From the photo each team member provided the Astrobiologist with their soil samples and also contributed to start of experiment. It was a three hour journey each way and spent about five minutes taking a soil sample (Three hours well spent!!). It was a good time to interact properly with the class and very enjoyable. One of my Spanish friends was tormented with me asking him about his brother playing for Real Madrid youths with Raul (most prized footballer to the Real Madrid supporters). He also filled me in on the Spanish culture which was fascinating. We were treated to a nice meal and drinks on the way home which was well worth the journey. This resulted in fifty four students singing (terribly!) and making animal noises the rest of an amusing journey home (Amazing what alcohol does to people even that talk shop 99.9% of the time!).

The theme of this week’s panel was “What next for mars exploration?” When astronauts are being trained for carrying out work in space (Extra vehicular Activity) they perform tasks under water via scuba diving to try and get a feel as to how buoyancy will be in space. Our next task in the life science department was to repair an artificial space Hubble telescope underwater. There were four teams of six and we were the fourth and last team to enter the pool. It was my first time to scuba dive and I was quite nervous from the beginning. We had fifteen minutes introduction and this is where I had to get rid of the nerves and practice as much as I could before the mission started.

After an uncomfortable practice (Practicing how to breathe properly) the clock had started. I was the tool distributer almost like an underwater apprentice electrician. There was a weight and a buoy bolted together. Our mission was to open it up and replace two of the micro chips inside (two high tech pieces of wood). I also had the important job of holding the chips. We were approx five meters under the water in Nasa Ames swimming pool (No laughing, it was scarier than it sounds!). I started to enjoy it more and more as time went by. After it finished I felt a huge sense of achievement as I faced a fear of the deep water and in addition trying to breathe through this apparatus located on my back. It turned out the next day that we won the competition as we were the quickest and most efficient. It was an amazing experience and I would love to try it again.