Author: jburk

Crew 184 Journalist Report

Willie Schumann

13 December 2017

Title                            The Edge of Mars

Narrative                  Today for the first time, since our arrival, we could see a real dense set of clouds covering the Martian sky, which was really nice for a change. We jumped right into our space suits after breakfast and were poised to explore Matryoshka site six for more geological probes for earth. Yesterday our rover Deimos, named after our Martian Moon, was pretty worn out in the end of our EVA. So we decided to give him a little rest today and took its brothers Spirit and Opportunity out for a ride.

Both rovers are still very young and therefore un-experienced. We have to take them out from time to time for their batteries to grow stronger. Our exploration site today was the notorious Lith Canyon, which is very far north, basically at the edge of the Martian landscape that is still accessible for us considering our technical capacity. If we would go even further, we might not contain the power to come back in time to survive.

So it was a considerate risk to take the new rovers, but you have to stretch the range of the possible to progress. Space travel is not about always playing the save cards, it’s about to expand the borders of what mankind can achieve. And talking about the current limitations makes me refer to yesterdays evening. We opened a care package from earth with space food from Roskosmos, the Russian Space Agency. We got meat and cheese in tubes, which was quite alright, but there is definitely still room for culinary improvement. But as I am speaking Russian it was fun to get deep into the ingredients and share it with my fellow crewmembers.

We reached Lith Canyon pretty directly with no real detour. There are somewhat natural roads on Mars, shaped by wind and erosion. From experience we do not test our rovers to the extreme and keep them mainly on flat surfaces. That means, that we have to walk quite long distances through rough terrain. These longs walks on the other hand create other problems, but I will come to that in a little while.

The clouds over Lith canyon welcomed today’s EVA crew, consisting of First Officer Randazzo and Crew Engineer Hunt, in dramatic fashion and we found our designated sample sites very easily. The rocks, that were lined up on the walls of the Mountains looked like thin brittle plates, that were sprinkled over a desert. Almost like slate slabs made from very dense and compressed sand, very impressive.

But you have to remain very alert. When we walked closer to edge of the area we could look very deep into the maw of the canyon. You really have to watch your feet so you don’t accidently step on a sandy slab, which cracks and makes you slide. We always kept enough distance to the edge and backed one another up.

For Randazzo and Hunt it was actually the last EVA for a long time. They will be needed for other duties in the weeks to come. So there was a certain melancholy lingering in the air, complimented by the cover of clouds. We decided to shoot a remote control picture to commemorate the moment. And for the fact, that it was almost shot blindly from the ground it turned out brilliant.

So we finished our daily mission and headed back to the rovers. I was always a little bit behind, because the sun breaking through the net of clouds captivated me for additional shot. My sight was a bit blurred from my heavy breath, caused by the intensity of hiking up and down the canyon. I was lost for a brief moment, but reunited with the crew through radio communication.

But we all were disoriented and didn’t recall the position of our vehicles. Because of the rather long walk and the time we had spent in the canyon we couldn’t remember were we came from. So we chose the tallest crewmember around to go to a lookout to help us, who was obviously Crew Engineer Hunt. Did I mention, that we nicknamed him Big Foot? Now you know why!

Big Foot proved his value once again and got visual of our rovers. The sun was standing already low and we really had to hit the pedal to get to the hab before nightfall. Our young rovers contained their energy at a surprising high level. So it was quite a steep learning curve for the team and our vehicles, and the risk to take them out was proven justified. Another day on Mars has almost passed and we are all a bit wiser than before. Thank you for that dear red planet.

Personal Logbook             It was a great day on Mars with new visual impressions and experiences. The days now become shorter for us and the nights longer. As I am dependant on light I can not work us much as I want. I have to use my remaining time wisely to receive the results, that I want to achieve.

The group definitely grows closer together and knows one another inside out. I wonder how the dynamic of the entity that is crew 184 will develop in the future. For the time being we are happy for the time, that we can spend together.

Thank you very much for your help and attention.

Willie Schumann, Journalist, Crew 184

Crew 184 Journalist Report

Willie Schumann

12 December 2017

Title                            Going Further, than Ever Before

Narrative                  As we are adapting to the Martian day and transitioning from Earth time we are currently staying longer awake and are getting up a little later. I was quite energetic and woke even up before my alarm clock. That gave me the chance to film everyone coming out of their sleeping chamber, which are aligned in a little row next to one another.

Because we sleep longer now we went right on an EVA to Matryoshka Site number five after breakfast. Science Officer Trivedi took the lead, while Doctor Sczepaniak was still very sleepy. As he is anyway quite stoic and monosyllabic we were wondering if he is sleepwalking. I personally thought we have to reanimate him right there in the pre-breathing chamber. But we better leave that to the Doc. Wait a minute…

Today I actually wanted to take the ATV to drive by myself, but as we didn’t put this in the EVA request we had to follow protocol and postpone my personal Martian roadtrip desire to another day. Already in the past days it is one of the hardest challenges to pinpoint the exact spot of our Matryoshka sites as we have to compare the over view satellite pictures to the reality beneath our feet. To complicate things even more two crewmembers of this Mars mission are European and use the metric system instead of the imperial one. So you not only have to be a good a good geologists and pathfinder to master these tasks, but also a mathematician.

As so we took quite an interesting detour, which took us further north on Mars, then ever before. Around the site of the yellow moon we took our rover on a little rollercoaster. Facing a mountain comb we went up and down heavy slopes. The ATV could manage without problems but we were really careful with our rover. When we reached a every high elevation we faced an insane downfall.

We decided to check our geo position again, to make sure, that it was the right site. The ride down and the following climb would be too intense, considering it might not even be the spot we were supposed to be at. And after a short reassessment we realized, that we were a bit too far west from our exploartaion site. We turned and reached our final destination, the meaningful beige moon, shortly after.

 While the Doc was seemingly still sleeping Science Officer Trivedi got very much excited looking at three elevations following shortly after one another. Let’s call them the three hills of the beige moon. Trivedi climbed on the peak of each of them and really dug deep for chemically pure probes of rocks. He got completed dusted and had to remove his pilot suit, after his return to the hab.

While on site he collected strange orange rocks and was fascinated by white shimmering stones further down north. When we went there we discovered that these rocks looked somewhat similar to quartz-stones and reflected the sun light to us. We collected the samples and will to analyze them in the hab lab.

I used this remote spot to make an interview with the Doc, who was still sleepy, but in a very pleasant Zen mode. As he is a man of faith we talked about the question, if the God the humans believe in, is also looking over us Martians? He surely believed so and is poised, that his heroic efforts on the red planet will possibly lead others to come to Mars and to find God here as well.

Maybe a higher force was already looking over us, when we returned to the base. We quickly felt, that the rover was a bit slower than usually and that there was a sensation, if someone was slightly pushing the break. We observed the vehicle superficially, but couldn’t find anything. We blamed it on the dirt and hoped it will fall off. As we continued I noticed that our trustful rover was losing battery level by the minute, which we never noticed before. Within a short period it dropped from 60% to 40%, which made me really worry.

Fortunately the habitat was already on the horizon and we literally slowly turned into the final lane. By then the battery was down to thirty percent and was more or less only crouching to it’s final parking spot. I was getting out of the rover to release it from weight, but I swear the chocolate cake of First Officer Randazzo yesterday night couldn’t have been the problem.

We made it home and will assess the battery problem of the rover tomorrow at sun light. As we have a massive arsenal of vehicles we will definitely be fine and I am sure our handy crew engineer will take care of the faulty one.

Personal Logbook             It was great getting out again and Mars didn’t disappoint us once again. The weather is always great here and the sun strong. For me as photographer the conditions are perfect so far.

It was also inspiring to see new horizons and landscapes once again and to have purpose. When I am stuck in the habitat I sometimes feel a bit if I would lose time.

I think my experiments with the new helmet are completed and it works very good. Nonetheless I will step back to the original helmet, to feel the experience of the other crewmembers had in the past days.

Thank you very much for your help and attention.

Willie Schumann, Journalist, Crew 184