Journalist Report
02/04/2014
Tereza Pultarova
Another morning on Mars, it’s already becoming almost a routine. Whereas just three days ago we were
all stunned by the view of the red Martian hills illuminated by the morning Sun, now we are taking
it almost for normal.
However, we are still learning – today we have learned that making omelettes or scrambled eggs from
powdered eggs is not the best idea. Maybe we missed some tricks; maybe we put too much or too little
water. In every case, the crumbly substance failed to impress the hungry Crew 135 and the attempt on
full English breakfast was booed off the stage.
Though our crew is international, the number of native Czech speakers is a bit too high and some of
the Czech-speaking crew members find themselves switching from English to Czech bit too often.
Though Lucie and Elif say they don’t mind, we should probably be a bit more careful.
In the afternoon, four crew members took the ATVs and went out to explore the wider surroundings of
the station. The mission was part of Ondrej’s study that wants to propose an expansion of the
Martian station – his vision is rather ambitious.
“Our goal isn’t only to explore the terrain, get to know the terrain - we want identify spots
suitable for building a landing pad and a launch pad,” Ondrej explained before setting out for the
afternoon exploration. “We want to identify areas suitable for building large solar arrays and wind
turbines, as we believe those might provide a suitable means to supply the station with renewable
energy.
The four crew members, including Ondrej, Elif, Lucie and Filip drove as far as 1.5 away from the
base in each direction to gather the data.
“In the next stage we will examine a smaller area around the base – some 200 metres in diameter in
greater detail to propose the best way to expand the station itself,” said Ondrej who believes
inflatable structures made of advanced fibers could be used to provide the crew with more space and
comfort.
“In the first place, we will propose to improve the working environment and the closest surroundings
of the station by creating some paving to improve the access to the station,” he said.