Crew 219 Journalist Report, 17 JAN 2020
Author: Nathan Hadland, Crew 219 Executive Officer
Sol 12
And That’s All Folks
We ended sim today at 1700 hours. We emerged from the Hab and collectively breathed in the fresh air and watched the sunset. The crew took in the beauty of the Utah desert without spacesuits for the first time in two weeks. I looked around at the crew and am content with the relationships I have strengthened and the work we have accomplished during our mission. Some of our research will be incorporated into senior theses, PhD dissertations, conference abstracts, and white papers. I believe that the impact of our work will extend far beyond this mission and will assist future MDRS crews as well as human space exploration as a whole. As the president of the Astrobiological Research and Education Society (ARES) at the Florida
Institute of Technology, my job is to ensure that the MDRS crews we organize reflect the overall values and vision of our organization. MDRS Crew 219 has accomplished that goal.
We woke up this morning to a hail storm and intense wind. For breakfast, Dave broke out his last can of bacon and prepared us a delicious breakfast to kick off the day of furious scrubbing and typing. Today was largely spent thoroughly cleaning the Hab and finishing up our mission summary. Dave (CO) and I started with a document of over 6,000 words and truncated it down to below the 2,000-word limit. That was an intense process! For lunch, Hannah made us cornbread and a compilation of the foods we had left. For dessert, we feasted on the leftover chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.
After ending sim, we went outside and began the tedious and brutal process of cleaning the mud-covered rovers in the cold using sponges and scrapers. After comms window tonight, we will enjoy the world’s best chai tea prepared by our geologist, Abdul as well as apple spice cake prepared by Hannah. We are also going to watch the MDRS essential film: The Martian. Overall, I had a phenomenal time at the Mars Desert Research Station, and I am excited for future ARES crews to return.