Commander Frederick's colleagues, Bob and Sean, showed up yesterday afternoon. They're interesting guys with a comprehensive knowledge of astronomy. The van they drove from Oregon had lost the ability to go into reverse, but it was crammed with telescope equipment. They set up a ten-inch telescope outside the Hab and gave detailed tours of the night sky well into the early morning hours. Most of what they said went straight over my head, but listening to them made me realize what this little station in the Utah desert is all about. With all the daily maintenance tasks that require attention, the monitoring of EVA teams, the report writing, keeping oneself reasonably clean-it's a good idea to pause and stare into the sky now and then.

It appears that Greg Michael has become addicted to EVA roving, especially the roving part. He spent seven hours on two separate EVA missions today, coming back each time with a big grin plastered across his face and a digital camera loaded with images. When Greg plugs his camera into a laptop to download his pictures, we all crowd around to ooh and ahh as if we were looking at fresh imagery from the NASA rovers instead of the desert terrain immediately outside the Hab's porthole windows. Today I remained inside the Hab all day, only venturing outside to refuel the generator. I particularly enjoy the job of HabCom, the radio link between crewmembers out on EVA missions and the Hab. I've been asking EVA teams to periodically call in their coordinates so that I can plot them on the USGS topographic map here, but radio communication is spotty at best beyond a kilometer or two. I hope this will be remedied. I can't imagine that it would be safe, or even practical, to have future astronauts toiling across Mars' unforgiving landscape without any means of communication with a support base.

The wind is kicking up a good bit this evening. Clouds tinged with brown dust are scudding in fast from the west, urged on by strong winds. It gets windy here around midday, and by evening time the wind gusts buffet the Hab, causing it to creak like a wooden ship rolling on high seas. It might be too cloudy tonight to view the rare supernova that Bob and Sean wanted to show us, but my fingers are crossed.