Month: March 2020

Crew 223 Journalist Report 10Mar2020

Author: Clément Plagne, Crew Journalist

Sol 10: Save it for rainy days

Today, we woke up to the sound of raindrops softly hitting the roof of the Hab. On any other day, the idea of spending a day with friends, stuck inside, watching rainfall from the window from the comfort of y. our home can be pleasant. It is much less so when you don’t always get to go outside even when it’s sunny. In fact, it is even less so because we must go outside somehow, but don’t know how we’ll do it safely. The science doesn’t care if it rains, and at least two of us must go on EVA to make sure everything is alright.

The sky is a cruel mistress. Explorers on Mars will be lucky enough to avoid rain, but may have to suffer through massive dust storms. Not knock over Matt Damon’s spaceship bad (the film kind of exaggerates that), but wide enough to cover much of the planet, and capable of causing electrical malfunctions and power losses. The even bigger danger comes from far away. With little atmosphere and no magnetic field, Mars is particularly vulnerable to solar winds and the intense radiation from solar flares.

It’s ironic to write a report about our astronomer’s work on a cloudy morning. Florian’s luckily had the chance of doing some fantastic work while he had clear skies, and still has things to do when he doesn’t do observations. Astronomy isn’t just pointing a telescope at the sky. During the day, the sun needs to be tracked and monitored. Night-time observations through the remote-controlled telescope must be scheduled, with the necessary calibrations that come with it. And once the observations are done, there are heaps of treatment needed to create a beautiful picture, or one where data can be extracted. Besides astrophotography, Florian looks at thirty galaxies in a search for supernovae: incredibly powerful, but very short-lived and extremely rare explosions of massive stars.

Things then began looking up: having a free-ish morning helped us all cook delicious burgers for lunch, we saw some tomatoes beginning to grow, and the sky turned blue in the afternoon which helped us take a look at the observatory and watch the sun live. Things began to look up, until they kind of didn’t.

“This is Shannon, is everyone together right now?”, buzzed the Station Director over radio. That’s an unexpected one, as we’re left alone all day long usually. We were reading, coincidentally, our daily email from Supaéro students back on Earth, with focus on the coronavirus epidemic.

“The World Health Organisation has recently classified COVID-19 as a pandemic.”

Well, not an epidemic anymore, I guess. Earth sure does spin when we’re away. When we cut ourselves off most communications, Italy was looking somewhat worrisome, but things felt fine enough at home. In recent days, it turns out everything looks like it’ll be canceled, and we’re probably in for some quarantine coming back.

The good thing is, we’re probably some of the safest human beings in the world right now. The bad news is, all our plans for our return have been thrown into chaos. There’ll be no crew following us, and no one is looking forward to LA anymore. We began our day with our eyes looking at the sky, and end it looking back at Earth. We look with worry to the people at home, and hope they’re as healthy as we are.

Provenance : Courrier pour Windows 10

Crew 223 Journalist Report 10Mar2020

Author: Clément Plagne, Crew Journalist

Sol 9: Why we do it

If you’re reading this, it probably means that you’re either a family member or friend of ours, interested by science and the exploration of Mars, or both. From your point of view, being out in the desert and being like astronauts for some time is fascinating, or at least intriguing. There’s this funny bubble of odd people, who see the prospect of near-total isolation from the outside world as something to envy, or to try out yourself. They read about the golden age of superhero astronauts, and look with admiration to the people shooting themselves upwards to live in the literal middle of nowhere, six at most in a metal tube zipping through the vacuum of space.

I have no doubt that every member of our crew is in that bubble. But, as it turns out, most of the world lives outside of it. It’d be stupid to imagine ourselves as more adventurous or curious than them – and I like to imagine we’re no less normal than the rest. They simply don’t see the point, and it’s not unreasonable. They ask: how will you live away from everyone you love? Why would you live without showering for weeks? Why are you doing this?

From inside the bubble, it’s easy to dismiss those questions; they simply don’t get it. But they often do, and they make a great point. Everyone here misses loved ones. We miss being clean, we miss walking outside without 10 kilograms weighing on us, we miss eating whatever we want, we miss knowing all about the news, we miss watching any movie or reading any book we want. Some people say that a stay at MDRS is just a two-week vacation, a relaxing time away from everything, and they sure are wrong. But those who think that it’s the opportunity of two weeks of acting like cool astronauts are missing the point too.

Yes, there’s the honeymoon period, where everything is brand new and exciting, and you don’t think you can get enough of it. Every day has its unexpected moments of fun, and of learning. But the routine sets in fast too. Your hair gets greasy, the spacesuits begin to hurt a little, the experiments don’t work that well, and you can’t get new material in anyway. You remember the time where you could leave work at 5 and sit in a park, breathing the fresh air like everyone else. The distinction between work and daily life gets blurry. Things get boring, and that’s the point. So, yes, why are we doing this?

It’s funny how, after writing so negatively, I still have no regrets about being here. I don’t think anyone in the crew does either, and I’d be sad to imagine people leaving the MDRS wishing they’d done something else. No, it’s not that glam. If any one of us ever walks on Mars, it probably won’t be with the grandeur of the giant leap for mankind, but as one of many starting a colony out there. We don’t do it because it’s cool, no, and certainly not for the fun (though we do have a lot of it). It’s work, and that’s all there is. And that’s fine. Everyone needs to work. We all sacrifice a bit of our comfort to give it to others, and the world moves onward a little. Nearly everybody doesn’t even have the privilege of wondering why they’re doing their job, and there are very, very few jobs that don’t get boring or tiring.

I like to think every person is a dreamer. Our dream is to work so that, someday, humanity will flourish somewhere else, away from its cradle. It’s no more or less valid than any other. Here, we have the chance of working towards that dream. There are sacrifices, but few are those who get to try and turn their dream into reality. We’re alone, yes. We’re dirty, yes. But we’re lucky.