The last days activities took their toll: two of our crewmembers have catched a minor cold including headache, congested nose and general weakness. Therefore Mission Control made a flexible change in the flightplan and shifted todays plans to do a pedestrian EVA near Skyline Rim and had us go for a Geomars excursion. The cold itself is probably also due to high workload, slight lack of sleep and too much EVA activity, all leading to a reduced immune response in an environment where six humans share a small living space and there are a lot of places - like in the space station- where microbes can prosper.

Besides this, we experienced another medical "planned" anomaly, which involved a fire in the lab: our CDR had a problem with the Bunsenburner whilst handling chemicals. In the simulation, there was an explosive flame leading to a fire alarm and to 1-2nd degree burns on the left arm. The fire was extinguished the MSP Christoph Kandler, the wound was rinsed for 10min with water, covered in sterile dressings, laid down on the ground, covered with a blanket and oxygen applied whilst the vital parameters were taken and medical control was informed.

This operation was lead by Markus Spiss, our Mission Specialist Life Sciences, because - thanks to the MCC - yours truly intrepid report-writer had been sent out on EVA. The idea was to test the reaction of the crew to medical emergencies when the HSO is absent. The good news was, however, that our MSL is also a certified mountaineering EMT: this underlines the old wisdom, that even in small groups, a redundant setting of the team member specialisations are important for vital parts of the mission: this is not only relevant fot the medical, but mostly also for the engineering components, be it man or machine. When the life support fails, there will never be any science. Otherwise, in "real" station life, except for the two minor colds, the team is up and running on 100% and we are fairly optimistic, that somehow we will manage to scoop together sufficient food until the end of the mission and kill some of the 18 kg of rice stocks from the emergency rations in the stations food storage.

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HSO Personal Report:

Two days, ten hours left on Mars. Somehow, we are realizing that this mission will be nearing its end. This was a very prominent feeling when we returned from todays EVA number 21, so we are now above 100 manhours of total EVA-time. One thought I had repeatedly was, when we drove back on pathways I am aware we will probably never see those sweet spots again before returning to Earth, aka Austria. But, on the other hand, maybe it is a little bit to early to think about the return.

It is hard to summarize so many impressions and emotions after such an intense period here at the station, we have taken hundreds of pictures already, not to count the many photos from our On-Site Support team, especially our project photographer Andreas Koehler who has been hiding hours after hours near waypoints where our EVA-teams were supposed to show up at specificied times: he is the one who has been hiding under camouflage nets, covered in dust in such a way that it is virtually impossible to detect him even when standing next to him. Andreas might be compared to a cameramen of the discovery channel, waiting for his "photographic prey", as the "shy astronauts come to the oasis to drink in the early morning" or so. He has accompanied the entire project since the end of last year starting in September in the first planning workshops in Salzburg, all the way through the crew selection and traninig process and creation of the experiments.

We are very lucky to have been sponsored by so many companies with equipment and hardware, in his case we had Nikon lending us a 9500 USD teleobjective which can pinpoint a needle in a ridiculous long distance shot. So far he has created several thousand photos of the project, which means anyone close to him can hear a nearly constant clicking every thirty seconds, when the camera takes another shot. But, on the other hand, his photos are a real work of art, especially when he lets his computer do some finetuning. So, the project documentation is very well taken care of from the pictorial side - and I am already thinking about some spots in my office back at my university, where I will put some of his artwork with the signatures of my crewmates.

Signing off for today...

Yours Truly
Gernot Gröemer, HSO