224-JournalistsReport

Olenka Jibaja Valderrama

Journalist Report

02/24/2015

I have bad news and good news. The bad news are that we haven’t found our visitor yet and it seems to have avoided all the traps we put. The good news are that we finally got our food, so we have started our simulation today at noon. Wow, we really got a lot of food! As I am the only girl in the team, I feel the responsibility to keep the members of the crew well-fed and happy. I think I am doing a nice job, it’s incredible how much we can do with freeze dried food. We are planning to bake something on March 2^nd because of our Commander’s birthday, maybe a cake would be a nice idea.

As part of our first day of simulation, we conducted our first EVA in two teams. We were really excited about exploring Mars wearing our suits and we were lucky that it didn’t snow in the afternoon, the sky looked amazingly blue. I am actually tired because the backpack and helmets were heavy, but I had a lot a fun. I can’t wait for our next EVA.

Paul Bakken suggested us to buy a SIM card for emergency calls, unfortunately we haven’t found one. There is no way to let you know if we stop having electricity; what do you think about reporting ourselves every 5 hours so you know that we are all right? If we don’t do it, we may be needing help.