Today was a wet day at the MDRS.

No, it wasn't raining. Not outside anyway...

We had some plumbing issues today. Some were our own making (while refilling our internal water supply, I allowed myself to become distracted when I needed to be focused on my job of watching the tank like a hawk. As a result, it overflowed and leaked into two of our crew quarters), and some just happened to us (one of our faucets just came off in our hands and water flowed all over until we shut off the valve under the sink), and some then happened as a domino effect (all this extra water placed a surge on the GreenHab system and caused it to overflow). Nothing to worry about; it's all been dealt with and Marcus (the Miracle Worker) has effected repairs. We are stable and totally operational. But I did learn a lesson today, that when something goes wrong in a partially closed, interdependent system like our MDRS, you need to be immediately on the lookout for what possibly might be affected downstream.

In spite of these incidents, we still had a productive day of crew EVA training, filling holes in our provisions, ATV training, and familiarization of the NDX-1 prototype Mars SpaceSuit. I am having to put off our detailed suit inspections to tomorrow, but overall we are still on track per our pre-mission timeline.

Today was very different from our previous two days together, but it was also similar in one notable way: I again discover new talents in this crew, like Marcus's ability to create lyrics, and how PJ's photography is splendid, and proliferate.

We dined again with the team from North Dakota, and tomorrow we see their prototype suit in action!

Be Safe, Have Fun, Get It Done - CREW 61!

Chip Shepherd
Commander, MDRS Crew 61