MDRS Crew 90
January 23, 2010 - February 6, 2010
Daily Crew Reports

MDRS Crew 90 Overview:

MDRS90 will be the first entirely Belgian team.

This expedition is organised by the Mars Society Belgium (www.marssociety.be) , founded early 2009 by a couple of passionate fans of space travel and astronomy, focusing on the planet Mars in particular.

Obviously, this event constitutes a major first for our country. Though a number of fellow countrymen took part in a similar expedition in the past, never before an entire team consisted of Belgians.

3 Flemish and 3 Walloons make up the team :

This line-up not only takes the ratio between the sexes into consideration, but also includes the 3 communities : Flemish, Walloon and German.

The aspect "youth" was not left out, as it will be today's youngsters that will put their foot down on Martian soil in probably some 30 years from now.

Promoting science is one of the prime goals set by the Mars Society Belgium.

Hence, the world of education is definitely present : 4 of the 6 participants are active teachers.

Besides the scientific program, we will do a lot of educational events like live contacts with schools and astronomical organisations all over Belgium.

Also the media is following our project very closely.

Name	Speciality
Nancy Vermeulen	Commander / Meteorologist
Pierre-Emmanuel Paulis	Executive Officer
Nicky Demunster	Chief Engineer / Journalist
Arjan van der Star	Crew Geologist / Crew Biologist
Nora Martiny	Health & Safety Officer
Margaux Hoang	Crew Astronomer

Nancy Vermeulen	Nancy Vermeulen President of the Mars Society Belgium. Nancy was born on the 25th of July 1975 and lives in Hove, near Antwerp. She obtained a master.s degree in physics at the University of Antwerp, specialising in astrophysics. Afterwards, she worked as an airline pilot and carried out flights for 6 years in Boeing 727 and Airbus 300 for DHL. She was flying in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Presently, she is engaged as a scientist-science communicator at the Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) in Ukkel and is also active as a flight instructor in Antwerp. In total, she boasts 2400 flight hours. In her free time, she is an active member of the astronomical center Urania in Hove, adviser of the FLAG (Flemish Aerospace Group) and .space teacher. at Dirk Frimout.s Euro Space Society. In 2003, she visited Frank De Winne in Star City and carried out a flight simulation with the Sojoez-TMA. Driven by astronomy and space travel, she is known to be a passionate speaker and gives lectures to large audiences on a regular basis. She also organises public activities, such as the parabolic flight with Delft University of Technology together with the Belgian media following the launch of Frank De Winne. In May 2008, she applied for the position of astronaut at ESA. In Octobre 2008, she has organised the Eight European Mars Conference "EMC8" at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Nancy Vermeulen will be the first Flemish commanding a MDRS mission and will carry out experiments related to the sun and the composition of the atmosphere for the RMI. She will be responsible for communication with the Flemish community.
Pierre-Emmanuel Paulis	Pierre-Emmanuel Paulis Vice-president of the Mars Society Belgium. Pierre was born on the 18th of July 1964 and has had a passion for space travel and the universe all his life. He lives in Ferrières and studied at the Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts Saint-Luc at Liège (department of illustration and cartoon drawing). He is attached to Dirk Frimout.s Euro Space Society as a "space teacher" and daily takes school groups on a tour around the Euro Space Center in Redu. Countless is the number of astronauts he has met and the number of space activities he has undertaken, including 5 parabolic flights on board the Airbus A 300 Zero G Novespace. He already took part in the MDRS 7 mission in the Utah Desert in 2002. In 2001, he represented Belgium during the International Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama (USA) and in 2006 he stood at Dirk Frimout.s side at the Space School in Glasgow (Scotland). Pierre-Emmanuel also draws cartoons, writes the series Tania (pilot-astronaut) and can be heard every week on Radio France (www.bleuespace.com) with an up-to-date space journal. He often gives conferences on space issues. In the MDRS 90 mission, P.E. Paulis will act as Executive Officer (vice-commander). He will be responsible for communication with the Walloon community.
Arjan van der Star	Arjan van der Star Arjan was born on the 28th of September 1977 and lives in Lanaken. He studied geology and palaeontology at the University of Gent and worked as an assistant at the Independent University of Brussels. Arjan used to be scientist-in-charge at the Dirk Frimout Center in Ostend and a member of the ESA Forum Space and Education. Presently, he teaches geography to future teachers in the teacher.s training of GROUP T Leuven Education College. With his students, he developed an educational workshop on Mars, called "Mars Quest". He teaches courses on Mars, the Cosmos, the Moon and Impact geology. As chief scientist, he will be in charge of all geological and biological experiments in the MDRS 90 team and will also deal with all educational aspects.
Nicky Demunster	Nicky Demunster observed the first landing on the moon at the age of eight and became interested in space. He is a member and space teacher for the Euro Space Society with chairman Dirk Frimout, Belgians first astronaut. In his free time he organizes, on a voluntary base, space lectures and space activities at primary schools. His primary goal is to promote space, science and technology to young children, because they are the astronauts of the future. He is also a member of the Mars Society Belgium and of the Belgian Astronomical Association and is a writer for the Belgian space magazine Heelal. To promote space, he build up quite some space experience. In 2002 he could visit Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne during his training at Star City, Russia. A dream came trough to sit in a Russian Soyuz spaceship next to a Belgian astronaut. In 2004, thanks to ESA, he could participate in a parabolic flight with Airbus A300 ZERO-G at Bordeaux. He made 31 parabolas. During this flight, he was subject for a medical experiment called .Cardiocog. of the University of Leuven, Belgium. It was the same experiment that Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne did at the International Space Station ISS. In 2006 he could participate in an experiment at the ESA centrifuge at the university of Antwerp and in the Cardiocog Stress experiment at the university of Leuven. In 2008 he was selected to represent Belgium at the International Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. There he could share his experience with 50 American teachers of the year and 21 international teachers. Nicky is born in Waregem, a small town in the north of Belgium. He is currently a teacher Informatics at the CVO Sint-Paulus at Waregem. He is 48 years old, married to Katharina and has one daughter Anke. He is very grateful with the support of his family. Nicky is proud to be part of the first Belgian MDRS crew with commander Nancy Vermeulen. As a member of crew 90 he will be working as Engineer and will help his teammates with the geological, biological and technological experiments. When he will set his first small step on Utah Mars, his thoughts will be at the first landing on the moon. Together with his crewmates he hopes to accomplish his mission successfully and looks forward to share his experience to the children at the Belgian schools. His message for the children is: "You can make your dreams come through, but you have to believe in it and never give up."
Nora Martiny	Nora Martiny was born on the 12th of August 1957 and lives in Ligneuville (Malmédy). She is an executive member of the Mars Society Belgium and represents the German community. Combining a 30-year experience as a teacher with her passion for the universe, she is mainly concerned with scientific and technological education of children. For this purpose, she organises camps at the Euro Space Center of Redu. During the MDRS 90 mission, Nora will take care of "Life Support".
Margaux Hoang	Margaux Hoang was born on the 14th of April 1992 and lives in Florzée (Sprimont). She is a 6th grade student in science & mathematics, planning to study physics at the University of Liège. Scientific research is her life passion. Being a member of a scientific society for juveniles, her passion for astronomics resulted in her obtaining the Lucie Dekeyser Prize, organised by the Belgian Royal Society for Astronomics. She already completed the whole training seminar for .instigator. at the Euro Space Center in Redu. During the MDRS 90 mission, Margaux will mainly be concerned with astronomical observations, in cooperation with Nancy Vermeulen. She will also take part in several experiments.

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