Science Report

April 6, 2008

Jan Gruber



Science Report: Biochemistry


Yesterday we collected some soil core samples for the halophile project
– but in the locations that we choose initially, the soil was much to
hard for the corer. We have made some simple NaCl agar plates to try
and culture some of the samples from yesterday. We will report on the
success of that but decided that we need education to find more suitable sites
for collection.

Today we went and explored for better areas, areas where the soil is softer
but may still be interesting (salty). We have taken simple surface
samples to establish salinity and tomorrow we will go back and
hopefully take real core samples for the RSL project. Photos will be
taken and GPS coordinates, salinity, moisture and temperature data will
be collected. We will try to culture some of these samples (mainly to
make use of the lab) but most of these we will simply be packed and
stored in the dark for further processing.
We hope that this will be useful and are looking forward to hearing if
anything interesting will be found in these samples.

On the subject of the solar flare coupled radiation sim – we had the
first flare today. There was no radio contact with the EVA team at the
time so everybody is fried. We need radio contact and radio telescope
cover to avoid future casualties. Everybody’s life has been reset for
tomorrow – better luck next time ;-)