228-JournalistsReport

Journalist Report

02/28/2014

Quentin Cappart

Day 14 on Mars : The end of an adventure.

I can't believe that our adventure is close to be finished. Today is our last full day on Mars.

Tomorrow we will take our shuttle to return on Earth. But before that, we still have a lot of work

to do ! Indeed, We have to materialize all of what we did and to make reports about these

information and submit it to the Mission control. All these information with our previous reports

will be analysed and will be used later to prepare the next missions. It's a great honour for us to

know that our experience here is really useful. With it, we participated at our scale at the

progress of the science !

Let's turn to our activities of the day ! The morning was devoted to our last EVA intended to

terminate the streambed project and to say “Goodbye” to the red planet. And this time, no bad

surprise with the weather ! We could take time to do everything we planned without being in a hurry

or under the threat of a storm. During the afternoon, we almost only worked on our final reports.

Indeed, for every projects, we had to present what we exactly did and which results we obtained. But

besides the projects, a big part of our mission only consisted at “living” on Mars. During these two

weeks, we experienced a lot of difficulties and problems. What's interesting for the Mission control

is to see how we managed to live with these difficulties and with some constrains that we don't have

on earth.

And now, The main part of our work is finished ! After our last CapCom, We just have to enjoy our

last night on Mars ! Tomorrow we'll tidy the station and, before our departure, we'll met the next

crew, the 137, to give them some advices and tips about our experience here. And after... We'll

really leave the red planet ! One thing is sure, despite the lack of comfort, the rudimentary food,

the Martian desert, the storms, the mice, the uranium salt we are still alive and all in a perfect

shape ! We'll never forget these two wonderful weeks spent on Mars. So I think we can consider that

this mission is successful ! It was a great scientific and human adventure.

Next time you'll see a message from me, it will be from Earth ! It was a great pleasure for me to

be your journalist and I hope you enjoyed following our adventures !

Over