Blog #2: Starting the Journey

It is almost the end of January which means I am halfway through my research. There have been a few slight changes to my project over the past month. The most significant change is the background research I am using. Instead of focusing specifically on Mars rovers from the past few years, I have decided to open it up to rovers, orbiters, and probes on or around Mars. Since each mission is focused on one specific research aspect, having multiple missions from both NASA and United Arab Emirates' provides me with a variety of information to act as the control group for my research. The missions I decided to focus on for my research are the Perseverence rover, the Hope probe, the MAVEN orbiter, the Odyssey orbiter, and the Curiosity rover. Another slight change in my project was how I decided to organize it. First, I started collecting some of the background research. After about a week, I decided it would be more efficient to read the novel and then use the information I found to guide my background research.

Despite having a few changes to my project, I am on track with my research. My main focus for the past couple of weeks has been the novel. I started annotating The Martian based on five categories, including travel, survival, environment, technology, and miscellaneous. The book has been fascinating so far. I have found multiple pieces of information that will be useful in my final comparison. So far, I have found the most information on technology and shelters used on Mars, such as the Hab that the astronauts live in and the rovers they use for missions. Over the next month, I will finish annotating the novel. I hope to start comparing data if I have time, but I might have to use the first week in March for this part of my research.