Today we've had the pleasure of showing Mary Roach around the
facilities and taking her out on EVA. Mary Roach is a journalist and
well-known author of "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Cadavers". She
arrived in time for a breakfast of bacon and eggs and granola with
blueberries. In the morning we sent out two EVAs. Kerry and Arthur
finished the field component of Kerry's soil gas analysis project while
Mic and Perry performed heavy physical labour to dig out and level an
area beside the Hab to put in a concrete pad for a new battery pack
which will replace the aging one underneath the Hab. Cheryl finally
got to work on her science project because her shipment of Daphnia
arrived today. They were initially shipped to the wrong address and
most of them were dead but she salvaged a few that were still alive.
While the rest of the crew worked hard, John and Anna showed Mary
around the Hab and GreenHab and discussed the aims and goals of MDRS,
Mars Society Canada and a great deal of other space related topics.
After a lunch spiced with a lively discussion of US politics, Perry,
Kerry and I tried out my Mazda B2600i truck as a pressurized rover and
drove to Factory Bench. The area is quite different that that around
MDRS because instead of flat layers of sediment the area west of
Factory Butte has sediment layers that are tilted at a high angle. The
rover required fuel upon return so we drove to the only gas station on
Mars, which is located in Hanksville. We received several double-takes
from bystanders as we refueled and fortunately the payment by VISA was
accepted. In parallel to the pressurized rover EVA Mary, Mic and
Cheryl drove the ATVs out to Candor Chasma to collect extremophile soil
samples and show Mary what EVAs are all about. Both afternoon EVAs were
a success.

This evenings reports are almost finished and we will soon have Nasim
give her presentation about her recent internship at CSA which dealt
with space weather. Later we may play a game of Space Munchkin.

Tomorrow we will send a second pressurized rover to Factory Bench area
and perhaps a second EVA to Candor Chasma or Lith Canyon, however we
won't be doing four EVAs in one day again because the battery packs
don't have enough juice for that kind of use.