Commander's Report
February 25, 2008
Randall Shelaga

Day 8 of Boot Camp started with beautiful blue skies and nice weather.
We were go for EVA!

Breakfest consisted of the much dreaded freeze dried scrambled eggs and
bacon, but with a twist. "Kim" reconstitued the eggs as per SOP
(Standard Operating Procedures), but took it upon himself to chop some
fresh onion, pan fry them and then add the groups eggs for a final
reheat and frying. The eggs by our standards were excellent!

EVA08 consisting of "Kim", "Googly" and "Whisky" were soon out the
airlock for an ATV EVA to practise exploration protocols and conduct
mapping of an unmapped road between Cactus Road and Lowell Highway.
Along the way, a few panorama and horizon photographs started the
"Googly" and "Kim" on their formal training in the Field Documentation
Methodology developed by Stacy Sklar. At times the speeds appropriate
for mapping seemed painfully slow, however, in the end a very nice
tracklog of the trail resulted. I ("Whisky") used the ATV
affectionately referred to as the Green Beast, a machine that has had
almost as many seasons at the Station as Private Ham. The Green
Machine was all that I remembered, a real workhorse.

Upon our return to the Station a lunch of spaghetti and meat sauce and
a fresh loaf of bread awaited us. A chance to debrief the crew, and
the afternoon EVA (EVA09) was soon ready to go.

"Blondie", "Biobabe" and "Fam" were off to the Engineering area to
conduct some trials of the RFID systems transportability by a crew in
Sim Suits. The trial went well, but personally, I think it was only a
way for "Blondie" to have the ladies carry his luggage. After the
trial was completed, the trio proceeded to Candor Chasma to continue
the work related to the Microbial Viability Study.... Candor Chasma is
a beautiful place, which has much to share with this and future crews.

The crew is finishing off their reports and compiling the pictures,
tonight we will download the tracklogs and waypoints from our
explorations and put another page into the ExEpsilon Logbook.

Tomorrow, we hope to bring the crew to a few choice geological features
in the area and continue their training, with the Engineering team
going out in the afternoon for some exploration.

Until tomorrow!
Ut Mars per erudio!