KM303

Apr 8, 2009 - 23:49

Mars Desert Research Station Crew 80 - Journalist Report - April 8

Another windy day on Mars grounded the crew and cancelled any planned EVAs for today. Although the foul weather hindered the research progress, it was a chance to accomplish a lot inside the hab. With the final reports coming up, there was a lot to do and no time to waste.

I worked on the food inventory that needs to be submitted tomorrow and made sure the spreadsheet matches what’s in the cabinets. Keeping track of what we used and what we restocked made the job much easier and the final result should be more accurate.

In addition, the engineer tasked me with attempting to fix the EVA radios that have been labeled as inoperative by the previous crews. Always up for tinkering with electronics, circuits, and almost everything else, I accepted the challenge and managed to get two of them working with the EVA suits. There are now five radios available for EVAs.

The greenhouse progress is improving with each day as well. Today saw two more seedlings sprout, bringing the total to six for the same space-exposed seed set. A total of three non-experimental space seeds have germinated in a separate set.

Pictures from the previous days have also been organized last night and have been uploading during the day, bringing us closer to finalizing our rotation. It was difficult to pick only a few pictures for some days since so much happened and we wanted to share a lot more with the world. And despite the many days we were snowed in, battled extreme winds, and waited out the rain, there was a lot of EVA progress done and a lot of pictures to show our exciting time on Mars. Time flew by quickly here at the hab, and I can’t believe it’s almost time to go home. I wish I could permanently live on Mars, and I don’t know how I will get used to walking up proper stairs after the ingenious design of stairs at the hab.

Previous entries:

2009-04-07 - Mars Desert Research Station Crew 80 - Journalist Report - April 7

2009-04-06 - Mars Desert Research Station Crew 80 - Journalist Report - April 6

2009-04-03 - Mars Desert Research Station Crew 80 - Journalist Report - April 2

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