Journalist Report
01/15/2015
Andrew Henry
Today began at 7am, when the crew rose to eat breakfast and prepare for an EVA. It was another beautiful sunny day, the air crisp and the ground firm under foot. At least, I imagine it was, I wouldn’t know because I’m confined to a cylinder.
The third EVA took place today, and after performing the usual engineering tasks (diesel, water, and propane levels), the EVA team walked to nearby location to perform the second flight of the quadcopter. This flight was successful, with the team capturing some images of the terrain that will be reviewed later. Our EVA prep efficiency is definitely improving, and it only took us about 30 minutes today. EVA prep actually begins the night before a planned EVA, by making sure that the EVA suits that you intend to use on EVA are operational and have been charged.
This evening, the cooking team produced a remarkable analogue of spaghetti Bolognese with basically none of the ingredients you would typically find in it. This was accompanied by Red Lobster “Cheddar Bay Biscuits” which we have an inexplicably large quantity of. Last night we took some profile pictures for the Mars Society. The crew had a lot of fun on the shoot messing around with props and staging. We now all have spacey and professional looking pictures for the Mars Society website, which is great.
The astronomy team have been continuing their nightly observations, with beautiful clear skies allowing excellent viewing conditions. We are anxious to see the quality of the astro photos they are able to take using the CCD camera in the MDRS Musk Observatory, including the moons of planet Jupiter which shines brightly onto our humble Mars base this week every night after 8:00pm.