MDRS Day 1 - Different World

I awoke this morning to two very beautiful sights. The first was the sunrise from the loft exit at the very top of the hab. We hadn't seen the outside of the hab because it was way too dark the night before, and seeing the whole landscape for the first time with the sunrise was breathtaking. I've never seen anything like the formations around this area before in my life, not even in pictures. (Speaking of pictures, I'm working on it. We have one guy in charge of all the pictures everyone takes, so it all goes through him. I'll figure out the deal soon.)

The second beautiful sight was the mouse trap that was right next to my face while I was sleeping that had a dead mouse trapped in it. It's beautiful because I didn't wake up from the snap, even though it was RIGHT next to me. I was happy, and obviously beaten.

We finished the transfer of responsibilities and had a pow wow with 52 about the main goal of the Spaceward Bound program. The Mars Society, in conjunction with NASA, wants to make the MDRS a school for astronaut training, not like space camps for children but more for researchers and mission planners. Since we are the second crew of Spaceward Bound, we're writing our own curricula, which is pretty cool. However, because I'm the Crew Engineer (CE), what I'll be writing is more like a series of how-to manuals while the rest of the crew writes about how to do the science and field work.

We finished handover responsibilities after that. Christianna, the outgoing CE, explained as much as she could get in before 52 had to leave at 11:00. The support engineer Paul had me rewire part of the only power generator we have, Casper. A screw had busted its head off and I had to use pliers to unscrew the thread and reconnect the lines.

PRELUDE TO AN "I CALLED IT": Paul told me to leave the generator off, then at 9 o'clock turn the Inverter to "Off," then go turn the generator on. In the morning I would turn the generator off, then turn the inverter to "Auto." (The generator powers the 24V batteries; it does not directly power our systems.) We've been having a problem with the diesel fuel for the generator gelling up from the cold temperatures, so he wanted to do this to run the generator at night. I said "Wouldn't this run the batteries out sooner than that?" He said "Nope."

After Paul took 52 back to SLC, we met with Chris McKay, the Principle Investigator for MDRS. He is pushing us to create the curriculum for Spaceward Bound. We came up with future ideas for lessons with rovers and the observatory, and we discussed how each of us can contribute to the overall plan.

Once we finished lunch, Robbie and I climbed up one of the hills to get a better view of the surrounding area. I thought the morning view was good. This was spectacular. The whole landscape is an eerie reddish-beige color that really contributes to the Martian feel of the place. The other Mars analog habitats don't have that (Arctic, Australia, and Iceland analogs also exist and our supported by the Mars Society).

ATV training was next. We had some trouble starting two of them, and one of those has a broken choke lever, but once everyone had gotten a nice ride, JR and I rode out on the entrance road and tore through the terrain we didn't get to see last night. Sometime afterwards, I think my hands and ears decided to come back to life.

Tacos were for dinner, and I had a good four plates of taco salad (I get lazy after the first two tacos and just start piling taco guts on my plate). We had dinner with the people that will be running the NASA Quest Challenge webcast on Tuesday who were here to set up the satellite uplink.

After dinner we met to discuss further crew responsibilities. At 7:30 or so I started gathering data for my engineering report, which has to be submitted nightly by 9pm. At 8pm, we had our first power outage while I was checking the fuel in the ATVs with JR. The Inverter was going nuts, so after pushing some buttons the power came back on. However, at about 8:15 it conked out again. The Inverter reported low battery voltage. "HMM, LOW BATTERY VOLTAGE?!" I called it! I went and turned on the generator and all was well. I finished my Engineering report and now I'm going to start writing ops manuals. Goodnight everyone.

"Tell me what you can hear
And then tell me what you see
Everybody has a different way to view the world."