Mars Desert Research Station

Science Report – January 25th

Sol 10 Science Report – 3d printing project

25/01/17

3D Printing the groundbase for martian exploration
Crew Engineer

Needless to say that the first expedition to Mars will be difficult. It
will be even more difficult, not to say impossible, if nothing is prepared
in advance. The first crew won’t be able to book a hotel on Mars if that
hotel doesn’t even exist in the first place. They won’t be able to enjoy a
nice cup of tea and walk in T-shirt inside a habitat if that habitat hasn’t
been even built in the first place. My point here is that we need to
manufacture a few manned-infrastructures in advance and make sure these
maintain pressure conditions similar to those we can find on Earth while
providing reasonable thermal and radiation shielding.

Hopefully, with the 3d printing technologies currently available or in
development, the first habitats may be printed directly on Mars using
nothing else but INSITU resources and robots that would 3d-print and
assemble blocks together to design complex infrastructures.

The concept proposed and currently being studied at MDRS, is to manufacture
elementary blocks that can also contain water within their structure. The
water can be used not only for daily usage, but, can also provide extra
radiation shielding.

The first week at MDRS, we encountered several issues with the 3D printer
which didn’t allow us to print bricks but we managed to print 4 bricks over
the last days. Every brick takes 17h on average, and prints the outer shell
of the brick using PLA filament (plastic). For future studies, laser
sintering technology is suggested to simulate a real application on the
Martian soil. With the crew geologist Roy Naor, once the brick is printed,
we evaluate different types of soil that can be used within the brick to
strengthen it. Future tests are planned for the incoming days, and these
include, building a small infrastructure on an EVA, in order to prepare for
the next iteration of the concept.

The objective of this project is to give a first level of analysis so as to
lay down a first proof of concept.

Journalist Report – January 24th

Sol 9 Journal Report

by Niamh Shaw

Crew Journalist & Artist

Its great that we all share a common passion to inspire the next generation to dream big and believe that they can achieve anything if they are committed and hard-working. So its especially nice that we have been able to do so much outreach during our time at MDRS. In the past 2 days we have communicated with 2 schools- yesterday we spoke to the ‘Young Israeli Astronaut Academy’ cadets, and today with students who are attending the same school that Idriss went to. Even with his old English teacher, Mrs Magalie. They asked us all about our experience here, from the experiments we are doing to our daily lives at MDRS. At the end of the call, a shy student came on and wanted to tell Idriss that knowing that he was an inspiration for him since he went to his school. And if Idriss could do it then so could here. It was a special moment and thankfully I had the voice recorder on to capture it.

Earlier today Michaela spoke with Slovakia’s biggest radio station, we chimed in a little bit too. Tomorrow a French news channel are coming to make a small documentary about our mission. We are receiving questions from our followers on social media, which we are answering every day and posting. People have responded very positively and we can see that our mission is going to continue long after our time at MDRS.

This is why we do what we do. This is why we are all here at MDRS. If we fail at all our experiments and all my art is never realised, it no longer matters. Success is ours.

Warms the cockles of my heart.

Peace out, peeps!

Crew Photos – January 24th

Outside HAB January 24th 2017 Rick and Roy study the landscape out on EVA (Credit Niamh Shaw)

HAB January 24th 2017 Crew 173 speak with French students about their mission (Credit Niamh Shaw)

HAB January 24th 2017 Crew 173 team photo (Credit Niamh Shaw)

HAB January 24th 2017 Idriss sets up comms to chat with French students.

Main Airlock January 24th 2017 Michaela and Niamh finally manage a picture together before heading out on EVA.

Outside HAB January 24th 2017 MDRS from the plateau above (Credit Niamh Shaw).

Outside HAB January 24th 2017 Niamh Rick and Roy celebrate their EVA (Credit NIamh Shaw).

Sol Summary – January 24th

MDRS Sol 9 Summary

24/01/17

Summary Title: Boys and Girls Like to Kiss, the Fall of Idriss and Roy.

By GreenHab Officer Rick “Tricky Dicky” Blake

Mission Status:

More and laughs, science and cultural exchanges

Sol Activity Summary:

This morning we had pancakes for brekky, followed by the taping of a birthday message for Roy’s mum. We also had a great chat to some French year 12 science students, who were keen as beans to learn about our mission here at the MDRS, as well as the future of the space industry. I learned the Hebrew alphabet (which feels like cracking secret codes), and continued my work in the GreenHab. The rest of the crew watched me learn Hebrew.

In the afternoon, Roy, Niamh and I went out for an EVA. Roy’s plan was to collect some more geological samples, both to test for the presence of carbonates, and to gather some regolith for use with the 3D printed bricks Idriss is working on. I was after some regolith to test for suitability to potentially be used as a starting block for generating soil. Niamh came with us to capture some footage of an EVA, as well as to get some shots of the landscape. During the EVA, we saw the first episode of ‘Boys and Girls Like to Kiss’ Season 3, which was a real doosy.

Tonight saw us sharing a Moroccan meal for Idriss’ culture night, as well as hearing about the history and state of Morocco, including Idriss’ Berber roots.

Look Ahead Plan:

Tomorrow we have a film crew from France coming to see us. This will take up most of the day, but shouldn’t be too disruptive hopefully. We will be continuing with our scientific projects and we have an exploration EVA planned.

Anomalies in Work:

Saw an alien hovercraft during EVA.

Weather:

Today was sunny in the morning with clouds and wind increasing in the arvo. Rainwater from yesterday mostly gone now.

Crew Physical Status:

I lightly bumped my tooth on a coffee mug. The rest of the crew are nominal. Healthy and safe.

EVA Report – January 24th

EVA Report:

SOL: 9

Date: 24/01/2017

Person filling out the report: Roy Naor

Crew members involved in the EVA: Roy Naor, Richard Blake, Niamh Shaw.

EVA leader: Roy Naor

Begin: 2:00pm

End: 4:35 pm

Type of EVA: Walking + ATV 350, ATV 350, ATV 4X4

Purpose: : Collecting regolith and soil samples from various localities in MDRS vicinity to test 3D printing project and for pH and salinity as candidates suitable for crops.

UTM Coordinates: Northing : 4250100 Easting : 518000 Zone : 12 S

Summary: We climbed up the Kissing camel ridge and collected silicified conglomerate for further analysis. Later on we collected the common red regolith that accumulates as the Brushy Basin topsoil to use in our ISRU 3D printed blocks test. We ended up climbing to radio ridge for the Dakota sandstone regolith and sampled it to use in in the ISRU project. A second bag of regolith was also collected to be tested for pH and salinity. This is to determine whether the regolith could be a future candidate for GreenHab soil.

3D Printer Activity Timelapse Video

Crew Photos – January 23rd

HAB Jan 22nd 2017 Idriss has Secured sponsorship from French startup Teach on Mars

Main Airlock January 22nd 2017 Crew 173 flight suits

Hab Jan 22nd 2017 Slovakia Culture night at the HAB

Outside Hab January 23rd 2017 Rick and Idriss on EVA (Credit Rick Blake)

HAB January 23rd 2017 Roy and Rick speak with students in Israel

HAB January 23rd 2017 Roy and Idriss speak with students in Israel

Crew Photos – January 22nd

Airlock January 22nd 2017 Crew 173 flightstuits hanging in the main airlock area (Credit Niamh Shaw)

Outside Hab January 22nd 2017 Michaela on EVA (Credit Michaela Musilova)

Outside Hab January 22nd 2017 Michaela and Idriss on Eva (Credit Michaela Musilova)

Science Dome January 22nd 2017 Geology samples being tested for carbonates by Roy and Rick (Credit Roy Naor)

Outside Hab January 22nd 2017 Michaela conducting fieldwork on EVA (Credit Michaela Musilova)

Outside HAB January 22nd 2017 Idriss on EVA (Credit Michaela Musilova)

Main Airlock January 22nd 2017 Michaela and Idriss head out on EVA (Credit Niamh Shaw)

Hab January 22nd 2017 The first 3d printed brick is almost complete (Credit Niamh Shaw)

Hab January 22nd 2017 Roy and Idriss succeed at printing the first 3d printed brick (Credit Niamh Shaw)

Hab January 22nd 2017 Niamh photographs Michaela at work (Credit Roy Naor)

Hab January 22nd 2017 Cloudy day at MDRS (Credit Niamh Shaw)

Sol Summary – January 23rd

MDRS Sol Summary Report for Sol 8

Crew Journalist & Artist Niamh Shaw

Summary Title

Gigabytes and Gallons and blustery gales.

Mission Status:

All is well with Crew 173. News of our mission spreads back on Earth, and as interest mounts, we must prepare for delayed comms between Earth and Mars in speaking with schools and news agencies.

Sol Activity Summary:

Like sheafs of wheat in the bountiful fields back on Earth, who bend and bow to the beat of the wind and weather, we too must adapt daily to the weather that Mars brings us. We had 2 interesting EVA’s planned for the day, but due to bad weather, we set them side and focussed our attention instead to our other projects today, specifically outreach. Roy had a request to speak with some students on Earth earlier this morning. After a series of comms tests he obtained a secure connection (22 minutes ahead of us, of course) and spoke with the students from the ‘Young Israeli Astronaut Academy’, a programme which is part of the Davidson Institute of Science Education, the educational arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The students were interested in discussing the geological experiments with Roy including the 3d printed bricks and regolith which they will be filled with. They also spoke to Rick and Idriss about their participation in the project. Then the crew knuckled down to preparing another video for our outreach activities which Niamh is in the middle of editing. We have high hopes for the final product and predict that it will pique the interest of even more Earthlings, highlighting the importance of our work here. There are remnants of last nights Slovakia culture night around the communal area, a reminder of the great evening’s entertainment our commander provided for us.

Look Ahead Plan:

We continue to 3D print our modular brick system, and with Michaela’s and Roy’s students experiments from Slovakia and Israel respectively. Niamh continues to document our experience and hopes to complete her art project by the end of the week. We will push hard on more outreach activities for the remainder of our time on Mars, including answering some of the many questions that have been sent in to us from Earthlings.

Anomalies in work:

We are trying to understand how we are consuming an inordinate amount of water and internet usage as we have made no changes to our daily routine. Something is afoot and we will strive to solve this ‘gigabytes and gallons’ anomaly.

Weather:

Weather today was less familiar to us, an inclement morning more akin to an Irish ‘soft day, thank God’ (rain, rain and more rain, with blustery gales). It perplexed the crew but hibernophile Niamh took them through the experience of getting ‘soaked to the bone, whilst simultaneously getting the wind taken out of ya’. Some understood, others still looked clueless. Thankfully, the afternoon cleared up nicely to the more familiar chilly martian sun we have grown to love since landing here. So we could put an end to describing the many different forms of rain in Ireland.

Crew Physical Status:

The crew is in good shape but getting cabin fever due to our inability to stretch the Martian legs, so as to speak. Tomorrow is another sol.

EVA:

Due to the inclement weather (see above), EVA’s were stripped back to a short and local perambulation by Rick and Idriss, to do our necessary operations activities. They returned flushed and invigorated by the special time they spent alone together. We will resume our planned EVA’s tomorrow when the more familiar Martian weather conditions return.

Reports to be filed:

sol 8 summary

Eva report

Eva request

Commander’s report

Operations report

Support Requested:

Information about water readings and internet anomaly

Commander Report – January 23rd

Commander’s report Sol 8

Michaela Musilova

“My daughter is on Mars and I have not heard from her in days. I am worried”. Such was the complaint my father made to his doctor a few sols ago. It is true. As soon as I arrived on Mars I plunged straight into my new life here, so much so that I disconnected almost completely from my life back on Earth. In a way it was so liberating. Suddenly, all the concerns and problems of your job, relationships and generally every day life issues are hundreds of millions of kilometres away. You start to feel like you’re living another life, perhaps even starting from a fresh slate.

Only checking my emails brings me back to the harsh reality back on Earth. Each email account has gotten into the hundreds of unread emails. I would not even check them to spare me that pain of feeling extremely behind on everything. However, we have to communicate with Mission Support back on Earth every night for two hours, who help us with any of our problems on Mars. We also have to send them reports about all of our activities on Mars for the given day and get approval for our planned activities for the next day. Mission Support is in many ways like a parent, watching over us. But at a distance and unable to help us immediately should something bad happen.

Indeed, we are all alone on Mars. Even the aliens have backed down again and have hidden themselves into the hills. We have to be able to survive on our own no matter what the circumstances. We have only been here for just over a week and we have had the “joy” of experiencing quite a selection of interesting circumstances. Our very first few days revolved around a battle with a malfunctioning toilet, forcing us to use our imagination to the maximum. You see, it was a bit of a catch 22. We have very limited amounts of water here with us, but in order to make the toilet function again we need to flush it repeatedly during the day…

Then came the multiple alien invasions, followed by a snow storm and now a leaking water pipe. The past day has been particularly entertaining, as the water pipe started to leak even faster, our communication with Earth dropped during the crucial two-hour Mission Support window and then very strong Martian winds have been ravaging our small colony. Luckily, no big damage has been made so far. Let’s just hope that Mars will stop fighting our presence here so persistently. We are grateful our “parent” is trying to guide us from afar and we hope that we will solve our urgent problems soon.

While worrying about surviving on Mars may sound like a rough battle and quite the mission by itself, we have our hands full with many other activities and responsibilities here. As my crew’s commander, I have to make sure everything is running smoothly in our Martian colony, everyone is doing their job/research and that we all get along. I am pleased to say that this has been going really well so far. All my crewmates have been actively involved in their research/outreach projects, despite all of the distractions Mars is throwing upon us. Everything from 3D printing, geological studies to growing spinach through my Slovakian students’ experiment is going very well. We are all also having a great time here, whether it’s doing our chores, writing reports to going on EVAs together and enjoying our culture nights. Last night was my Slovakian culture night and we had a blast.

So yes, I do live my new life on Mars fully. So much so that I forget about my life back on Earth. I of course do not forget my loved ones, friends and family. Similarly, I am very grateful to the wonderful support that I have had from my followers around the world. I think about you all regularly, but just like my many work problems that are awaiting me and spamming my mailboxes, you are just too many million miles away now and I have to learn to live without you while I am here. The more I will be grateful to be with you all again once my journey back to Earth will begin.

Take care for now Earthlings, until we meet back on Terra once again.