Date and time: 26 April 2012
Written by: Haritina Mogosanu, Crew 118, Commander
Today we rovered to Lith Canyon. We split into two teams, one stayed closer to the gate to take panoramic pictures and the other went along the track to the waypoint marked in the data base as the end of the canyon.
The canyon was simply astonishing - I have never seen anything like it in my life! Actually I did see some in the movie "John Carter of Mars" to which Mike (Bodnar) invited the four of us living in Wellington to see before we 'lifted off' for Utah.
Experiencing the real thing ... made the sim and the EVA one of the most amazing field days I have ever had. We took a few hundred pictures for both the science reports and the delight of our eye. I am looking forward to being able to walk through the Lith Canyon out of sim and so does my crew. Seeing the canyon today (and the rest of the destinations) with more geology knowledge at hand made me understand why this is a paradise for anyone interested in planetary sciences. However, I will confess that all this extraordinary scenery would not have had such a high impact on me if it were not so related to Mars and space exploration.
Another very inspiring day in the line of very inspiring days here at the Mars Desert Research Station!
Back at the base Mike Bodnar and Bruce Ngataierua kept busy by catching up with their science and communication work. This can easily become a chore as everything takes twice as long as it would take on Earth because of the waiting time due to the poor internet connexion... there is Mars lag and there is Utah lag...
Tomorrow I (intend to) take a 'day off' from any EVA's and Hab duties to concentrate on the astronomy side of the things. The astronomer in me is screaming for her toys! The sky was amazing until two nights ago (we only had two nights of amazing sky), Mars and Saturn are up there and I would really like to see them at the Musk Observatory through the C-14. Whatever it takes to get rid of clouds, talk to the meteo service or ask Bruce to do a karakia! Of course we have to resort to all these because the stars are not visible through the clouds even if you have a telescope, you'd think they'd came up by now with some kind of fancy machine given all the advancement of the technology today...
Here are Kim the Kangaroo and Tupua Kiwi ready as well for the EVA.
To close, I must say that the crew has come very well together, given the very different cultural backgrounds of all of us. After few days of 'finding our Martian 1/3 gravity feet' at the station and passing through the stress of such a foreign and completely new environment adding to that accidents and the inherent tension you get on a new crew that has not been working together before, we are doing outstandingly well. We achieved so much in so little time since we started!
Kia Kaha!
Over and out from the Martian Base
ENDS.