Personal Diary of Jianyu Chu
Sol 186 / 5 July 2040
Alpha Base, Mars
I woke up this morning to the soft hum of the CO₂ scrubbers and the pale orange light bleeding in through the top hatch. It’s only been five sols since we landed, but I already feel like I’ve known this space for years. There’s comfort in the routine. There’s beauty in how we care for each other.
I spent the morning running diagnostics on the light rover. I’ve run that checklist a hundred times back on Earth — in hangars, in simulators, under harsh white lights. But here, everything feels different. Real. The dust clings differently. The metal breathes in the cold.
The heavy rover — the Mercedes unit — is scheduled for reassembly tomorrow. It’s strange seeing it in parts again, like a sleeping animal. I’m proud of the team that built it. Proud to be the hands putting it back together on another world.
After lunch, I helped Kobayashi with her sensor mast deployment. She’s quiet, but I see the joy in her eyes when she’s focused — like a painter absorbed in her own canvas. I’m glad she’s here. We all are.
We had twenty minutes of “quiet time” this afternoon. I used mine to listen to a message from my niece back in Shenzhen. She drew a picture of me driving the rover with a bubble helmet and stars overhead. It made me laugh. And cry. I miss Earth — its noise, its colours, the way wind smells before rain. But I don’t regret being here. I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
Pierre made us all tea tonight — powdered green, a little bitter, but hot. We sat around the table, boots off, comparing notes on our first EVA, and dreaming about what this place will look like in five years. Ten. One day, there’ll be children here. I wonder if they’ll know how strange and brave this moment was.
Lights out in twenty. Tomorrow we drive.
Goodnight, Mars.
— Jianyu Chu