Jonathan is Going to Mars

So, Why Mars?

Have you spotted the star that twinkles with a red hue? As a kid I always thought it was so cool that I lived in a part of history where we knew that red-twinkle was the planet next door, and you could see it almost any old time you wanted just by stepping out at night.

Closer to home however, there have been several more recent inspirations leading me to take part in a ‘Spaceward Bound’ simulated (analog) mission to Mars, such as I am doing in December this year at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS). I’m going to detail these sources of inspiration in this post as a way of giving attribution.

Novels: Red, Blue and Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

As a fan of sci-fi, I was always going to read these now famous books published in the 1990’s. The detailed imagining of humans arriving at and then colonising a second planet that they contain is incredibly vivid. Beyond this however – it was the blank slate nature of the story – the reboot feels – that most stuck with me.

‘First School on Mars’ Brainstorm: Cafe with Samantha Adams Becker

Red, Blue and Green Mars were definitely on my mind when I got to catch up with the prodigiously creative Samantha at a time when the org that we had met through (New Media Consortium) had just sadly ended. It wasn’t planned, but we ended up with this idea that asked ‘what would the first school on Mars need to look like?’.

Not content just to wonder, I soon after got to employ this question with teachers and students as a vehicle for boosting future-proof literacies and helping schools redesign their pedagogy via the FirstonMars.net initiative. This in turn let me to seek out Mars experts and connect with Mars Society Australia (marssociety.org.au) members such as Dr Richard Blake, Dr Jonathan Clarke, Annalea Beaty and Guy Murphy – all who made fantastic contributions to the First on Mars workshops.

Mars Desert Research Station Crew 173:

Getting in touch with Dr Richard led me to meet all of the crew of the mission he had done at the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah. Niam Shaw (Ireland), Idriss Sisaid (France) and Michaela Musilova (Slovakia) all gave generously of their time to support students in First on Mars workshop – sharing ideas and answering questions, as well as bringing an international perspective to the program.

Family Trip to University Rover Challenge at MDRS:

Once a year, those who take part in the University Rover Challenge (https://urc.marssociety.org) are able to visit MDRS, which is otherwise a restricted area. Having a Sister and her family in Utah with experience in navigating the area meant this gave me an amazing chance via their generosity to spend a few hours seeing the area, as well as being educated about how many possible Mars rover designs the teams that year had come up with. Unsurprisingly, this close encounter stuck with me over the following years until, well… the chance to do a mission came along!

STEMPunks.com student Workshops:

Back to the ‘blank slate’ possibilities of Mars – I’ve had the chance to continue using this scenario with the brilliant STEM Punks team of Michael and Fiona Holmstrom, Damien Aldridge, Ella O’Sullivan and more since 2020, with over 2000 students participating so far. The latest chapter is the SPACE 2101 4 day mission where up to 300 students spend a week learning about space exploration, careers and STEM skills. The finale of these missions is a design challenge set on .. Mars!

In addition, SPACE 2101 is like a greatest hits of inspirational space experts:

Dr Michalea Musilova has continued in sharing her knowledge of now 30+ analog missions (many as Commander at HI—SEAS.org) an incredibly unique body of knowledge that I have also learned an amazing amount from.

I have gotten to work with Astronaut Susan Kilrain , one of the only females ever to get to pilot the Space Shuttle. Susan has been incredible in how she interacts personally with students.

Special mentions also go to exolithsimulants.com who supplied simulated Mars soil for students to examine, SpaceNation.org for sharing seeds that have spent time on the ISS which students have gotten to grow, Astronaut Greg Johnson for his video message detailing what takeoff feels like, and Simon Jenner who gets to recruit citizen Astronauts at Axiomspace.com for his videos linking to space careers and space station design.

From all of these experiences, is it any wonder that when the chance came to participate in Spaceward Bound with other teachers at the MDRS, that I jumped at it? Then jumped again when the first opportunity was COVID delayed, then jumped a third time now that traveling overseas is possible again?!

(Learn more about Spaceward Bound here https://www.marssociety.org/…/invitation-nasa-funded…/).

There has been a small wrinkle as I get ready to head over in early December – but you can learn more at the small GoFundMe I’ve put together at gofundme.com/f/jn-to-mars – I’m officially launching that … now! Thanks to all involved and mentioned on the journey so far that has gotten me to this journey.

Ad Astra, Ad Martis