Journalist Report
01/09/2014
Elizabeth Howell
It's easy to put emphasis on the business of doing EVAs and performing science here on Mars, but what is also important – also necessary – is feeding everybody and keeping all of us clean.
Scrubbing the floors of the Hab with a mop, and searching out creative recipes for dehydrated food, helped me even better understand how difficult it must be for crews on the International Space Station to perform their work. The astronauts always speak of maintenance on station vs. science performed. Imagine how much work it is to keep the crews fed and clean even when things aren't breaking up there.
The days are long here, but the weeks are short. We pack a lot into each hour, and work to help each other as we can. With more than a third of our mission behind us, we realize there is so much yet to be done in the short time we have here. But together, we feel we can accomplish just about everything we need to do.