ENGLISH
Sol 04
Planet of the Apes
Yesterday night didn´t end with movies and popcorn. The habitat became a forum for discussion and opinion where the seven crew members tried to describe the observable universe in all its facets. The conversation went from mysticism to modern physics and then to biology and genetics to end up trying to describe the nature of humanity. Apparently one third of the earth’s gravity has caused the crew’s ideas to fly better.
Today our Sun 4 started ten minutes earlier, 7:13 in the morning and the mats were already on the ground floor of our new home so that our XO made us wake up to the rhythm of 128 bpm as soundtrack.
Two of our Mars mission experiments require soil samples so four crew members went out to collect more than ten kilograms of Martian soil at the same time that our crew scientist tested parts of his space suit made on Earth in the best laboratories of the world and by his own hands. EVA successful, the ziplock bags are almost over.
Commander and journalist visited the solar observatory to find sunspots and some small coronal mass ejections. Who would have thought that the orange circle we see in our telescope would give life to our home millions of years ago but at the same time it seem so insignificant in the vast universe among other billions of stars bigger, smaller, hot or cold.
To summarize our feeling with breakfast, lunch and dinner we can say that we had never before enjoyed healthy food and those little details like a hot chocolate with marshmallows or a homemade bread after a full day of work. The Porg seems happy stealing part of our food ration, luckily our rocket contained enough provisions.
The day concludes with many ideas. Everyone knows their situation, their country of origin and their environment, but if there is one thing we are sure is that borders, titles and names often distance the true success of humanity. And as a clear example, we are here today in red lands representing and speaking for Latin America when nobody ever imagined that it would be possible.
Tomorrow in our Sun 5 a full day of research awaits for us to continue work in our projects although we certainly expect Martian cake.
LATAM II will continue to inform.
Tania Robles, MDRS Crew 187 Journalist