January 20, 2008

Greetings from analog Mars!

Crew 65 has had a busy day since arriving last night at 8:45 pm. We
were welcomed by a friendly Crew 64 and quickly put to work touring the
facility and cross-training in all MDRS procedures and systems.

We awoke up at 7 am this morning to say our goodbyes to Crew 64.
Commander William Durocher handed over command to Commander Debi-Lee
Wilkinson and our mission officially began. We shared our first
breakfast of hot oatmeal and tea.

Debi-Lee had a busy time coordinating the days activities. She focused
the crew resources around a variety of engineering tasks so that we can
have a solid Sim experience.

The overarching theme of our labors today was WIWO (water in water
out).

The water line which carries our potable water supply into the Hab is
either frozen or blocked. Luis and Chris tried several solutions - they
applied insulation and heat tape to the pipe leading directly out of
the water supply into the ground. They also tried priming the pump with
hot water. So far no luck and as a result the entire crew worked
efficiently to manually haul 45 gallons of H20 into the Hab.

We are also having problems with the processing of grey water leaving
the Hab. Graham, Luis and Morgan worked to troubleshoot a number of
these issues within the GreenHab. Morgan and Graham used pickaxes to
crack open the underground holding tank which had overflowed and frozen
solid.

The pump that transfers grey water from the underground holding tank to
the trickle filter 1 [TF1] reservoir in the GreenHab is inoperable. So
Graham gallantly pumped most of the grey water manually into the
GreenHab wastewater management system. We also found that the aerators
supplying oxygen to some of the holding tanks are not functioning.

In the observatory Mike and Debi-Lee worked on disassembling the drive
assembly for the observatory dome. One component has some broken leads
which need to be repaired so that we can control the dome remotely.
Work is underway to re-solder the broken leads.

Graham provided stellar ATV training for all crew members. Morgan
recorded one of these sessions on video.

Chris gave the crew the HSO medical briefing.

Debi-Lee cooked a delicious spaghetti dinner.