Crew 297 – Janus 1 Journalist – David Laude
"Mars is much closer to the characteristics of Earth. It has a fall, winter, summer, and spring. North Pole, South Pole, mountains, lots of ice. No one is going to live on Venus; no one is going to live on Jupiter." – Buzz Aldrin
With one more Sol remaining after today there are heightened thoughts towards completion of individual goals among us. Some goals, while having made progress, remain incomplete and at least two crew members have hopes to come back to Mars for further research work on this red planet.
The morning EVA team, Pawel and Matt S. first tested Case in the usual way, by defining an objective and some obstacles. Case was able to complete its mission and return to the starting point, but only after several recalculations, each which required manual intervention before it would resume autonomous operations. Next was a simple terrain capability test in full manual mode, attempting to climb a 30 degree slope. Case made it about 3/4 of the way up the hill and then lost traction on the loose regolith, after which the test was ended.
The afternoon EVA team, Dave and Matt L., road rover Opportunity to Somerville Overlook to acquire telephoto photos of the sedimentary rock layers in the walls of the escarpments. The view was stunning, like that of a nascent Grand Canyon, complete with the Canyon’s range of Earth tone colors. As the weather turned cloudier and windier the team headed back towards MDRS, but made a planned stop at Chandor Chasma for additional photos of stratigraphy and rocks. These were then uploaded to our Crew’s website for later analysis by Crew Geologist Sarah.