Journalist Report
04/12/2013
Bao Pham
Leavetakings
We had clear skies again last night as Marianna and Larry tried to align the telescope. The rest of
the crew was stargazing, waiting for confirmation that we managed to focus the telescope on
something, on anything.
“Hey guys do you want to see Sirius?” Marianna exclaimed.
With that success, we went on to view Jupiter and Saturn. It was a beautiful night that became even
more of a spectacle when we caught a couple of “shooting stars.” After we dialed in on Saturn and
all took turns gazing, we went back to the hab and got ready for bed.
The start of our last full day at the hab began with a mix of music provided by Aly. The smells of
chocolate chip pancakes permeated the air as we discussed our plans for the day. Our master plan
was to clean the hab before the arrival of the next crew and tie up some loose ends. First however,
we went down stairs to perform the lab portion of the chemistry EVA. We sifted some rocks, Larry
made a homemade centrifuge, and we performed some analysis on the samples we took yesterday. Of
course, Aly found an actual centrifuge after we were done.
Aly and I went out so I could gather the last bit of data for my project. Larry decided to fix Pack
I, which wasn’t charging, Pack II, which had a loose connection, and Pack III which hasn’t worked
the entire time we’ve been here.
Then we Paulina, Randy and I suited up to go collect soil respiration jars that he had left out
earlier. Before we left, I retested Randy for one of my courses because we had numbers that didn’t
make any sense. We left to retrieve the jars, and wandered around a canyon briefly before heading
back to the hab.
When we got back, the rest of the crew suited up to take a picture. We spent the next few hours
before the reports talking about various subjects. We are definitely come from diverse backgrounds
and it’s been interesting getting such varied perspectives from my other crewmates. Aly has
single-handedly ruined our Mars experience. With the variety of food she has made, it doesn’t
really seem like we’re eating some mish mash of freeze dried ingredients. Today, we had three
different types of pizza. Larry is contributing to our waistlines by making cherry tarts. While we
were eating, we’ve continued to converse with each other. Even though we’ve seen each other every
day for the past week, we still come up with interesting ways to amuse ourselves while still getting
things done. Tonight, we’re planning on taking a few pictures with the telescope and enjoy the end
of our time here at MDRS with each other. This has been a fun adventure, and if I was making a trip
to Mars, this wouldn’t be such a bad crew to spend all that time with.