401-JournalistReport

Journalist Report

04/01/2014

Selena Barrientos

The crew woke up at 0800 hours Monday morning and ate breakfast. After breakfast, Alice began preparing the microbiology lab for the rest of the crew. Michael, Bradley and Alice suited up for the first outside EVA to scout for locations to fly the quadracopter while Alex, Selena and Lee stayed behind at the hab to begin the swabs for the microbiology lab. The followinglocations were swabbed: the shower floor, the water tank lid, the inside rim of one of the space helmets and the door handle to the back airlock room. After the swab samples were streaked onto the agar plates and put into the incubator, Selena and Lee went into the green hab. After Lee completed the green hab duties the power went out. Shortly after, the rest of the crew returned from the outside EVA. Brad broke sim so that the Mars Society could be contacted about the generator problem. After a few hours of no lights and back and forth communication with the Mars Society, the crew decided to stay the night in Hanksville because of safety concerns.

The diesel was refilled Tuesday morning and the crew was officially back in sim at 1000 hours. Lee and Michael immediately began the geologist and engineering rounds. Alex began cooking lunch while Brad reconnected with the Mars Society through CapCom. Alice and Selena worked on the CapCom reports until lunch was ready. After lunch, the crew continued to catch up on CapCom reports in order for them to be ready when CapCom window opens. At 1600 hours Brad, Alex, Selena, Michael and Alice suited up to scout further sites for Michael to simultaneously locate a geocache left by Crew 138. Lee remained at the hab to simulate as Mission Support and work on her research. The crew returned at 1800 hours. Alex began making dinner and Michael did engineering rounds while the remaining crew members completed CapCom reports.