Dear Earth,

Yesterday, we agreed to take a day off for mid-rotation: Sol 10 was
the first Sol without EVA.

As usual, we woke up at 7 AM to do our physical training, but for the
first time we had breakfast without the hurry of the EVA preparation.
The idea behind this day off was to take time for ourselves. We played
card games, watched TV series, baked bread, took a nap after lunch,
wrote personal e-mails… Despite the weekend-like frame of mind, we
could not resist the inertia of the mission, so at the end of the Sol
everyone had worked on his experiments.

We are now on the brink of the second half of our mission here. I feel
that everyone has taken his marks, and the different personalities
seem to be more in accord than in the beginning. Indeed, the splitting
of the team during the EVAs was sometimes used as some sort of
confessional, where we talked freely about our relationship with the
other crewmembers. It allowed us to steer clear of tensions before
they happened, and to maintain a very friendly atmosphere in the Hab.
I am always pleased to see how we manage to abandon ourselves in
passionate debates, on the deepest subjects (geopolitics, religion…)
as well as the most trivial questions (TV series, imperial VS metric
system…). Definitly the best crew ever!

Ad Astra!

Arthur Lillo,
Commander of the friendly Crew 175