• Video-photo sessions during different EVA. The goal was to document both geological sites as well as the crew members and their work. We also wanted to document the prototype versions of black space suits we have brought with us.
• Preparation of audio files for the Programme 1 Polish Radio Station.
• Preparation of the Social Media content.

As far as daily activities are concerned, we attach all the required photographs along to individual reports dedicated to Operations, Green Hab and EVA.

Best regards,

Krzysztof Jędrzejak

Journalist, MDRS Crew 176

Journalist report, 03/02/17 – Sol 18: Completing tasks.

Today’s EVA had two purposes: find what happened to the atmospheric balloon we lost yesterday, and recover the seismometer, now running for more than two weeks. Xavier was EVA leader, and decided to lead a new human factor experiment, following up on his emergency procedures research: the EVA was conducted without any radio contact, using scuba diving gestures to communicate, and limiting drastically communications. This situation is of course caricatural: a scene in which every member of the team would have a radio failure, is not only very unlikely, but also the scenario where it happens immediately after leaving the airlock and keeps going on during the whole EVA does not exist for the simple reason that real astronauts would just have moved back immediately into the station, aborting the EVA.

The point was here to exaggerate the problem, in order to test the worst-case scenario, at every stage of the EVA. In this kind of situation, having had a strong briefing before going out is essential, to minimise the need of communications afterwards. It is also crucial to always watch his teammates, not to let somebody alone, or to lose visual contact. This is why moving in the vehicles also required frequent stops, to check if everybody was following, a thing we usually do by radio. The engineering check was done assuming that the crew received today’s habcom, Victoria, but only her, in order not to forget something. Louis, staying in the hab also could remotely monitor what Arthur was seeing, from his Optinvent glasses.

After having completed every task they were asked for by Victoria; Xavier, Arthur and Mouâdh first went North by foot to check the balloon site. They only found the rope and its attach, supposed to be inside the balloon platform. This is how it failed: the connection between these two piece must have been too weak to endure the wind force. The irony is that the camera we removed yesterday was precisely in this gap, so that without removing it, we might have preserved both of it. But I’m not sure that Xavier, the video camera owner would have liked to give it another try… To end with the EVA, my three colleagues had no trouble removing the seismometer from its hole. They came back early, after one hour outside.

The afternoon was quiet, as everybody was working on his final reports or productions. Tomorrow is (already ?) our last day in simulation, so that we were all focusing on trying to end our work properly. It is strange to realise how short the simulation seems to have been, whereas we are already feeling at home in this little hab already. It surely will be strange to leave on Saturday to go back to reality.

Louis MANGIN, crew journalist MDRS 175

Journalist report, 03/01/17 – Sol 17: R.I.P little balloon.

Today’s EVA was all about the atmospheric balloon. It was forced to remain on the ground for many days, and finally, we were supposed to let it fly for 24 hours, in front of the hab, to have a look on it, even if we would not be able to intervene in case of any problem happening. Simon, Mouâdh, Arthur and Louis (who shot today’s photos) left at 9:00 am by foot to deploy it. After some time spent to attach it properly, it was time to inflate it. It is always the trickiest part: three crew members have to run together, holding it, to let air fill it up. It was not very successful at the beginning, being troubled by the wind. But after about half an hour, it went straight up, to reach its maximum altitude. This time, Simon had fixed the camera on the side, so that with a little luck, we would be able to have a picture of the hab. We now know that we had this luck, and the shot is absolutely stunning.

The balloon being settled, the crew went up the hill next to it, to have a god view on the balloon’s area, being able to check it during its few hours up. It was supposed then to go up and down following temperature changes, so that it will land at night, then go up again with the sun. We had determined a whole area, in which it was not supposed to be damaged to hard if it touched the ground, and did attach it well to the ground. The team left it at 11:00 after having removed the video camera from the balloon, as it would have lacked battery and memory long time before the next day, and we ate at noon.

It is only after lunch that we noticed it was missing. We had no visual of it from the hab, even if the area was chosen to allow us to check it. We received no other sign of its presence in the following hours. Different scenarios are possible: the balloon had a leak, so that it lost air, then altitude and fell on the ground, there is areas we cannot watch from the hab because of the terrain and it might be here. The rope might have broken, being cut by friction on a stone we used as the base, then is has gone far. The pod above the balloon might have broken, then it is more complicated, we might find it tomorrow, but the balloon might be lost, or we could find both parts of it. Anyway, even if it is not good news, we have another balloon, all the equipment (because we removed the camera), is not very expensive. We bought everything in double as we considered a potential failure.

To end with, I spend yesterday’s evening with Mouâdh on the observatory. It was the occasion for me to shoot some videos of him using the telescope for the mission video, and to learn a bit more about astronomy, while observing Orion’s nebula or Jupiter and its moons. I also brought the camera, and took some shots, just to make sure that Earth was rotating, while freezing in the desert night, waiting for my long exposition time shots to be taken.

Louis MANGIN, crew journalist MDRS 175

Journalist report, 02/28/17 – Sol 16: Mardi gras.

Today, no EVA was planned in the morning, so that we decided to wake up one hour late. After our sport session, we celebrated Mardi Gras in the American way: eating blueberry pancakes. The day was supposed to be studious: everybody has realised that we now have only three days left, and we all want to end the simulation well. Everything that we wanted to be done by the end of it is now supposed to be well advanced.

Personally, I work hard on the mission video (you may notice a name change). I want it to be quality work and try to do my best on it. Video is probably now the best and fastest was to reach a very large audience, to achieve my journalist goal: make noise, spread the idea that it is possible to work for space exploration without being a 45 years old engineer hidden in a lab, or to make it simple: promote our project and the Mars Society’s. The problem is, I don’t really master video editing, and even if I learn as fast as I can, I am not very productive, even if my efficiency increases every day. It is a pleasure to discover the tools we use to create quality projects, and I was lucky enough to be able to borrow a good video camera from a student association from my school, so that I am very well equipped. I now have already hours of work, and absolutely want to be able to release it before leaving, that is why I will have to lock me in for a couple of hours during the days to come.

At the same time, Xavier and Simon are writing a paper on emergency situations on Mars, and how to deal with it. Xavier is comparing it to sub diving, and Simon to alpinism. This is why, this afternoon, during a short EVA, in which I took part with both of them, after a quick engineering check, I was mandated to shoot new photos of them showing how to assist a victim, while being in EVA, to illustrate their explanations. I was also sent by Louis to test our Optinvent glasses. He was following me from inside the hab, using their video camera, and I was able to record my voice during key moments of the EVA, by using the accelerometer, triggered by a head movement.

Tomorrow, Simon would probably be able to deploy his atmospheric balloon, according to the meteo. This is why we planned a long EVA in the morning. At the same time, I will stay in the hab, filming my last missing shots, and editing our video.

Louis MANGIN, crew journalist MDRS 175