Author: jburk

Sol 20

Authors: Benjamin Auzou, Journalist and Cerise Cuny, HSO & Crew Biologist

For our first day back on Earth, we woke up earlier than during the whole mission for a precise goal: enjoy the sunrise on the desert landscape from Hab Ridge. The first glow started to draw the reliefs all around us, and when the first sun’s ray emerged from the horizon line, a giant smile appeared on our faces: Earth called us back, and we are definitely back!

After the sunrise, Norbert, Aurélien and I decided to run to Skyline Rim, this geologic beauty that raised our curiosity for the whole mission but that we couldn’t reach with the rovers and the suits. We touched the Rim and then came back to the Hab, a simple act but that created in us a feeling of freedom that was completely different from the confinement we lived in for twenty days.

Yesterday evening, we invited Atila and David, from the Mars Society support team to eat pizzas and a cake. It’s was refreshing to talk with other people than us six, and that was the same for them.

Following the advice of Atila and David, we went for an EVA at Copernicus. Driving the rovers without the suits gave us an incredible feeling of freedom. We were surprised but pleased to feel the hard blowing wind on our cheeks as we gained speed, finally driving the rovers without helmets or backpacks.

The crew walked down Copernicus highway surrounded by a lunar landscape. The crackling sound of our foot on the dry soil was kind of new to us and we embraced both those usually insignificant noises and the incredible silence of the desert.

We paused a long time on a stiff ridge in total silence, sitting on the raw grey dirt, our head tilted back to get all the warmth that the Sun rays had to offer. No words were necessary to maintain that vibrating harmony. After this divine moment, we headed down into a canyon multiplying jokes and overwhelmed with joy. We headed back to the hab enjoying our last glimpse of Mars.

In the afternoon, we welcomed Crew 207, it was very nice to see some new people and to transmit everything we have learned in the past 3 weeks.

Then with our Executive Officer Aurélien, I took the HabCar and drove to Hanksville to take water in order to refill the tank. That was a strange return to real life and earth society, we met people at the gas station, bought a bottle of soda just for the pleasure to spend a dollar, and simply just enjoyed a car drive on the road. Even if everything was less than 15 miles from us, we were definitely a million miles away from here, on Mars.

Sol 19

Authors: Benjamin Auzou, Journalist, & Norbert Pouzin, Greenhab Officer

The end of an adventure but not the end of the story

On the 24th February, we closed the airlock of the station and started our mission. Three weeks after, we opened the airlock and ended our rotation in the MDRS. These 20 Sols on Mars were intense and unprecedented for us. At 18:01 we opened the main airlock door and ran on the Earth’s ground without a suit for the first time since the beginning of the simulation. Even if we were happy in the Hab, it’s good to be back on Earth and breathe the fresh air. Feeling the atmosphere, or walking on the ground, things appearing to be basic on
everyday life was something unique tonight.

Mars is an ambitious goal for humanity, but Earth is our cradle and feeling it again was more than a simple pleasure. We realized that humanity needs Earth to survive and that we have to take care of our Pale Blue Dot. These three weeks here taught us that our lives don’t need as much comfort as they have. A shower everyday, over-connections, and over-consumption don’t give us as much pleasure as we consume and destroy our planet to have it.

Living here on Mars showed us what was really essential to live and what is important in human relationships. A bit of cooking, nice friendships, great experiments and pétanque seem enough. However, Earth calls us back ; we will soon come back to our daily routines in
France, but we will never forget what happened in the last weeks.

We met on August 2017 in Toulouse, Jérémy was in second year of ISAE-SUPAERO and the rest of the crew arrived for its first year. Then we started working together around the projects of the student association Club MARS. Our group that became crew 206 gets stronger days after days, as we were working together with a same goal, this mission. After more than a year to prepare it, facing many issues, joy, difficulties, we have achieved our mission. We are all very happy for what has been done, for the moments all together, and the science we have made. If the mission is over, what we have achieved is just starting.

Aurélien, Norbert and I were the last marswalkers of our mission. We walked through Candor Chasma, enjoying our last steps and our last views of Mars. We lived a wonderful adventure here and participated actively to take the scientific challenges of the exploration of Mars and we warmly thank the Mars Society, Robert Zubrin, Shannon Rupert, Atila Mezsaros and all the team of CapCom for making this possible.

We spent three extraordinary weeks that we will never forget and that taught us a lot of things. We are more than a crew; we are six friends with strong links that are even bigger than this mission.