March 28, 2018
Crew 191 Commander Report 27 March 2018
27 MAR 2018 – Sol3 – Commander Report
Our “earnest Mars play” has finally begun. Speaking of exaggerations, Mars may be a symbol of our curiosity. At the same time, the journey to Mars is also associated with great risk. “Every single aspect of space is conspiring at every moment to pretty much kill humans,” is how one Indian space architect phrased it. It is impossible for us to control Mars. While balancing curiosity and risk, we must carefully move one step at a time. A road without retreat will never allow progress. Here’s where MDRS (Mars Desert Research Station) is, where people with a serious and playful spirit gather together to dream of the future.
Everyone in this life may be imagining a life of “surviving,” as typified by the word “survival.” This is certainly a concern, but as the scale of time spent on Mars increases from “staying” to “living” in a manned Mars mission over the years, it is more a matter of “living” than “surviving.” Real feelings “become more important. It might be a matter of the willingness to be tested in terms of survival, but the ability to live with roots is actually a reliable and predicatable mood. In a tension-forced life, negative feelings easily emerge. “I am OK with myself” does not pass. One absolutely cannot say “Because this is the earth.”
I think that it is my role, as the captain, to make the crews to forget that this place is the earth.
Be curious, Ad Astra, and safe return.
Crew 191 Team Asia Commander Yusuke Murakami