Author: jburk

29th March 2018
Journalist Report

Makoto Kawamura

Three days since door has been closed.
This means that it has been three days since I could see the outside world directly. In the habitat base, it is through the window and the view is from the helmet if I wear the EVA (extra-vehicular activity) suit.
Mars is not an environment which allows the human body to feel its atmosphere directly. When I go to EVA, I am unable to do everything I could do. First of all, I cannot touch my face. I cannot blow my nose while in EVA as well. Even if I have seen this graceful view of the scene, I do not have the full-option to explain about my feeling. I cannot see the display on the camera and I feel it is difficult to manipulate my camera. Before coming here, I tried to carefully select my instruments. However, the freedom of the real world is far away from what I thought.
Important life material such as electricity, water, garbage, communication, even some daily material can turn our life to be deadly such as passing to the tunnel to the dark world step by step. This time that I cannot see the outside of the world is enough to feel that I am living in the different world right now.
This is, at the same time, that our team, Crew191, is trying to simulate being on Mars right now. From waking up in the morning to going to bed, we are attempting to spend a day on Mars honestly. That is why we have actively discussed the mission with each other and sometimes we have impoliteness while in the discussion. Even myself, I am surprised that I am changed by only closing door and this environment in the center of a desert. When humans reach Mars, the situation faced by us is going to be happening and I am sure that there is a someone who would like to report life on Mars in the next several years or decades, could be several centuries later.
When a journalist gets to Mars, what is going to be asked? And what should record? Although it is about a week to be a crew 191 member as well as life at the MDRS, I think that I should get back to regular life which is not inside of a box as much as I can.
Winds with sand are hitting our white dome when I see the outside through the window.
I think that the view of red desert and rocks through the window is the space that reminded me the opinion as well.

WATER = AIR = MIZU

WATER AND (HUMAN) BODY
Mayday…
Mayday…
Water contaminated…
Water contaminated…
(Copy from MDRS Radio Conversation on SOL#08)

Water is essential for cells to function properly, means it enters into the composition of the cells. Water as a main constituent of blood contributes to the transport of nutrients to the cells. In deed the nutrients are transported by the blood. Water also is just as important to our bodies as it is to life on earth.
In our SIM at MDRS right now, we only can take shower once per 3 or 4 days. Not like on Earth (in reality) where we can actively – do a properly – wash our body as much as we want.
Anyway, talking about “water”, since we were born to this planet, water accounted for nearly 80 percent of our body weight and accounts for as much as 70 percent as our adult body. Similarly, nearly three-fourths of the earth’s surface is covered by water. Unlike the earth, our “human body” can easily lose large percentages of its water content whereas all the water that existed on the earth millions of years ago is still present today.

NEW BUSSINESS ON MARS ; Can i have IceCream please…
Memory, Water, and Brain…
Which one you will choose if the only have one option to taking care the most… Hmm, NONE i guess ; and yup! those three option stay in one line direction in our body system. For example, our brain uses 20 percent of the total oxygen in your body. If your brain loses blood for 8 to 10 seconds, you will lose consciousness. And when we were born, our brain was almost the same size as an adult brain and contained most of the brain cells for your whole life. What do you think?
Related with the memory, every time we recall a memory or have a new thought, we are creating a new connection in your brain. And you know exactly “water” is the most we need on this body system.
And how about if we can put “our tent” on MARS and enjoy our entire life over there? And where i can buy ice-cream? 🙂 …Lately we heard that some scientist found clean water ice just below MARS surface, so then the next question is : Can we do mining there…or can we use water as much as we want to support our life in Red Planet?

Problem is, properties of that ice, how pure it is, how deep it goes, what shape it takes and also how big is that, are still a mystery. We didn,t know exactly until nowdays, but we are sure that there is “ice” under. But they also said, some trouble how to explore is, dirt, rocks, and other surface-level contaminants make it hard to study the stuff. MARS landers can dig or drill into some meters from the surface. Its possible to do in the coming years.
“On Mars, when you see something bright, it usually means ice,” says Richard Zurek, chief scientist for the MARS Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who was unaffiliated with the study.
Frozen water also lies beneath the surface. Scientists discovered a slab of ice as large as California and Texas combined in the region between the equator and north pole of the Red Planet. And the European Space Agency’s MARS Express spacecraft captured images of sheets of ice in the cooler, shadowed bottoms of craters, which suggests that liquid water can pool under appropriate conditions.
INTERESTED TO HAVE A NEW ICE CREAM BUSSINESS IN THE FUTURE HUMAN COLONY UP THERE?

Seriously, its possible to make your DIY ice-cream on MARS mission. 🙂
(…like we did once during our SIM right now in MDRS…)