Date and time: 2 May 2012
Written by: Haritina Mogosanu, Crew 118, Commander
The ERV started descent very early in the morning, actually the pilots never went to sleep as if they' all attended ISU: "You can sleep on the plane" says there.
Sentinels waiting from 0430 hrs noted a round object which was spilling light into the sky, that made capturing pixels from far away stars almost mission impossible.
However it eventually went away and the Milky Way Kiwi appeared just in time to indicate the way for the ERV pilots so they can locate the Hab easily. NAD 27 coordinates on Mars? Nah, just follow the Milky Way! You'll find what you seek at the end of it. If in doubt ask the Milky Way Kiwi! She always knows the way! Over!
Roger that, Touchdown!
Just after the round white object rolled over the hills to the other side of the world, another round yellow object made it's way up as if pushed by the white one. That ended my last chance to imagise any galactic highways and also reminded me that time for bed was near. Living in the desert some end up taking Fremen Habits. And talking about them, the two Muad'Dib s of the Hab were waiting again on the table happy to see us.
A few hours of sleep make you brand new and especially when you wake up with the scent of freshly brewed (spice) coffee invading your nostrils, the day starts in heaven. Or at least on Level 1 which is (other than the attic) the best place where you can be.
Last day on Mars proved to be extremely busy, everyone rushing off to catch-up with everything they had to do.
Some even to say good bye:
Away went team alpha to the Kissing Camels ridge to explore one more time the wilderness and beauty of the place. Still the same? Yes even more beautiful than we remembered it since yesterday.
Away went team beta to Olympus Mons to wave good bye to the Northern Horizon.
After a few more hours and few more reports we suited up for the very last EVA of KiwiMars: we were going to draw a Maori Star Compass on what we know now as the Solar garden of the new location of the observatory. Just so that we may find our way always, no matter where we will be or what we will do.
Maoris (Polynesians who went where no other Polynesian have gone before - Aotearoa - and stayed) have an amazing way of navigating. They find their way by the stars, waves and looking for life. You will say, yes everyone does that, more or less but these people have learnt ALL THE STARS in the sky, all of them, statistically. At any time of the night they knew exactly where they are on the globe just by looking at them stars around horizon and up at Zenith. We tried to westernise this and called the representation of it on the ground: the Maori Star compass as this is how the western culture understands directions but the compass is inside the minds and the hearts of the Navigators!
What we imagined today during our EVA on the red ground zero of MDRS is a tribute to all navigators who dared go places nobody else has gone before.
Just like Google became the best translation engine not by using logic but by using metadata: how many pages clicked and stayed for a certain word, so did the Maori use statistical knowledge about the stars to navigate. Google gained supremacy over other translation engines who tried to use logic. Aka. latitude and longitude in navigation terms - which makes sense in the Mediteranean sea that is the size of a kitchen sink compared to the Pacific … there is no way you can get lost in the Mediteranean let's face it! Maoris (and all Polynesians) became the best navigators by using the metadata cyphered in the stars. And they did that in a very clever way. They are the only culture that I know of who names same stars with different names at different times of the year. Scorpius, the awesome Scorpius (which by the way happens to be the Zenith constellation for Aotearoa) it's the Fishing Hook of Maui in July. In November (the beginning of the Southern hemisphere summer) is part of Te Waka o Tamarereti laying across the horizon) - the great canoe of Tamarereti which shows the way back to Hawai'ki and now is known as Manaia ki te Rangi (the guardian of the sun) three quarters onto the night sky.
The ceremony of the Maori Star Compass begun with a karakia (prayer to the ancestors and to the life force) and then we placed a Mauri stone - a stone that carries the force of life in the ground. The stone came all the way from Wellington New Zealand- Te Upoko O Te Ika (the Maori name of our capital city) namely from the Red Rocks - the only red rocks in the area. The legend say that they are like that since Maui (the very first Navigator) fished up the Northern Island of Aotearoa with his magical fishing hook (which what you see when you navigate along the South Island - the first Maori landing place. The land in the front of your eyes seems to rise from the ground as if pulled.) The legend goes that “the fish” was waay to heavy and the fishing hook broke and flung into the sky - see above.
FYI the stone which is 7 by 2 cm has been sterilised and washed before it arrived here otherwise how could I ever dare saying I work for Biosecurity back home?
We placed four more indigenous stones onto the four directions: Raki (North) Tonga (South) Whitinga (East) and Tomokainga (West) and another big stone at the centre on top of the Mauri stone. The Maori Star Compass has 32 houses around the horizon and a Tohunga tarai waka (expert navigator) must know all of them. A navigator looks at the known stars rising in different houses at different latitudes, this is how it can tell where abouts it is (aka latitude and longitude). They also use Zenith stars and Meridian pairs along with the birds, waves and whales.
After marking the star compass we took another moment to say another karakia for the new location of the observatory - a break from the daily routines to mark a very important moment in time: a new beginning.
Then we walked back to the Hab where after dinner and by finishing filling in the food survey we declared the sim officially closed at 2100 hrs.
I got a cool present (3x) Rocket flying Kiwi from my crew - that was awesome guys!! thanks! - to hang on my wall at home.
We spent the rest of the evening looking forward to what the future will bring us.
Good bye Mars moon amour, tomorrow we lift off for Earth, it's been an amazing journey!
Arohanui (all our love) to all, to all of you watching our adventures,
to Mars Society and Mission Support salute!
Thank you for walking along with us in our journey!
Kia Kaha from Mars for one last time this rotation
and always follow your dreams, they'll take you to amazing places!
SIM ENDS.