2022-2023 Field Season (#22)

Life in our small Martian community is passing quicker than most of us probably thought it would. When you realize you’re about to spend two entire weeks locked in a cylinder of 8 meters of diameter (with a common room of just 25 square meters), it is hard not to feel a bit of anxiety. In the MDRS, the space is located so that all the rooms give directly on the common room, with very little privacy. The ground floor is entirely dedicated to engineering. The outside parts are either reserved to scientific work or are too dangerous to stay in due to cosmic radiation. It is therefore almost impossible to ever be alone. For most people, this is a recipe for disaster. Our crew, however, has been quite lucky. We knew we worked well together as a group, and enjoyed each other’s presence during our brief meetings over the past year. Nothing, however, guaranteed that these feelings would pass the test of time (and in our case, the test of proximity) – but they did! Over the past ten days, we have functioned quite well as a group – there have been no fights, few tensions and many moments of laughter, and so, the time has passed us much quicker than we had thought possible.

One could say that our days at the MDRS all closely resembled each other, and this isn’t necessarily untrue. A typical day like today started with breakfast, another EVA for half the team, and a combination of scientific and academic work. Lunch, delicious as always, was once again cooked by Ariane from the dehydrated ingredients we are now well used to. It is always surprising to see how this unappetizing looking powder magically changes into the food we know so well from back on Earth. We always end up eating just like at home thanks to our dedicated cooks!

Time has indeed passed quick, but we still have work to do. Experiments are not finished and we still have three entire days to go! Thankfully we have received a brand new food shipment from earth, as well as a fresh harvest of tomatoes and greens from the GreenHab, so we are ready to go!

The Mars Desert Research Station is an ever-expanding project. Initially composed of only the main Hab and a GreenHab, new modules have since been added. A solar observatory (the Musk Observatory), an automatic night telescope, solar panels, the Repair and Assembly Module, as well as the Science Dome which has allowed the laboratory to be moved from the restricted lower deck of the Hab to a brand-new area with lots of space to work. Among our researchers working in the Science Dome are Ariane and Fred, both experts in microbiology.

Ariane is a molecular biology graduate, currently beginning her doctorate in the field of genetics. Her experiment, despite being centred on microbiology, is of great importance to the whole crew: she is making Martian bread! Indeed, we may imagine a situation in which we would run out of yeast on Mars, leaving us unable to make one of our favourite staple foods. To keep the bread production sustainable, we would need to get the yeast, lactobacillus, from elsewhere, and that is exactly what Ariane is doing: she is isolating it from human saliva! This is no easy task. First, she sampled saliva and cultivated the many microorganisms it contains in Petri dishes. These Petri dishes were supposed to be filled with what we call a selective medium – a substance which only allows for the growth of a specific microorganism, in this case, lactobacillus. Unfortunately, the shipment from Earth which carried this medium has had an accident, and hasn’t been able to reach us in time. Ariane therefore had to rely on her knowledge of microbiology to manually isolate and cultivate only the required yeast, and no other micro-organism – no easy task, given their very close resemblance! She is currently very close to achieving her goal, and the rest of the crew very close to eating our first true Martian bread (made, in part, from spit)!

Fred, on the other hand, is a biotech and pharma graduate, currently pursuing a doctorate in bacteriology. His fist experiment, concerning plant culture in Martian regolith, has been covered below. In addition to this, he is also working on a microbiology experiment, aiming to evaluate the survival capacity of bacteria in the harsh conditions that exist on Mars. He is using the bacterium bacillus subtilis, a very common microorganism, and placing it in small quartz vials (a material which allows UV rays to pass unhindered), in different conditions around the station to see how many of them will survive. At the end of the experiment, these bacteria will be counted and their numbers compared to a standard sample which will have been staying in the safety of the Science Dome. This experiment is especially interesting because it sets out to answer many questions about the ability of earth-born bacteria, which are therefore adapted to earth-like conditions, to survive in an environment that is literally alien and extremely aggressive. If conclusive, a positive result could mean that the Martian environment is suitable to harbour Earth’s microbes, which could mean many things for agriculture, human life, development, terraforming, and generally our future on the Red Planet.