0203-JournalistReport

Crew 162 Journalist Report Sol 11

February 3rd, 2016

Carmen Felix

SOL 11 on Mars. Today our Crew Photographer from Earth returned back home.

He stayed with us during the night and he left after lunch today. I think

he was very happy about the opportunity to spend time with us, and perform

his job, which he did very professionally. I guess he was surprise by

realizing how many things we need to do differently on Mars than on Earth,

like our water management system, the way we need to re-hydrate dried food

to prepare lunch and all our cycles for depressurization and pressurization

before and after going on an EVA. Nevertheless, he cooked dinner for us

yesterday, and he learned how to master the dried-food kitchen: Mars

Marinara Pasta! The book with recipes from MDRS, one that has been done by

one of the earlier crews, has helped us to discover amazing meals that can

be done with ingredients at hand. Just delicious!

We planned to wake up today before 6 to go outside and look at the 5-planet

alignment, so our Crew Astronomer went out to prepare the observatory for

us. Unfortunately, the rest of the crew couldn’t rest completely during the

night, as one had back pain, and another one spent part of the night

coughing. It was also below freezing outside, so after a while our crew

Astronomer came inside to warm up and decided to try again tomorrow. Safety

first! Before sunrise, our crew photographer managed to capture some nice

shots of the first sunrays illuminating Mars.

We had breakfast together and we started our preparation for today’s EVA.

Our crew photographer went out with two of us at a walking distance near

the hab for a short EVA, with the purpose to get some nice Martian pictures

and GPS data. After this, he also took some portraits of our robotic rover

and our team. The sunlight was so bright that the photographer needed to

try in different spots to get a perfect picture of each of us.

The lunch for the day was leftovers: veggie stew and pasta marinara! Our

visitor left the hab after lunch and we decided to rest a little bit. These

days have been very intense for each of us, as there is so much to do and

we are only three people. HSO recommended resting, and recovering energies,

as the freezing temperatures and working so much can impact our health

negatively.

During the late afternoon, we resumed some of our research and we are

looking forward for the last 3 days of our mission!

To Mars and Beyond!