204-JournalistReport

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.