309-JournalistsReport

Journalist report

Olenka Jibaja Valderrama

03/09/2015

Hello Mission Report:

Yesterday, after sending our daily reports, we gathered and listened to a Peruvian radio program called “Viaje a otra dimensión”. We heard it because Dr. Julio Valdivia was interviewed. He is a doctor and astrobiologist who conducts the astrobiology Group in Peru, Jim Gora and Romulo Cruz are part of this team. I found the interview very interesting as he talked about Mars exploration, he also mentioned that he firmly believes that life out of Earth is possible. Finally, he talked about La Joya, a place in Peru that looks very similar to Mars in which simulations can be possible.

Romulo Cruz has dried his soils samples in the heater at 150°C so he could sieve and analyze them. During this process, he found an important amount of clay in the soil sample from Morrison Formation; which is promising because this project consists in getting organic components from clay.

Jim Gora has finished the program of image processing that will be use in order to add a 3D relief to the pictures taken by the drone.

Daniel has woke up really early today to finish his circuit cards. He is a little bit tired now, but happy because it was a very hard part of his project and it is finally ready to assemble to the structure.

Sergio Postigo, Luis Castillo and I have made an instrument that measures the water level in the static tank. We used PVC tubes and wood. Sergio tried it as part of this daily measures and found out that it actually works, so we are really happy. We are sure this instrument will also help future crews to take more precise measurements. It is not a permanent modification, the equipment is intact.

Attached are pictures from today.

Best regards,

Olenka Jibaja Valderrama

Journalist - Crew 150