Tuesday, February 23, 2016

22.2. Call to Tim Kopra

Hello y'all, and with interesting news!

We got to make an arranged video-call to the ISS, and to talk with astronaut Tim Kopra. Arcusys was kind to host the event here in Joensuu. Afterwards some local media interviewed us, and you can check some material here (interview in Finnish only, but Mr. Kopras introduction video is in english).

We cannot say what information was exchanged exactly, but we had prepared some questions alongside Team Red Sandbox about our unique challenges, and asked Kopra for his insight on the matters. His experiences and knowledge of the realities about space-travelling will help us develop our concepts. Not to mention how huge of a privilege it was just to be present at such a call.

Did you know Mr. Kopra is Finnish-American? He is very respectable for his accomplishments in both the US army, and as an astronaut. You can read more about his career HERE.

Thank you for all your support! Next week we have all new exciting news, so stay tuned!

Here we have a picture of some of bioMARS' and Team Red Sandbox' members waiting for the call to start.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Interview with an astronaut?

Hello!
This time we don't have much new to report you - everyone is still working with their experiments - but stay tuned for next week! BioMars will soon be discussing with astronaut Timothy Kopra who is currently working at International Space Station. We'll be sure to tell the highlights here at our blog so be sure to check them out. Have a nice week!

Thursday, February 4, 2016

There's always more to find out!

Hello, everyone!
First of all I want to thank everyone who filled out our insect-eating survey! Now we have plenty of data to analyze and use in our future concepts. We are also glad that so many of the participants are willing to try out actually eating some insects. Now the only thing we need to do is to find some nice grasshopper cookie recipies...
This week we started doing more experiments. Because we have so much to find out and only a finite amount of time we split the group into three sub-teams.
I won't tell precise details about these experiments yet but I can tell you we need an air-tight cabinet, fly maggots and some basil saplings. Sounds fun, right?
The other sub-teams' stuff is so secret even we don't know much about it. (Or then we were just too busy with our own plans to ask them. Who knows?) Hopefully things will clarify over the next week.
I hope you all have a wonderful day!