Throwing in the Radio Towel

Sometimes it doesn't matter how hard you try. We ran out of crimp connectors today, and spent an hour fabricating new ones from plumber's tin and electrical tape. Then we doggedly made yet another EVA to the Remote Radio and confirmed that it doesn't work even when the earphone connector is unplugged. It sends and receives just fine, but will not play intelligible sounds through the speaker or earphone. But if you also unplug the microphone connector, it suddenly works again. And since the radio works just fine inside the hab with both connectors in, and since I've exhausted every other possibility, the fault must lie in the outside cable itself. More specifically, either the blue or green wire is partially shorted to either the red or the white cable. Nothing else I'm aware of could cause these symptoms.

If it really really mattered and if I could rig up some sort of cable tracer, I could probably locate the fault somewhere up along that steep hillside, and maybe even repair it. But the cable is in terrible condition, and messing around with it would create as many problems as it solved. The insulation is, like, falling apart into PVC dandruff. What we really need is a new cable that's actually 1000' long, and actually intended for outdoor use.

But even in its half-dead state, the radio can receive unintelligible signals. That is, when a signal comes in, you do at least hear something, even if you can't tell what it is. And the radio does transmit intelligibly, with enough strength to be picked up by the R2 repeater, so it's conceivable that some sort of check-in code could be devised. "One burst of static means yes, five bursts means no, and ten bursts means we're in trouble and need assistance."

So the open question for Mission Support is whether we should make one more trek up that hill to set up this capability for Crew 28, or whether they will simply send Crew 28 out with a proper spool of cable, and have me write up some detailed instructions for connecting the radio. In either case I'll have done my duty as an engineer, to bring things as close to working order as possible and recommend a course of action for a full fix. And I'm doing my duty as a journalist by writing about it here.

Sometimes you have to know when to cut your losses and stop throwing time and energy at a problem. But damn, damn, damn, it would have been nice to get that monster working. It would have made a better story.

On the plus side, Peter came up onto Radio Ridge with us today, and walked around looking at his feet. Geology, you see. At one point while Habcom was off fixing an ATV I said to Peter, "EVA1, look, I've found a fossil!" To which his dry English reply was, "Have a look over here, then." Turned out he was standing on a dirt mound composed almost entirely of fossil mollusk shells. Thousands upon thousands of shells, whose owners were caught here millions of years ago (188 million, according to Bill), and buried in some undersea mudslide that swept down on their nesting ground.

We might have salvaged a successful geological outing from the ruins of our maintenance mission -- Bill keeps saying that on the flat rock shelf of Radio Ridge, meteorites should stand out like middle fingers. But instead we got chased inside by another storm, and spent the time catching up on psych evaluations instead.

There's a lot more to do out here, a lot more to see, but as we approach the middle of our second week I'm increasingly, acutely missing my wife and kids. Maybe that ache subsides when you've been in space long enough, or maybe we'd all be better off if deep-space astronauts were people without happy families to pine for. But as Elton John reminds us, Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids. Not until they're older, anyway; mine would probably fall down the ladder. I can't be here, taking in this huge experience, and also be a good Daddy. But when I get to feeling maudlin about it I just think of our troops, marooned overseas for years at a time, with bullets buzzing overhead.

Radio troubles or no, I'm having a lot more fun than that.