MDRS Sol Summary Report for sol 2
The report was written by Idriss Sisaid
Chasing the carbonates with ATVs and solving basic problems.
Mission Status: (How are things going?)
Things are getting better (things always get better once the toilets are unclogged). The sun has kept on shining today and dried up the soil. This enabled us to get on our all terrain vehicles (ATVs) and discover the area. The 3d Printer has however had a few problems as the cartridges were faulted.
Sol Activity Summary: (What did you learn/do today?)
We learnt how to use the ATVs with style and how to speak properly on the walkie talkie, mumbling before speaking which doesn’t lead to calling ones own name repeatedly until the end of times. Three crewmembers went out on an EVA to find some carbonates for a geology project. On our way we learnt new ways of cleaning the helmet when it gets too blury (like cleaning it with a brush hold in place with the teeth or by its own home-grown brush also known as a beard) in order to see correctly. The crewmembers successfully collected some samples for further analysis. The 3d printed blocks project had still a few problems and couldn’t get further prints as some hardware elements were of bad quality (the cartridge, the nozzles, and in fact, the whole 3d printer) which led us to unmount the cartdriges and use a different printing system. Growing food on Mars is slow but we are getting there! New seeds arrived today from a new supply and we will be able to grow more plants.
Look Ahead Plan: (How are you going to follow up? What’s the plan for tomorrow?)
We look forward to finally printing a few blocks so that we can begin our first tests. We also plan to start analysing some samples collected during our EVA and we hope to be able to find more samples.
Anomalies in work: (Any problems?)
Latest update of the evening: the toilets are again clogged and, therefore, so are our emotions. We do hope to find an alternative solution and not bring up again discussions on alternative and efficient solutions for delivering and getting rid of solid packages in a confined environment.
Weather:
Today was very sunny and dried most of the soil around the hab. Clear skies but still low temperatures (~0-5°C)
Crew Physical Status:
As the saying goes, laughing is good for one’s health, and we laughed a lot! We started the day very healthy until the toilet told us to cry again.
EVA: (where did you go?)
We took 3 ATVs and went to a small canyon about 5 miles east from the Hab where we sampled some rocks for a geological analysis.
Support Requested:
· We need better cartdriges for the 3D printer. We would like some functionning ones for the next ressuply.
· We are still looking forward the Internet token.