Journalist Report
04/08/2013
Bao Pham
Bored of Chaos
After the reports were finished last night, we had a team meeting to discuss things we learned that
day and Marianna went to bed early because of the long day. Paulina, Randy and I played several
hands of Texas Hold’em and used packets of Swiss Miss and Splenda as chips before calling it a night.
On this morning we started the day by listening to various musical numbers as Aly made pancakes. We
sat around and talked a little bit about musicals while we shared a meal with each other and
outlined a little bit of what was in store for us today. The plan is for a light day today so that
we can work on our individualized projects. After breakfast, we did a microbiology lab and took
swabs of different spots inside the hab.
After three days at the hab, we have not had any conflicts. Whether we are on an EVA, or furiously
trying to get our reports in, it feels like our team works well together. Two of us helped to go
retrieve a walkie talkie that was dropped during engineering rounds and tried to close the hab door
that flew open during the storm. How many times can you say that you would go out into a sandstorm
for someone? When the door blew open the second time, Larry and I went out there and secured the
door with some rope.
We spent a little time lounging around playing games. The internet is far too slow to upload
anything in a reasonable amount of time. Well, most of us played games. Aly was checking on the
greenhouse and working on her project on hydration. Then she started cooking. At this point, we
felt like we should do something productive and cleaned up around the hab a bit. The other two
projects required going outside, which was looking very unlikely due to all the rain and wind. One
of the projects involves gathering soil samples, and the other project requires suiting up to test
resistance in the MDRS suits that mimics the resistance of actual space suits.
It’s a good thing that Mars is deficient in flowing water. We did manage to do a few things around
the hab though. We took inventory of the food and reorganized the pantry. We did a few team
building exercises that we had scheduled for tomorrow because we were stuck indoors pretty much all
day due to rain or wind. We actually did two exercises, one was to develop trust and to work on
communications, and the other team building activity we did helped us to know one another better.
We turned on the disco lights for this.
For dinner we are having cheddar and broccoli soup with potatoes. Aly also made garlic-cheddar
biscuits and another loaf of white bread.