Author: jburk

Crew 206 – 03/09/2019

Sol 13

Authors : Jérémy Auclair, Commander and Benjamin Auzou, Journalist

"Martian Parliament"

Life is often made of compromises and debates. It’s important for the development of a society that people listen to each other’s points of view and take things into account to make the best choices. Even more in a mission like ours were a little number of people have to live together in a confined environment and take important decisions. It’s essential for everyone to share his/her experience and opinion to help the community.

The question of Mars and the exploration of outer space are also an open debate: How to deal with planets’ exploitation? Which laws apply to Mars? What authority will Earth have on a Mars colony? How to define the status of the settlers? There are many unanswered questions that have to be addressed before planning the first manned mission to Mars.

Since the beginning of the mission, we have spent more and more time debating, on various subjects and with different and interesting opinions. It’s a very entertaining activity, with an open mind it’s a great opportunity to learn new facts and to take a step back and see a little more of the whole picture. We have covered a wide range of
subjects. But one thing we have noticed since the middle of our second week is that our reactions have changed during our debates.

All crewmembers are getting more and more emotionally engaged in the debates, react stronger to the opposition and have more difficulty to overcome differences of opinions or ideology. We are all conscious of the effect confinement and isolation have on our social interactions, we see that we react differently to things we are very used to, but it is
still hard to control our responses. But we have prepared ourselves for that, we managed a wide range of situations before the mission that linked us strongy together, and we have the great tendency of laughing things out, which helps to take a step back.

Today was full of successes: we completed the second full Teleop
session (and first in the planned configuration), Norbert observed the
first results of his radiations and music on plants experiments,

Gaspard managed to debug the EVA tracking app he is working on, I baked two delicious cakes, we realized the first long EVA with our spacesuit and Cerise’s counting on Aquapad were interesting today.

However, a disastrous event broke that series of achievements: Gaspard tried to prepare a corn bread, and he is definitely better at engineering than baking…

Crew 206 – 03/08/2019

Sol 12

Authors : Aurélien Mure, Astronomer and Executive Officier and Benjamin
Auzou, Journalist

"The Hab, our shelter"

After the incident of the weather station, we gave a second life and
role to the LOAC : the study of the air inside the Hab. Our goal is to
monitor the particles inside the Hab and compare with the data outside
the Hab. For its first hour of data collecting in the Hab, we submit the
LOAC to a massive particles number. As a matter of fact we cleaned the
Hab and so we raised a lot of dust from the ground. At the precise time
we wrote that report, the wind and the rain are threatening us; and we
are here, confined but above all protected in the Hab. We took advantage
of that day inside the Hab to precise our water monitoring. We spent a
lot of time evaluating the average volume of a flush in order to reduce
our unmeasured water volume.

As a crew fond of Escape Games, we played one before the mission as team
building, and it was a great success. Indeed, the crew has wonderful
skills to escape a room. Unfortunately, the Hab is not an Escape room
and we are here for 21 sols rather than an hour. Confinement is one of
the most interesting aspects of the simulation. It has many sneaky
impacts on every member of the crew. For example it is likely to have
some desires that we do not have in our everyday lives. We all really
wish to go for a hike with our parents, our friends although this is not
something we are used to do. Everybody is used to live far from his
relatives but when they miss us, we know that with a phone call, a train
ticket or a trip by car we can see them or talk to them in a couple of
hours. Here we are confined and isolated. It changes also our perception
of time. It is clear that the days are running really fast as we are in
our routine but we all have the strong impression that we are here for a
long time, not only two weeks. The moments in the day when we face
boredom feel much longer than they usually do. At our entry in the
station our motivation and will were extremely strong and even if we
enjoy the mission the little routine is slowly consuming our will to
begin new experiments or measures. The EVAs are a special moment. Even
if with the Simulation we can’t breathe the fresh air directly it is
satisfying to be able to walk out of the 8m of diameter Hab. As the
landscape is wonderful the EVAs are source of energy for every crew
member. As the wind is blowing around the station these days we are not
asking for EVAs as the Simulation is our first purpose. Indeed Martian
astronauts won’t go out if there is any risk outside so we decided to
stay in the Hab, maybe until Monday. Some of us can enjoy a small extra
space because of their role. In fact, Norbert can relax in the GreenHab,
Gaspard can work alone in the RAM and I (Aurélien) can observe the sun
in the Musk Observatory. Some of us also have activities to spend time :
books, mobile games, knitting, Rubik’s cube. We are spending our days
together, from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm so I want to remind the title of
yesterday’s Journalist Report, it is great to be an ‘unflappable crew’.

Crew 206 – 03/07/2019

Sol 11

Author: Benjamin Auzou, Journalist

“An unflappable crew”

This mission in the MDRS is far from a long calm river, outside the Hab with the weather that changes everyday and also inside the Hab with the disagreements that can happen or with the experiments issues. However we are always acting like a crew and manage to tackle all situations. As a matter of fact, we are working together for more than one year and we are able to evolve together, understand each other’s point of vue or limits. And above all the mission is working so well because we have a good communication and ability to be serious, but more importantly fun and humour have an essential role in our relationships. Indeed life under confinement is easier, and cohesion is improved when the crew can put things in order with laugh.

After the perturbed comms window of yesterday, we played cards. Jérémy, Aurélien, Norbert and I played Monopoly Deal, our new favorite game of the mission, while Gaspard and Cerise were in a furious game of “Crapette rapide”. Gaspard won all the games, he is as fast at crapette as he is lucky at Monopoly.

For Cerise’s birthday, we had a king’s breakfast, lunch and diner : pancakes, cheddar biscuits with garlic and herbs butter, chicken curry, chocolate cake, mixed salad, pastas with fresh pesto. The rest of the crew prepared a wonderful present for Cerise. With that colorful clutch bag she will be a real fashion trendsetter when she will get back to Paris..

We walked out on EVA to rescue our fallen experiment, the LOAC and the weather station. Arriving next to it with the rovers, we evaluated the damages : a strong wind lifted one foot of the tripod from the ground. After placing the station safe back in the engineering airlock we started our complete check of the MDRS to prepare it for the strong winds to come. We fixed all the tarps of the tunnels. Tomorrow and Saturday, the area will be hit by gale force winds. We are ready for that.