428-CommanderReport

Commander Report

04/28/2014

Peter Morgan-Dimmick

Our crew is really starting to hit its stride. After a late morning to catch up on sleep everyone woke up ready to go. While Chris and I ran to town to mail our paperwork to the Mars Society the crew all remained focused on their assigned tasks. Humberto and Jorge continued working on the experiments from crew 140 (build-able stretcher and a crawling robot), while Kavya and Josh prepared a rover for our afternoon EVA. We expect this to be the last time we need to break sim.

After Chris and I returned we all sat down for lunch and discussed the EVA plan. Jorge and Humberto would focus on a bicycle that can be turned into a stretcher / wheelbarrow while Kavya would focus her attention on Josh's rover. I kept an eye on everyone and took pictures. Tackling two objectives and staying near the hab turned out to be extremely effective and successful. Josh remotely controlled the rover from inside the hab, and it's likely that it will be incorporated into many of our future EVAs.

Hunberto's leg was sore and slightly swollen after we doffed our spacesuits. Several months ago he had broken it and it's still a little stiff from disuse. We put some ice on it and within short order it was good as new.

As well we received our new supply of water today, much to everyone's relief. We hadn't started our rotation with very much, so this is our first full tank. The apparent issue with air in the loft water pump seems to have resolved itself.

Tonight we will finalize our schedule for the next two weeks and the engineering checks are in progress. Morale is excellent and lots of science is happening.

Pete Morgan-Dimmick

MDRS Crew 141

XO / Acting Commander