Credits: A. Kumar
Alex sent us this request: Dark side of the Earth: Concordia station only has four weeks of sunlight left
before four months of darkness…
What would you do if you were here, in the last weeks of natural light?
Inspire the crew! Share their experience. Post your suggestion as a comment to this blog entry.
Discussion: 18 comments
You could have a long sunbathing session. When sunlight is scarce I try to soak up as much as I can, especially at sunset.
Extreme sunbathing at minus temperatures… You could see who could last the longest with the least amount of clothes!
I would suggest laying out in the sun and get a nice tan. But I suppose that isn’t an option 😛
More realistically speaking, what about setting up a page in this blog where people can send you photos of the sun in different parts of the world? I could send you one from Norway! Admittedly it won’t help your body create vitamin D, but it’s still better than nothing!
Or you could organise a sort of advent calendar: a small treat every day for as long as the sun is hiding. But you’ll have to stop having treats when it starts raising again! Maybe that helps not to long for it so much 🙂
I really enjoy reading your blog, nice job!
We took your idea as a base for this:
https://blogs.esa.int/concordia/2012/06/19/join-the-dark-side-send-us-questions-and-photos/
Please send the Concordians your photos from Norway!
Thank you for following.
I would use the last four weeks of Sunlight to finish any operations that required that level of light and than I would lay the necessary foundations for astronomical observations over the next four months. Everything from figuring out exactly what we are going to be looking at, assembling the telescopes, ensuring proper insulation of computers and other sensitive hardware while not insulating the mirrors.
mind map and remember colours and shadows
I’d hunker down and ready myself for the onslaught that comes in the form of flesh-eating monsters who are awakened by the perpetual darkness. Or is that the plot of Pitch Black?
Watch the SDO and SOHO websites. Even for those of us who see the Sun each day, these sites remind us what an awesome entity our little star is!
Barbeque 🙂
What could be better than sitting together and relaxing in the last sunlight than babeque?
OK, there are still other things you can do, but one “evening” should be barbeque-time! 😉
I would wear sunglasses every day and say, ‘Oh boy, I can’t wait to take these off!’ Maybe even take a few photos of everybody in their shades over the next four weeks, make a big poster, hang it in a common area with a sign that said something like We Couldn’t Wait To Take These Off. And then right next to that have a board with everybody’s sunglasses hanging under a sign that said: And Now We Can’t Wait To Put These Back On Again. It would be a nice reminder that the darkness will end and the light will return, like a good friend who’s just travelling abroad for a few months.
I, too, enjoy reading your blog. It’s been a pleasure.
I like Lidia’s idea about other people sending in sun photos, too.
Before entering the Mars 500 modules, I remember that I enjoyed walking under the rain just to feel it one last time. I guess that you have the same kind of feeling: enjoying the warmth of the sun rays on your skin before it’s too late.
Lidia’s idea is great too. All the pictures that I was receiving inside the modules were giving me a notion of the seasons passing by outside. I can only recommend it.
You have a great blog for great adventures!
Wow, you were in the Mars-500 modules!!! That’s so interesting! I suppose it was quite strange to go back to the normal world after that… Were you allowed to talk to your families while you were in there?
prendre un abonnement au journal ”the sun” !!!
I would have a noon-bath in the “fondoire” outside the station, drinking a tea or hot chocolat.
I would do a last walk till the summer camp, looking at the “carothèque” at EPICA’s tent.
I would picture the Helium balloon forgotten there by a former science experiment.
I would take a deep breath, lookig at the sun, and feel myself so human on this desertic place.
I visit you in January 2011. Since that time, Concordia is still in my soul.
All the very best.
Definitely fly-tying. Though you may not be a fly-fisher-person, the mental concentration, attention to detail, manual dexterity and tactile implementation involved can be a truly rewarding activity-not to mention the entomological knowledge gained is another plus to divert/distract your encephelon’s knack to increase undesirable neurotransmitters which have the nasty affect of letting the little things get magnified and snowball into what’s not worth getting your B.P. out of nominal. Hey….just my .000005 cents and hope I may have cracked a window or three for y’all! Stay Sane & Safe! sincerely, DL Rohde
Hmmm…
Would taste a nice Scottish single malt.
😉
I’d enjoy every minute of my free time looking at the sun, with all of my teammates, and ask everyone to describe how they perceive its colour, taste, smell, touch and voice, to make sure we have a collective memory of its beauty to accompany our time in the dark, and to be able to write, all of us, what it feels when it is in your sky, rather than hidden to your “usual” senses by the shadow of your own large planet.
Loredana (yes, that one)
Ah, and I would do the same with the darkness, because you’ll *ONLY* have a few months of it 🙂
if i had onley 4 weeks of sunlight left, i would do all the exploring i can .
four week of sunlight meant nothing but doing all the routine activities and accomplish all that is expected to be done during these four weeks which are necessary for better functioning of equipments and machineries for the coming four months without sunlight . all routine medical checkups shoud be done and completed for all crew to form baseline studies so that any changes noted on succeeding medical routinary evaluations during four months without sunlight will be the bases for further studies and form analysis which will form the bases for further developments and dictate possible future actions to prevent whatever adverse reactions in the future that can affect the physical and psychological fucntions of future crew members especially on prolonged space travel. all other routinary geological surveys of the area can be done for recording purposes so that we can compare changes that could affect climatic and weather conditions in the area or possibly the earth.