Journalist’s Report
Date: Dec 12 2013
Written by: Dan Wilcox
Only two sols left before we bid farewell to our home here on Mars and board the Earth Return Vehicle for the third planet. We’ve planned one last EVA tomorrow to take care of some unfinished business from today, then we write our final reports, do our system checks, and prepare to strap ourselves in tomorrow morning. By 12pm Earth time, we’ll be off of the surface and onto a return trajectory to a planet with oceans of liquid water and an atmosphere more favorable to our form of life. It will be weird to be able to just step outside whenever we want without having to spend 20 minutes putting on a space suit and another 5 in an airlock. I have to say I will miss that routine as it reinforces how precious those few hours on the surface really are.
With each EVA, we learn more about our little bit of the Red Planet. This morning, Lisa and Paula returned to the area about 1.2 km E of the Hab in order to relocate what was thought to be a petrified tree during an EVA last week. It didn’t seem like much of a possibility then, but subsequent discoveries over the past few days make it much more likely. While, in the end, they were not bale to return to it, they did find a number of interesting brain-like rock formations whose MPS (Mars Positioning System) coordinates have been marked for future crews.
They also ran across what *could* be some sort of tracks. Now, we’re not sure yet if these are really footprints, pawprints, etc and, if so, that they might come from a currently living animal. Again, we’re our way out so we probably won’t be able to verify anything unless something comes and bites us on the nose during tomorrow’s EVA. Who knows?
As with knowing and not knowing, you can never be certain when equipment will fail and you just have to be ready for it. Case in point, during this afternoon’s EVA, Habib and I went for what was supposed to be a moderate walk but which turned out to be a slow slog through 1.2km of sandy ground. We were huffing up to a nearby summit to survey the area and the large canyon east of the Hab, when Habib’s pack started to fail.
His pack. As in, his oxygen, power, and life support
A big deal.
We always double and triple check our suits before we leave every on EVA, but some things happen. In this case, it seemed like a faulty wire had come loose. We immediately went into survival mode and planned a direct return to where we had parked the ATVs which both contain emergency oxygen supplies. I applied a little “manual adjustment” with my fist to Habib’s pack and it kicked back online before he turned blue. We next headed back those 1.2 km at double time before the pack gave up the ghost and hooked up the spare O2.
A close call, but as I’ve said in previous reports, all in a days work .. but we were sure glad when we stepped out of the airlock back into the Hab.