Thank you and the coal companies that made our trip possible. Thanks for giving the Challenger Center the money for the trip. I had so much fun.

The most fun thing was the ports. There was a port that was Earth rotation. You hold onto a pole and turn yourself around and around. I learned that when you get close up to the pole it goes fast and if I am far away from the pole it goes slower than before. It shows how fast Mars rotates around the sun. As Mars goes around the sun and it gets closer Mars goes faster and as it moves away it goes slower.

Another port was robots that tested temperatures. I liked to control the robot like a video game with a remote control. The rovers on Mars are like the robots only larger. They test Mars for samples of soil and temperatures. Coal miners use tools like this too. Bulldozers and cranes use controllers like a video game too!

Another thing about coal miner tools is the drill. The drill can drill to help a miner find coal. The rovers are digging trying to find water just like we try to find coal.

Mars looks red because of the iron on the surface. It has a hard surface that would be good to build houses on. There is lots of dust on Mars so the house has to be strong and have secure windows that won't break when the dust storms come. They can build sphere houses so the dust won't pile up around the sides of the house, it will just blow over.

If the rovers can find ice or water on the planet they will have a good place to build houses. Maybe someday I will live on Mars. After visiting the Challenger Center I feel like I know what I would have to do to live there and be a successful colonist.

Thanks again for letting me go on this trip. The next time I see you we will be heading toward Mars!

Your Friend, Jacob
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I have learned a lot about astronauts and coal miners and how there jobs are alike. I have learned that if they go to Mars we will have more water.

I think space houses should have bricks so they will not float off into space. Space homes shoild not be like earth homes because they could float off. They should be dome shaped so when they have the oxygen in the home it will stay in better and they won't float off. The dome home will also help when a dust storm comes the wind won't blow it away.

When the coal miners built coal camps they put the houses in a row. On Mars the houses won't have to be in a row but they will have to be connected so air and water will be easy to get.

Coal miners have coal here on Earth but there is none on Mars. So miners will have to find some other resource to mine like water. On Mars if they have water already the astronauts won't have to carry all that weight on the shuttle. So there will still be plenty of jobs for everyone.

At the Challenger Center I learned that if you had a car on Mars it would float up because of the gravity. I learned that coal mining can be very expensive. They give you fines if you get the wrong things or mess up the environment.

I had a real good time at the Center because it made learning fun.

Your Friend, Megan