Month: December 2018

Crew 201 Journalist Report – 28DEC2018

The Martian Chronicles

[SOL 13] – To the Stars through hardships

It is said that the hardest lessons for a human being come after they have gone through a hardship whatever it might be. Our history of exploration has come at great costs and hard lessons. Some lessons are costly, destroying several million dollar state of the art equipment; some lessons are grave, killing a quite a few; some lessons are demanding, permanently affecting oneself and others. Expanding humankind to the stars without risk and without hardships is impossible to believe and thus, sometimes a brave few have to go to hardships so others may follow the path.

MDRS Crew 201 – MEx-1

Our mission days are rapidly coming to an end. We are starting to look back and remember the long path that we worked to get to Mars. While on Mars, we have a new set of challenges and setbacks that made the crew use all their wit to solve the problems we have encountered: from a frozen pipe to the complete loss of a resupply mission that was coming with experiments for the station. This hardships are lessons learned that will in fact help us find a balance to what the next Exploration Mission (MEx – 2) will have to work with before making it to Mars.

This days at the station we have been actively making an autonomous rover that later will serve the purpose of building a larger one that will support the crew on exploration missions. This rover, printed in Mars, has been a real challenge. Weather conditions in the different modules have not been ideal for our printer and we have had parts that have collapsed right after they are done. Engineering has been working day and night to figure the best way to solve the issues and have it working before leaving the planet. It has been through rather elegant solution approaches that we have had the skill to overcome this issues and finalize every part of the rover.

We have reflected upon ourselves what space exploration means to us and why did we decided to come to Mars. For the crew, this dream started during childhood where we realized the stars hold a meaning to us and to humanity. How to get there? How to explore? How to pave the way for others to continue our work and make our species go where no other living thing has ever imagined? We have fought through hardships to be here. Whether it be people not believing in us to ridiculing the idea that exploration is part of our needs and space is our next frontier. Looking back to this we understand that the path taking us to the Red Planet has been challenging and exciting; that every crew member has supported a part of the mission and that whatever the future holds for us back on Earth will only be the next step to get back to the stars. To our stars.

Dear reader, this chronicles, mean to reflect our view of the adventure of a lifetime. The passion of a group and the support of families and friends who have cheered every single one of the crew members to the point that we feel much love on everything we do. Hardships then, to us, look like another step in our learning experience; another lesson for us to teach the next generation and most of all; they are part of our personal growth to take the best of us and make a better Earth for humans and all the beings that live on the beautiful blue planet.

We will go boldly to the stars through any hardship in our way. Because all the knowledge of our existence and essence comes from the stars themselves.

Ad Astra Per Aspera!

MEx-1 continuará informando.

Genaro Grajeda, MDRS Crew 201 Co-Journalist

Crew 201 Journalist Report – 27DEC2018

The Martian Chronicles

[SOL 12] – Mars, the white planet

Mars is still a mystery for us in many ways. First probes, orbiters and landers were sent from earth to the red planet as early as the mid-60s. There are lots of things that we don’t know about our nearest planet. And there are lots of things that we’ve discovered over the past decades that we could’ve never imagined! Mars and the Earth are different in so many ways. But there are some similarities on both planets as well. For example… did you know that there is snow on Mars?

MDRS Crew 201 – MEx-1

We are almost reaching the end of our adventure, and the red planet has one or two more surprises for us. Something that we haven’t talked about is the location of our mission. We know that the Earth and Mars are very different planets. However, there are a couple of things in which they can be very similar. For example, we can find big mountains on both of them. And, believe it or not, we can see snow on the north and south poles of both planets as well. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Well, that was a big surprise for us too! And that’s why we decided to land on the Martian South Pole, in a place known as “Schmidt Crater”. And today, during our morning activities on the HAB, we experienced something amazing and unexpected. Something that Mission Control informed us that only had a 10% chances of actually happening: snow!

It’s hard to imagine a white Martian landscape. We are used to think about Mars as the Red Planet. But let me ensure you, dear reader, that this place has more exciting surprises to offer. It all started just after having breakfast. We didn’t schedule any EVAs for today, and we planned to do some video recordings all around the HAB. On the middle of those activities, we realized that the temperature started to drop pretty quickly. This was not the first time it happened, so we really didn’t care about that. Then, the first weird thing happened; our crew engineer tried to pump some water from the external (static) to the internal (loft) one. And… it was not working. After some troubleshooting, we found out that the water pipes were frozen! To be honest, we got worried about that situation, because our internal water supply was running low at that time. And trust me on this one! Water is something you don’t want to have trouble with (especially when you have six human beings living under the same roof). Fortunately, the crew managed to work with the pipes defroster in order to get things running again. Thank you, engineering!

In the meantime, we started to work on the video shootings mentioned earlier. We suited up, prepared some interesting topics we wanted to cover, and walked through the connecting tunnels from the main HAB to the Musk Observatory. It was freezing in there! Colder than ever before. It got nearly impossible to keep recording. We were just about to pick our stuff and get back to the HAB… when we saw how those tiny and white snowflakes started to fall, little by little, all over the Martian landscape. That was unbelievable! And amazingly beautiful to see. Our beloved red panorama started to change just in front of our eyes. Mars decided to share with us an experience we never thought to have. It was a lovely reminder of home, indeed. A beautiful image that none of us will never forget.

MEx-1 continuará informando.

Walter A. Calles Glass, MDRS Crew 201 Co-Journalist