Commander's Report for 4 April 2015
This morning, we all awoke at 7 am to Luis's choice of music, AC/DC's TNT and Highway to Hell. Waking up to some classic rock really energize the whole crew.
Crew members enjoyed a simple breakfast of cereal and oatmeal. We planned our day.
Luis, Karen, and Drew left the hab to run errands in Hanksville, These errands included shipping supplies at the post office and stopping by Hollow Mountain for personal supplies.
Lori, Liz, and Sam stayed back at the hab to inventory the food, clean the kitchen, wipe down all helmets with Lysol, and make sure the hab is ready to hand over to the other crew.
Luis, Karen, and Drew returned. The Vice's Motherboard reporter had not yet arrived at the hab. The team put a note on the door on how to contact us, we locked the door, and the team left the hab to go get lunch. On the way, we ran into the reporter on Cow Dung Road. We invited him to lunch, which he enthusiastically accepted.
The team and the reporter went to Stan's Burger Joint for burgers and shakes. We spent some time with Daniel answering questions about MDRS and our experience with it. After lunch, we took him back to the hab.
Lori, Luis, and Sam suited up and took Daniel on engineering rounds. I stayed behind on capcom. Even though we are out of sim today, we showed Daniel precisely how sim operates, including how to depressurize.
They returned, and Lori, Sam, and Daniel went outside to take space suit pictures. Pictures took 30-45 minutes.
Everyone came back in and the team sat around the kitchen table and answered Daniel's questions. His questions focused on our experiences, our challenges, how we prepared, what we learned, if we would go to Mars, etc. It took about an hour to answer questions.
Daniel left around 3:00 PM. The team spent the afternoon finishing up their reports, writing for the MCC Life on Mars blog, packing, and getting ready to leave.
We have not yet established contact with crew 152B. We are waiting for them to arrive so that we can train them on all the things they need to know. Our team plans to stay through the 9 pm CapCom window. Our team will be departing MDRS at 9:15 PM.
Our team plans on training crew 152B on everything they need for a successful Mars Mission. This includes making sure they understanding precisely how the engineering reports need to be written and how the measurements need to be taken. We are going to advise that only one person takes all the measurements, so that all measurements are consistent throughout the week.
This has been an invaluable and amazing experience, as usual. Crew 152A extends our deepest gratitude to The Mars Society for allowing us this wonderful learning experience. We cannot wait to tell others back home of our adventures. We also are excited to continue to share our passion for Mars and the mission of The Mars Society. For me personally, this means assigning in-class assignments that help my students learn more about Mars and the importance of long-term exploration.