We started out the day with a broken generator, broken backup generator, and no communications to the outside world. These thoughts were toiling around in my head at 8:30 in the morning. We were all up the previous night until approximately 2:30AM trying to fix the generator situation and thus were all dead tired. I was no exception at this early hour, but felt that I'd be a bad commander if I were to just lay there while we were cut off to the outside world. So I got up & headed out to the generator to try and see what was wrong.

With some inspection, I figured out that the oil was the most likely problem. So, with some help from Randy, we drained the oil, which was pitch black, and replaced it with a fresh batch. It fixed the problem & the generator started & ran like a charm. Everyone was happy to have the ability to work back.

With that ordeal over, we were able to think about our mission again. During breakfast we planned to do ATV & EVA training, as well as fix up the Red Flyer for future flights. However, before this, we decided to take an hour off from our duties to work on our personal obligations. I however, felt pretty weak from a lack of sleep, and decided to grab an hour or so to avoid catching the cold that 3 members have contracted such far.

After I rose, and everyone finished their personal work, we began making preparations for EVA training. After some ATV training & minor engineering analysis of the equipment, we were ready to go. Just before however, we had a visit from a fellow martian who showed interest in our work here at the MDRS settlement. After showing him around our settlement, we began our EVA training.

The training was a more profound experience than I had expected actually. Having been out of sim the past two days I had gotten used to walking around in plain clothes & performing science in an earthly way. Operating under sim required a lot more thought & preparation, and was quite a bit harder than out of sim exploration. Now I see how much thought & preparation will need to go into making the inhabitance of Mars a reality. I also have more of a feeling of truly being on Mars. It's a sense of isolation, and this feeling draws me closer to my crewmates.

Once we arrived back in the hab, I noticed how well the crew was working together. They're all very comfortable with each other now and are working together beautifully. I believe because we have a predetermined objective, we're all simply dedicated to getting it done the best way we can. Because of this there is no conflict about what should be done. It's clear, and thus when any of us gets a creative idea, it gets integrated into our mission & it improves it. The leaders have been established and the members of both teams (engineering and geology) have been coordinated under these leaders. Thus everybody is use to working together, and are comfortable in their roles. I think because everyone is comfortable, they can be creative, and as I've already seen, this creativeness is substantially improving the quality of our mission. We are now in full sim. We'll be discussing our sim conditions and scientific plans for the next few days. We'll be planning our future field work, and analyzing our data. We plan on making some scientific progress! All in all, I'm VERY glad I'm here. The science is solid, and these people are wonderful.

Ad Astra!