410-CommandersReport

Commander’s Report 10 April 2015

I must begin today’s transmission with the report of our astronomy activity last night. Our astronomer was able to locate Jupiter, in the Celestron telescope. What a view! The planet was beautiful and we were able to see the bands. This has definitely been an additional highlight of our week.

Today we woke to Melody’s music and ate a quick breakfast before gearing up for our full day. Arwhil suited up and made engineering rounds. Following this, Crystal, David and Hannah suited up and joined Arwhil and the four of them set out on an EVA to Burpee Dinosaur Quarry. This was a photographic EVA. Though they did not visualize any bone, they did see petrified wood and of course, beautiful and vast geological formations.

For lunch, we once again, ate a southern meal consisting of jambalaya and cornbread.

This afternoon the student’s worked on summaries of their projects and we cleaned and organized the HAB in anticipation of our afternoon guests.

Shannon Rupert, another faculty and four students arrived at MDRS around 4:00 pm. We gave them a tour of the HAB. We ate a dinner of broccoli chicken casserole together. The crew ate Mars candy bars for dessert that we had brought from earth to mark the end of our simulation.

We are planning on doing an astronomy activity with our guests tonight.

We did not receive a fuel supply as of this report.

As we wind down our last day of simulation we are reflecting on our time together and discussing what an inestimable experience this has been. We are very grateful to the Mars Society for allowing MCC to be a participant in this challenging, unique and invaluable program.

I feel this last quote sums up why we continue to look to the future and push toward mankind’s expansion to Mars.

“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” -----Mary Kay Ash

Signing off,

Liz Painter, Commander, Crew 152B—Lone Star Highlanders, McLennan Community College, Waco, Texas

Liz Painter, RN, BSN

LVN/CNA Simulation Lab Instructor

McLennan Community College

Waco, Texas