Tell Me...I Will Forget
Show Me...I Will Remember
Involve Me...I Will Understand
Author Unknown

This saying is now F.L.A.M.E.'s motto for this rotation and perhaps for our future missions as well. This is crucial to the understanding of how we kinesethically live and work on Mars. Only by people involving themselves in a project will they truly appreciate and understand what a mission on Mars is all about. F.L.A.M.E.'s approach to understanding the capabilities of Crew Members is crucial in order fully comprehend the protocols the Crew will have to adhere to when Acquiring data, determining what information to put in Mission Reports, determining scientific and engineering constraints, and determining if Crew Members follow protocol. Exploration strategies conducted during the F.L.A.M.E. expeditions suggest that exploration is not just about conducting the most EVAs but to develop the best protocols for Martian exploration, determining the best technology selection, architecture evaluation, understanding Crew relations and learning from our experiences in order to contribute to the future of human exploration as a whole.

Verifying Martian habitat functionality is important but determining which individuals can handle a restrictive environment is even more vital. The children are the key to our understanding of how much one can actually adapt to. Children are resilient. Children generally have no fear of trying new things. Climbing trees, jumping down the final five stairs at the house, catching air on their Huffy bikes and skating down the side of a staircase with their skateboard. Well, what about donning on a spacesuit and going on EVA with their Mother to collect some samples for her classroom geology project, going to the GreenHab to check on how the vegetables are growing, or e-mailing their homework to their teacher back on Earth. These are just some of the things the F.L.A.M.E. students are doing during on this rotation!

Today we went on our first and only "Out of SIM" EVA to Box Canyon to give an introductory course in geology to the F.L.A.M.E. students. They collected samples unto which they will clean, identify, label and store within the MDRS Science Laboratory. They will be taking a geology quiz tomorrow on what they learned today while on EVA. So, contrary to popular belief...there is school on Mars!

The whole crew is working well with each other. While the children sit quietly doing their coursework, the Engineers are discussing the water tank malfunction that had occurred this morning. While Jared, the Educator, shows Gino how to do long division. This scene depicts how well an MDRs "Family" would live and work on Mars. We only hope that in the very near future we will one day be witness to such an amazing scene.

Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto
Commander, MDRS Crew 59