Final Report of Claude-Michel Laroche

Claude-Michel Laroche – Mars 160 first phase last words

For me, this mission was important, when trying to put my thought together to think about what this mission means to me, I was a little conflicted. This mission is very dear to me, that is for sure, at the same time I am also happy it is coming to an end, and will miss it.

My role for this mission was to take care of the systems of the MDRS complex and to manage the Smart Pot project from the inside. The Smart Pot project was by far the most satisfying, frustrating, and rewarding project I had to work on. Satisfying because seeing the plants growing everyday gave me the feeling that what we were doing was working and worth doing. This project was for us about verifying the technology, to make sure it was working, but our reward was the plants themselves, the fruit they bear and what we saw grow from our hands and work, and what ended up in our plate at the end of the mission. It was frustrating because we faced difficulties in growing plants and some of them did not survive the process and our care.

My days were without rest. I got out of my comfort zone, several times, as everyone in the crew did, I won’t say it was easy, but nothing worth doing is easy. No matter how hard we worked together or individually on our things, we were always a unified crew and that is nothing I ever had before.

I will not be part of the second half of the mission in the Arctic and I wish the best for all my crew mates and will support them remotely as best as I can, like I tried to do on this half of the mission.