We have abandoned the first drill location. After looking at the results of the ice quakes, Commander Hunt has concluded it is not safe to resume operations here. We packed up everything except for the damaged drill and took the Humvee back to the main basecamp. Looking over at the damaged drill standing there on the horizon as we pulled away. It looked so ugly, soiling an otherwise beautiful natural landscape. This place had been untouched for billions of years, and here us humans were now trashing it up like everywhere else we go. Not even this moon millions of hours from Earth were safe from our destructive ways.
Part of me wonders if our drilling is responsible for the great ice quakes we experienced. We have not been here long enough to make an accurate inference, but I can't help but notice how smooth the drill site was when I first arrived. It was as flat as the ice at an ice rink. Now just after we started drilling it looked like it had been bombed from below. I don't know much about drilling, that is why Horvat is here. It just seems to be a bit of a coincidence.
We will be heading to the second drill site shortly. I guess if that too collapses into an unstable deathtrap that will be a sign about my theory about the drills. Until then I just hope we get some promising samples for me to analyze soon. With the second member of the team dead, I feel even more pressure to prove that this mission was not for nothing.
I hope people don't blame me for the ice quake. I had done the research into selecting this location in the first place. To be honest I feel a bit guilty, even though I know I had absolutely no way of knowing. Even the terrain showed absolutely no signs until the ice began to shake.
We've placed a second boulder a few feet away from the one we marked Richard's grave with and engraved it for Adams. I pray that this is the last one of these graves we will create in this mission. I have never been a holy woman, but at this point it feels like on Europa our fate is in God's hands. I'll need God's help if I am to deliver on my promise to return home.
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Europa
Ficção CientíficaIn order to embark on a mission to discover alien life on the icy moon of Jupiter Maria must leave her life on Earth behind, including her father and her seven-year-old son Diego. She thought the hardest part of the mission would be saying goodbye...
