Log Book for January 30, 2011
Commander's Report
Donna Viola Reporting
Today, the crew awoke to their first morning on Mars, ready to begin
exploring. The ladies woke up early to practice riding the ATVs and to
explore one of the commander's favorite geology sites, gathering some
really cool rocks and petrified wood to show off to friends and family
back home - and discovered, much to their delight, tumbleweed
(something non-desert-dwellers don't get to see very often!).
Afterward, the guys ventured north to practice riding the ATVs prior
to entering sim. Once they returned, the team officially started the
simulation, ready to embrace their role as Marsonauts.
Over lunch, the
team came to the conclusion that MDRS would be a great place to wait
out a zombie apocalypse - so if that happens within the next two
weeks, we should be safe (no such promises for our friends on the
Mission Support team back on Earth).
The afternoon consisted of
practice EVAs to learn how to operate while wearing EVA suits. Max,
Heidi, and Andie went to explore Candor Chasma, looking for sites for
future geologic study. Max just couldn't get enough EVAs, so he joined
Kevin, Sukrit, and myself to track down the MDRS geocache - after a
fairly strenuous hike, mission success!
The away team returned to the
Hab triumphant, and settled in for the evening to relax and fill out
some lovely surveys (not only our food study questionnaires, but also
the surveys for a remote immunosuppression study being conducted by a
fellow NASA Ames Academi alum).
Tomorrow, we are planning on
conducting our first science EVAs - and are very excited to spend our
first full day on "Mars"!