Category: Journalist Report

Journalist Report
Crew 319
Position: Crew Journalist
Report prepared by: Mackenzie Calle
Date: 22-10-2025
Sol: 10

Report from Sol 10

Reporting from Sol 10 10.22.25 17:27

TODAY WAS OUR LAST DAY OF EVAs!! It’s also the first day that we’ve had clouds in over 1.5 weeks! Hard to believe that our mission is coming close to the end. It simultaneously feels like we just began and like we have lived here forever. I think I speak for the whole crew when I say we are going to miss the landscapes and the clarity of the Milky Way at night. But also I think a few of us are looking forward to regular showers and coffee again.

We saved our farthest EVA journeys for today. EVA Crew 1 with Commander Rym Chaid and Crew Engineer Ricardo J. Gonzalez ventured to Green Mars Overlook. They have now set the Crew 319 record for the farthest distance from the Hab. They were met there with a huge canyon and soaring vistas.

EVA Crew 2 with Crew Scientist Shriya Musuku and Crew Journalist Mackenzie Calle made their way to the Sea of Shells. After a few wrong turns on mismarked Mars pathways, they made it to their destination. Turns out there are no shells at the Sea of Shells but there are monumental plateaus, gray rolling hills, and a lot of sparkling crystal rock. Shriya also maneuvered some expert 3-point turns.

Last night, Shriya also showed the crew a few slide samples of local tiny creatures that made their way into the hab. Pretty cool to see some of the tiny aliens at 100x magnification.

Journalist Report
Crew 319
Position: Crew Journalist
Report prepared by: Mackenzie Calle
Date: 23-10-2025
Sol: 11

Report from Sol 11

Reporting from Sol 11 10.23.25 20:21

Today was our last full Sol on Mars! It’s hard to believe that our mission is almost over. Crew 319 is feeling nostalgic more than anything. This mission with the WBA has been over a year in the making and the constant on all of our horizons. It’s bittersweet that it is coming to an end but we are all so grateful to have been a part of this journey and this historic mission.

While we have been on Mars, we have only had real time communication with Martian Mission Support. But that changed this morning when we were able to speak live to another Martian crew at Monsaraz Mars Analog Station. It was so exciting to hear about their past two weeks and being the first ever mission at their habitat. What they have created in such a short period of time is inspiring. They took us on a virtual tour of their hab and then we showed them around MDRS. We saw their superhero-like black spacesuits, a drone video of a night EVA, and got to put faces to many familiar names.

The rest of our day has been busy with getting the station in order before our simulation ends, capturing final media, doing surveys and reports, and reflecting about our experiences.

Signing off from Crew 319. Ad astra.

Journalist Report
Crew 321
Position: Crew Journalist
Report prepared by: Yishan Lee and Dianea Phillips
Date: 03-11-2025
Sol: 0

Report from Sol 0

The morning started with an assorted pancake breakfast with coffee prepared by Commander Jen and consumed by the crew at 08:30-09:00. This was followed by Mandatory Training with Station Manager Anderson at 09:00 on the following topics: SAFETY, power and conservation, maintain clean facilities, trash systems, water conservation, safety equipment, bathroom and shower use, comms usage, facility tours, sim procedures (airlock, EVA prep, EVA comms, maps, rovers). We conducted rover training that included group photos before returning to the hab to conclude the training.

At lunch time, Crewmember Jake prepared a tuna salad sandwich for the crew while Commander Jen was on a quest to pick up items in town. The crew decided on a meal prep and journal entry duty schedule, which was recorded on an iPad by Crewmember Parker. Crewmembers Jake and Alex participated in a rapid game of “ninja, hunter, and bear” to determine who would pick up the final journal entry duty. Crewmember Alex succeeded with dodging the duty. Crewmember Parker took the entire crew in his truck to visit the dinosaur quarry. We also picked up pieces of shiny gypsums on the drive back to the hab for our 15:00 program training with Commander Jen.

At a little after 15:00, we reunited with Commander Jen back at the hab, where we discussed the missions of the Spaceward Bound Utah program with the emphasis on sims, science, and education. We discussed and agreed upon norms for the sims. Safety comes first. Commander Jen briefed us on the geologic history of Mars: Pre-Noachian, Noachian, Hesperian, and Amazonian (modern). We were briefed on the rock samples we will be looking for during our EVAs. EVA 1: Gypsum, Sandstone, Sandstone Blueberry; EVA 2: Basalt, Breccia, Petrified wood as analog for sulfur. After the EVA sessions, we will have time to put together videos/materials for our students. This evening, crewmembers will prepare their own crew bios that include a photo and 3-4 sentences about themselves to be sent to Commander Jen via email. We are looking forward to a delicious baked potato dinner prepared by crewmember Jake. Tomorrow, we will wake up on Mars!!!

Journalist report sol 11

At 10:30 pm last night, our HSO heard the clang of our mousetrap and sprung into action with blue painter’s tape. The mouse was still in his cell by morning, with the bait of funfetti cake crumbs turned into dust by his reasonable anxiety. Before we could take him outside, we had a chatty breakfast while discussing tomorrow’s visit from CNBC, as well as technical things like mission summaries, GreenHab teardowns, and Hab clean-ups.

At 9, the Millennial EVA Crew (Engineer, HSO, Journalist) went to Candor Chasma and began the EVA by releasing the mouse. He had become strangely wet in his cage. He fell, cowering, out of the trap and darted behind a bush, and we saw him bound up the nearest tall hill and crest over its edge with Looney Toon speed. We wished him well and hoped that last night’s rains would give him a head start, and then we descended into the riverbed and hiked through the soft sandy floor. The HSO hoped to use her drone to weave in and out of the canyon, but after some attempts it seemed that the dust and many flights had gotten to it. (Some canned air back at the Hab cleared it up.) Upon our return we realized that no more EVAs would occur without a slight sim-breaking presence. While we were gone, our Crew Artist started tearing down the GreenHab, and our Commander spoke to the CNBC journalist who will be interviewing and hosting the segment in which we’ll participate.

The afternoon was quiet. We finished our final 100cameras module and watched 2010: The Year We Make Contact, which clarified many storylines for some and seemed wildly ‘80s to all. Dinner was quick, the dessert rice pudding was coconut, and our sense of the mission suddenly sprinting toward the finish line. Make it stop!

Journalist report sol 12

It was a strange, celebratory, public-facing final day of sim for our crew, which included more drones, more talk of scuba diving, more heat spikes in the GreenHab, more rocks, more 3D scans, another EVA, and now reports—but also on-camera interviews, larger drones, microphones threaded through flight suits, onion rings, helmet-less walks outside, a commencement ceremony with diplomas, and the “fry sauce” of Greater Hanksville.

Today again started with coffee, but it quickly changed when Lucas Milliken, a producer for CNBC, came to the Hab and went through the airlock. For the vast majority of the day, from about 9:15 to 5:00 pm, he filmed interviews and B roll throughout the campus—our Commander was the main narrator, but everyone spoke about their projects and their interest in Mars. We’re excited to see the final cut sometime in the next month or so. While he was speaking with different crewmembers, others tore down the sweltering GreenHab, cleaned the Hab, and touched up their appearances (Journalist included) before their soundbites. Our Commander, HSO, and Engineer took Lucas on an EVA out to Compass Rock, where the drone and 3D scanner described in the past eleven Journalist reports had their ~120 minutes of fame. We broke sim after EVA in order to take group photos—the sound of the non-helmeted air hit us first while standing on the Hab’s outer deck. Mission Support and Lucas both joined us for dinner at Duke’s in Hanksville. Cold and carbonated beverages seemed far more special than they usually do, conversation sped in different directions, and our Commander put everyone’s drinks on his tab. Now, after we clack on our laptops for the last time after having briefly seen the world we’re going back to, what else is there to say? Mars has been a fascinating home for the fortnight, both an isolated and deeply social stage for our crew. We’ll be thinking back and forward to it in infinite ways.

Journalist report sol 8

Mars delivered animal, vegetable, and mineral on sol 8—a day that, to this Journalist’s eye, hinted at what things might be like if we were here for way longer. The animal was a small, adorable mouse the Journalist spotted under the lower kitchen cabinets. After a supply drop, we set out a metal trap including a chunk of a cookie prepared days ago by our Crew Artist. Nada yet; we’re hoping for a successful hair trigger by morning. The vegetables were in fact fruits (tomatoes), used in the chili our Artist made for a wildly successful dinner that went along with mac & cheese. The minerals were—yes—rocks, scanned by our Engineer during EVA just outside the Hab. With our Artist, our Engineer also repaired some tears in the walkway tarps during EVA, which the Journalist found somewhat Buddhist considering the whole set-up will be torn down shortly.

Our Commander and HSO piloted the drone, resulting in one premature crash that ended up being unserious. The two of them and the Journalist set out for Compass Rock, where the HSO used a new filming technique and took a beautiful 360 video of the formation. Sporadic and indecisive rains, along with the simple task being completed, brought them home early. The crew took group photos (cute); ate said chili-mac; and, now, are zeroing in on our Commander’s object of interest with Google Earth and various compass readings to use during tomorrow’s grande-monolith-finale EVA.

Earlier in the day, the Journalist asked her crewmates what they would be doing at this point in the mission on a longterm Mars stay. We assumed it would still be mostly preliminary tasks—health tests, Hab set-up, water measurements. Whether or not we find the Monolith, we’re grateful to make so much progress in two nearly-complete weeks.

Journalist report sol 9

Your Journalist writes with the most tired fingers of the fortnight, since today was about reaching literal heights and views. Everything started, though, with a nearly-successful mouse catch; we heard the trap close around midnight, but the little guy slipped it before our Engineer could secure the doors. (This afternoon the Engineer obviously fashioned latches to solve this issue, from RAM supplies.) After hearing this news, the crew had some breakfast conversation, and the Millennial EVA Crew then left for a hike-heavy EVA up to Hab Ridge to view the campus from above. This perspective made the Journalist somewhat emotional. Everyone agreed it was the sweatiest EVA despite mild temperatures.

Lunch and dinner prep came before the second EVA, which was more intrepid. The Commander, HSO, and Journalist took rovers to reach a strategic area for launching the HSO’s drone. With the Monolith’s location triangulated, the EVA crew wanted to get the device as close as possible to the formation, which required: driving farther on Copernicus Highway than most had been before, walking up jagged streambeds to reach an elevated ridge, and cresting it to get the best signal for the drone. The Monolith still hid behind a layer of plateau; after much practice, however, the HSO piloted the drone three times toward the formation and captured video and photographs of the thing. It remains lair-like, and sits closer to a river and green vegetation than expected, which makes it seem to preside over an accidental kingdom. The crew soaked up the videos at the dinner table after the EVA before eating burritos near-silently—exhausted, stunned by the highest number of Monolith pixels ever recorded (we think), and filled with beans.

Journalist report sol 10

We’re in the Stargate scene of 2001, in which the mission seems to be moving both slowly and at warp speed as we careen toward sol 13 and our flights out of Grand Junction—or, for our Commander, the drive out in the RV. Today got appropriately stormy after 2pm, which messed with our wifi and made everything feel more at the mercy of the planet’s whims. (Not much compared to a dust storm.)

Two EVAs took most of us to Candor Chasma, where first our Engineer and HSO made a powerful technological collaboration happen: a drone flight that captured the engineer while he 3D scanned rocks and uploaded them to the cloud with Starlink. At the end of their EVA, our Crew Artist joined them outside to recreate the famous Alan Shepard golf photo, using a club constructed by the Engineer with a broom handle and duct tape. On the second EVA, the Commander and Journalist also headed to Candor Chasma. They ventured in for their projects but also paid attention to some odd, marble-like rock (gypsum?) and a plant whose seed pods looked like desert grapes. Meanwhile, the Engineer seemed to fix everything at the Hab, including an airlock door bolt and malfunctioning suits.

Knowing that we’ll start tearing down the GreenHab tomorrow, the Journalist/GreenHab officer snipped the microgreens and herbs to spare. Those went with chicken salad on leftover and only slightly stale tortillas, and our HSO made another experimental fruit bread—strawberry, very successfully. We also have funfetti cake and brownies, and there may be another dessert prepared tomorrow. We have to “leave it all on the floor.”

Journalist report sol 6

We learned a lot about technology today—what it sees from its own eyes, and how it has evolved. An earlier EVA started at 8:30, in which our Engineer, HSO, and Journalist (aka the millennial EVA crew) went out to the sea of shells and surrounding areas. The Engineer wanted to test a makeshift tent to use his 3D scanner in the field—he constructed it out of a bedsheet and two sawhorses—and release the shells he’d collected earlier back into the wild. Our HSO wanted to try flying the drone out to the Monolith, largely to get better images and to better determine its location for mapping. She had two batteries, the first of which managed to get the drone temptingly close to the object of interest. To uncover more of its secrets, she tried a second flight on sport mode, having a better sense of the best trajectory. As the drone launched, however, the winds picked up. The little drone battled gusts and its power drained unpredictably fast. The weather proved too much despite our HSO’s careful piloting, and the device performed a forced landing in an anonymous spot some 600m from our perch, sending a lonely, black and white, probe-like image from its final gasps on the ground. Knowing that the winds might make it even harder to find the next day, the crew calmly tracked their bootprints all over the Martian soil in search. The HSO found the thing after about 15 minutes. (She is its mother after all.) The Journalist managed to get some lowtech footage of the Monolith on her cell phone, aimed through her binoculars, and the EVA finished with some compass readings off Galileo Road, which doubled as another test for the Engineer’s Starlink.

The wind halted any other EVAs. We sat around the table after an ad hoc lunch (tuna melts for some) and completed our sixth 100cameras module. Then our Commander unleashed his box of tricks: a collection of old electron tubes, early transistors, and integrated circuits, including ones he’s worked on, to show us how technology—and the relationship between analog and digital tools—has shifted over time, become smaller and more ornate, yet no less impressive. We’re now digesting our spaghetti, having watched an episode of Moonbase 8, hearing the wind rush over the hab’s roof vent and remind us of the hostile conditions outside.

Journalist report sol 7

Each report brings more of the same nouns—rocks, drones, photos, bread, monolith—but even a day off of EVAs for the Journalist can’t prevent strange events from making their way into the report. An early EVA sent our Engineer and Commander out for another Monolith triangulation session with various compasses; beyond getting more information, they also found small Monolith-like rocks near their perch. Whether those were offerings, representations, or offspring, we’re not sure. Our Engineer went on a second EVA with our HSO in the afternoon. It was a journey in high winds during the traveling portions. The goal was to 3D scan some rocks and take photos, and once up at the Overlook things seemed to stagnate—no “new rocks,” per se, so no scanning—before becoming strange. A van of aliens parked some distance away eventually approached the crew, letting them know their back tire had been stuck in a hard-dirt divot. (This despite their rented van company being called "Escape Camper Vans.") They needed help; conveniently for simulation’s sake, the rovers weren’t enough to haul them out, so Mission Support was called and dispatched. Allegedly the van-life aliens are going to donate to the Mars Society out of gratitude for the haul—someone should keep an eye on this.

The crew Journalist finished some Terran work, set up her soil desiccation project’s lab stage, and prepared a dinner she admittedly was not confident would be good until it was complete: a simple congee with peas and corn, topped with soy-glazed Spam. (While she was worried Spam “Lite” would be inferior to regular Spam, she’s been pleasantly surprised at the dupe.) The HSO had also made our best loaf of bread yet with apples and spices.

After eating, the crew completed their sixth 100cameras module, which revealed more about the broad arcs of our lives. And, for the third day in a row since a kind but firm warning by our Commander, we’ve used a respectable amount of water and should be in the clear by the end of the mission, knock on wood.

We’re realizing that we need to start finishing projects, collecting results, executing final goals for dinners, and preparing to tear down the GreenHab.