Commander's Report
01/03/2013
Chelsea Iwig
Crew 121 has become adapted to life on Mars and is now accustomed to the routine of
activities to be completed each day. Today was an early morning for the crew as Carlos was scheduled
to lead the crew through his advanced exercise. This was very challenging for the entire crew, but
afterward they were all wide awake and ready to face another day.
Next the crew made a quick breakfast of oatmeal, and then half of the crew headed off to the
GreenHab to take care of their plants. As a result of some GreenHab malfunctions early on in the
crew’s mission, the plants are not doing well. The malfunctions have been fixed, and the crew is
doing their best to revitalize the plants, but it isn’t looking good. They have planted some more
seeds with the hope that these new plants will thrive now that the GreenHab is fully functional.
While half of the crew was in the GreenHab, Carlos did an awesome job of cleaning up around the Hab.
Due to the dusty environment outside and the fact that seven people are living inside a very small
space, the Hab gets dirty very fast. However, thanks to Carlos, the Hab is looking great today.
Once all the crew had returned to the main Hab, Carolyn began playing Country music for her
research. The response to this music type was mixed, but the crew does often comment on how they
wish they could listen to music more throughout the day and not just in the morning and evening for
Carolyn’s study. It will be interesting to see whether the physiological data that Carolyn has been
collecting reinforces the apparent positive response that the crew has reported when music is played
in this high stress, isolated and confined environment.
Once Carolyn’s study was complete, we had a meeting to plan the next EVA for tomorrow. This will be
the first EVA where we will be utilizing the ATV’s and the crew is really looking forward to explore
some areas further away from the Hab. Tomorrow we plan to venture out to a dry creek bed near the
Hab. We are hoping to find signs of previous life on this desolate planet as well as some more
interesting rocks to analyze. After the crew had been fully briefed on the planned route and how to
safely use the ATVs, the crew was given some break time to relax and get ahead on their reports for
the day. The next event on the schedule was to have a crew meeting to discuss how things were going
and how efficiency could be improved. Crew members were given the opportunity to voice their
concerns and come up with solutions to any problems they had faced over the first five days on Mars.
The meeting was a huge success and has already helped the crew to improve efficiency, overall team
cohesion, and morale.
Tonight the crew decided to have breakfast for dinner. So chocolate chip pancakes and scrambled
eggs are cooking on the stove and the crew is happily conversing while working in the kitchen. The
rest of the evening has been left open to allow the crew to head out to the observatory after
finishing dinner and COMMS. Last night, the crew planned to go out to the observatory but ended up
running out of time. Therefore, tonight will be the crew’s first opportunity to view some of the
most spectacular objects in the night sky.
Today has been a very enjoyable day for the crew and spirits are high. Crew 121 is making great
progress on their research and is learning a great deal about Mars. Tomorrow will be busy in the
afternoon, but the crew is looking forward to being able to sleep in a little since there is very
little data collection planned for the morning.
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Commander's Check-In
01/03/2013
Chelsea Iwig
Crew Physical Health: The crew’s colds appear to be getting better, but one crew member has a persistent cough.
Hab Maint: The toilet has been draining very slowly since last night, so our Engineer notified ENG and MST. ENG suggests that this may be due to a frost problem in the pipes. We tried flushing the system with hot water for 10 minutes, and the toilet has shown little improvement. Crew 121 has used almost 100 gallons of water in the past 24 hours because of this problem. The crew was advised to put all toilet tissue waste in a garbage bag until the problem is completely fixed. The Engineer also filled the static tank once and the loft tank five times. IT was experiencing a remote access problem with IT, which was resolved through cooperation with the crew Engineer. The good news is that since the gap between the Hab wall and the Engineering airlock with foam insulation, we have not had any trouble with getting hot water.
Rep Sched: Tonight’s reports include the Commander’s daily report, Eric’s Science report, the HSO report, an EVA plan, and the Engineering reports.
Tomorrow Plan: Tomorrow we will be conducting data collection for Eric, Chelsea, Carolyn, and Noah’s studies. We have also planned an EVA for tomorrow afternoon utilizing the ATVs. The goal is to explore a dry creek bed 16km northeast of the Hab.
Inventory: None conducted today.
Support Req: None today.