Commander Report
04/15/2013
Liz Mitchell
Last night, the entire crew went out to the astronomy observatory. It was
too cloudy to use the
telescope. Instead, the crew spent time at the observatory looking at the
small part of the clear
sky.
Kyle also worked on his project, as it is a night satellite project. He met
with mariginal success;
his satellite may not be powerful enough to pick up the information he needs
at night. Henceforth,
he will do his testing during the day, to pick up the stronger signals from
the sun, including solar
flares and radiation bursts (which would be harmful for the crew's health on
Mars).
It rained all day today. The crew did not go on any EVAs because we did not
want to get the MDRS
equipment muddy.
Today, the crew all participated in the microbiology lab. The crew made
Mannitol Salt and
MacConkey's agar plates. Each crew member swabbed one place in the Hab
before and after
disinfecting that area with Chlorox wipes. Plates were swabbed and placed
into the 37C incubator.
We will check every day for microbial growth.
Our time inside gave crew members time to focus on their individual
projects. It also gave the crew
time to bond. We have engaged in a "friendly cooking war", whereby the crew
has divided into 2
groups of 3. The idea is to create friendly competition and great food,
thereby increasing
camaraderie.
For lunch, James, Jennifer, and I made potato gratin casserole, macaroni and
cheese with broccoli,
and apple pie. The food was very well received.
For dinner, Santiago, Kyle, and Brad made what we are calling "Turin
Delight", an Italian dish with
veggies, pesto, and pasta. They also made pan cookies. This meal was very
well received.
Tonight, we plan on going back to the observatory. Henceforth, we will try
to use the observatory
every night the sky is clear. If the sky is not clear, the crew may spend
some time looking at the
stars. The crew had a very in-depth discussion on how stars would be used
on Mars to navigate at
night, since Mars does not have a magnetic field that would make compasses
useful. Knowing the star
map on Mars may be very critical to navigation.
Tonight, the team may also participate in team building activities. The
more we interact, the more
we are finding that having a good working team would be a life or death
situation on Mars. We also
discussed in depth who would makeup the team (a
doctor/biologist/chemist/psychologist, an
engineer/cook, etc.). Also discussed in depth were the "human nature"
situation of being gone for 3
years.
We came to the conclusion the crew would need to be a mixed sex crew with no
risks of pregnancy. We
also came to the conclusion the first people on Mars would need to be very
highly trained (Navy
seals, etc.) who would be automatically "programmed" to put the needs of the
mission ahead of
personal wants.
Problems Today:
Today at 5:30 PM the power went out to the Hab. We checked the breaker (no
problems) and then
immediately called DH at the Hollow Mountain. After about 5 minutes, the
power returned. The
reason the power went out was because DG was replacing the oil and batteries
on the generator.
DG also refilled gasoline on the ATVs, brought new water.
Further thoughts on food:
The crew talked about it, and we think conserving Gatoraid for the next crew
is not feasible. We
want to put the health of our crew first. We think that drinking Gatoraid
has been tremendously
helpful in keeping everyone feeling healthy. We do not want to restrict
Gatoraid consumption, if
that means our crew's health will be adversely affected.
If need be, we can replace the Gatoraid consumed at the end of our rotation,
so the Russian crew has
enough after us.
We are working on writing a lab that focuses on cooking and team building.
We hope to incorporate
this team building exercise in future MDRS missions.