0314-JournalistReport

MDRS 165 Journalist Report

Tomoya Mori

Sol 8

Earth date: 03/14/2016

--

The crew has reached a consensus: Life on Mars is more comfortable than our life back on the pale blue dot.

This is not a joke. Every now and then, the crew members would murmur something like “I don’t want to go back…”

Sure, all of us have responsibilities; our daily tasks and research projects keep us busy throughout the day. But what await us between our tasks are great meals, relaxing free time, nap time, movie nights etc… Indeed, food has been our biggest highlight so far, and all of us definitely look forward to meal time more than anything.

When the sun disappears behind the infinite red horizon, we can step outside and observe the millions of stars that surrounds the Red Planet, pondering the future of humanity.

Perhaps we are too relaxed. Or perhaps this is a good sign that Mars is becoming more comfortable place to live. If it’s the latter, then the colonization is going in the right direction.

But if it is the former, then maybe we should be solving more problems. A successful colonization is only accomplished once we become completely independent of all of them supply sources.

What is it that we need to do to “colonize” Mars? A sophisticated waste management system? A self-sustaining Green Hab? We need to list every aspect of our Martian life that still require inputs from other sources, and think about ways to make them self-sustainable.

We sure have a long way to go before our life on Mars truly becomes comfortable.