Commander's Report

April 3, 2008

Boris Yim


Last night was a happy movie night. We watched "The Astronaut Farmer" in front of a laptop. It was a pity there was no projector (but there is a projection screen).

One crew got a slight cut on his finger. His room was too warm, while other rooms might be cold, but he found the attic a comfortable place to sleep. We understand that the heating did not distribute evenly in the Hab.

This Martian morning was a bit cold, and it was found that the heater was switched off. It would be better to turn the heat down instead of switch it off. Hopefully in a real mission the temperature control will be reliable. We are happy that nothing broke down today (except for the trivial toilet flush problem as usual). We worked on our projects, including monitoring solar radio burst and the weather station. In general, the Hab is big and contains lots of good stuff left by many crews, like different control units, computer boards, cameras, UPS, batteries, printers, scanners, food, gas masks, software, chairs, books, inks, webcam, routers, tons of computer cables, etc. However, they are scattered around in different corners or boxes and hence not fully utilized. For instance, when a previous crew left a needed cable, it is hard to locate it in the Hab (although we know it is here somewhere). Hopefully in the refit mission, these resources will be put back to their suitable places one by one and setup properly for use. Also, the equipment could be restored to their designed working status, like the water tank could be refilled automatically with the sensor tube inserted back and the tank covered.

Thanks to our HSO who has expert experience in first aid, we had a crash course on and demonstration on what to do when somebody is hurt. How useful the techniques will be for a Martian inside an EVA suit has to be further investigated. Perhaps the decompression of EVA suit due to a leak in a crash has to be dealt with in the first aid.

Our lunch, just like our breakfast and dinner, requires little cooking and saves lots of time. It was a tasty sandwich meal plus noodles.

Two EVAs was planned in the afternoon. The first EVA was originally planned to visit Skyline Rim/Ridge for photography and navigation practice. However, it was found that our GPS is not suitable for off-road navigation. We were unsure how to enter the waypoints and there was no option to enter UTM coordinates, plus it has low battery even after charging. Without GPS or compass, it was hard to identify which trail is which as some are not clearly defined (“Is this the trail that we should take a left turn at?”) and the topology looks ambiguous. We went too far and arrived at Box Canyon because we could not identify the road to turn left on, but landscape there was spectacular and we were thrilled by "speeding" on the ATVs. Everybody has done an in-sim ride on ATV now. The EVAs were comfortable, as we had learned to delay it until late afternoon when it is cool.

It may not be good to mention this, but in these few days we already feel a bit of politics going on between various parties both on Mars and on Earth. Some are due to misunderstanding or miscommunication. It is understandable that there is politics as long as there are people working together, but it often hinders the progress of projects or what should be done. I sincerely hope everybody can focus on working together and helping each other towards the common goal of our new world on Mars. Nevertheless, after several days of simulation experience and team building, we are ready for the media visit this weekend.
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