1208-JournalistsReport

Journalist Report

12/08/2014

Victor Luo

“Shoot, I forgot the [insert essential everyday living supply]” could

ruin your day on Earth, but on Mars, this could ruin your entire

mission. This is why for us, planning is an essential part of our

day. So what actually goes on in the day of a Martian? Well, I’m

glad you asked.

Every morning starts bright and early with a healthy dose of yoga and

exercise administered by our lovely Health+Safety Officer Susan

Jewell. This is usually followed by a quick breakfast and a brief

overview of the day. If weather permits, we’ll begin to execute our

planned Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) of the day. Usually a crew of

three including Victor the crew engineer will suit up in the finest

gear Mars has to offer and set out for the day. Meanwhile, the rest

of the crew is toiling away at lunch and household maintenance

activities.

Each EVA mission differs, some are focused on geophysical and

biological site evaluations, others on scouting and acquisition of

imagery and telemetry for science and outreach. Regardless of the

task, we try to plan out every minute of the activity. Because we

only have time for one EVA a day, we usually try to spend around two

hours out there to maximize our science acquisition. Assuming all

goes well and no malfunctions or unexpected events occur, we lumber

home to the Hab where a warm stove of food offerings are presented to

the tired EVA crew.

After the meal, we have a debrief of the EVA events and immediately

create action items for the lessons learned. When all our food is

digested and the dishes are clean, we’ll begin writing our daily

reports and working on our crew tasks, such as building a new crew

room for the Hab. Some people take advantage of this time to sneak in

a nap or two.

Before you know it, its dinner time and two chefs of the day will

prepare a nutritious meal with the most decadent dehydrated

ingredients. We reminisce about the good ol’ days on Earth and joke

about misgivings and limitations of the present situation. When the

clock strikes 7pm MST, communication channels to Earth open up and we

spend the next two hours communicating with mission control on the

ground. This critical time allow us to exchange our reports and

requests for the day and discuss future EVA expeditions.

We wrap up the night with a bit of peaceful group meditation, and then

whatever time we have left is up to us. Catching up on work, writing

in our diaries, or turning in “early” for bed.

Now that you know how we live on Mars, do you think you’ve got what it

takes to be part of our crew?