Science Report – April 18th – Mars Desert Research Station

Science Report 18 April 2019
Crew 210
Submitted by Paul Sokoloff

Today we continued to process the soil samples taken at each of the 12 transects we conducted over the last few days. In the Science Dome, we measured the pH and salinity and characterized the texture of the soil samples. These data will be used to characterize the ecotones of the deserts around MDRS in an upcoming paper.

We continued to collect new plant specimens opportunistically, including an annual invasive grass, (Annual Wheatgrass – Eremopyrum triticeum) newly recorded for MDRS.

We plan on continuing our lab work and wrapping up data recording for the plant project tomorrow.

About The MDRS

The Mars Desert Research Station in the Utah desert was established by the Mars Society in 2001 to better educate researchers, students and the general public about how humans can survive on the Red Planet. It is the second Mars analogue habitat after the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station was established in 2000.

Over 200 crews of six-person teams have lived in 1-2 week field visits at MDRS to simulate life on the Martian surface. Researchers and students alike have explored the Mars-like terrain in the area surrounding the station in full “spacesuits”, maintained the station’s systems, grown plants in the GreenHab to support themselves and even recycled their waste water.

Our activities at MDRS are not only about informing the public, but also conducting real research to bring humanity that much closer to the reality of human exploration on the planet Mars.

Annual field seasons at MDRS run approx. October through May. Anybody can apply to be on a crew, and we also need volunteers to help with the project.

Management Team

Mission Support

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Science Report – April 18th

Like this:

Related

Share this:

Like this:

Related