Commander Report
25 April 2016 – Sol 1
Ben Easter
Mission Support,
Greetings from Mars! After a long journey, Crew 168 arrived on Mars yesterday and officially entered simulation today! We are very excited for our stay on Mars. As members of the Wilderness Medical Society, we are all medically trained, including 4 emergency physicians, one family physician, one cardiologist, one anesthesiologist, and an advanced practice nurse. We will simulate various medical contingency scenarios that could happen to a crew on Mars. For example, today we discussed human physiology during spaceflight as well as human injuries related to changes in ambient pressure. We also considered management of decompression sickness and tears in EVA suits.
We arrived at the Hab yesterday, and after moving in, explored the area out of sim. Fittingly, we ate baked potatoes and watched the Martian. This morning started very nice, and we did a walk through for an EVA in the morning before entering sim. This afternoon, the wind has picked up significantly and is raining as well. We lost power for approximately 20 minutes, but it has subsequently been restored.
An XO, Engineering, and Journalist report will follow. There is also an EVA request.
Could you please send any information you have on weather/wind conditions for tomorrow as we plan EVA?
Also, we found some partial 3D printer instructions for the water filter. Do you have a file for this?
Thank you very much for the opportunity to be on Mars.
Respectfully submitted,
Ben Easter
Commander, MDRS Crew 168
EVA Request
Purpose of EVA: Simulation of Medical Contingency Scenarios during EVA
Number of crewmembers on EVA: 4
Destination: Unable to access coordinates on HALpr. Location along Cow Dung Road north of Hab
EVA planned start time: 1000
EVA duration: 2 hours
EVA planned end time: 1200
Using ATVs? Yes
How many ATVs will be used? 4