1213-JournalistsReport

Journalist Report

12/13/2013

Antoine Juhel

As we approach the end of our first week here on Mars, we have come to realize that our most difficult challenge isn’t living in the most hostile environment known to men, but living with each other. The one quality that makes us so very different from other species of life on Earth, is the astounding diversity present in the Human race. That diversity is one of our greatest strengths; however, history has also shown us with its multiple senseless wars and conflicts, that it can also be our greatest weakness. You might think this a rather grandiose metaphor. Nonetheless, when six very different personalities are isolated in a confined environment for an extended period of time, small differences and annoyances become much more obvious and harder to overlook. None of us thought this would be easy, but we didn’t realize it could be this hard. We still have a lot to overcome but I have no doubt that if anyone can be successful, this crew can.

Aside from everything else, today was a rather normal day with the usual amount of daily tasks around the Hab. A problem with the heating system was detected and traced back to a faulty electrical breaker. However, in the process of fixing that problem, the water pump was inadvertently triggered, which resulted in water overflowing from the tank.

Thankfully, this was caught in time and the Hab sustained no significant damage.

EVA team 1 went on their third EVA, this time without the Rovers and walked 1.5 kilometers from the Hab in order to continue usability testing on the armband GPS devices, as well as to test a new suit design. The new suit design received mostly negative comments as it was heavier than the current suit, and the helmet fogged up twice as fast as the current ones. This significantly impacted the EVA as the crewmember testing the suit had to stop multiple times to rest and clean his helmet. These findings will be communicated to Mission Support in order for them to improve the suit design.

Tonight, we will be working on setting up the telescope with the equipment we received yesterday. Hopefully we should be able to track that rogue meteorite and get a more complete assessment of the situation. We will be able to report further on this situation in future communications.