Crew 218 Commander Report 27-12-2019
Sol 5 – What would a Martian do?
The forecast we received from mission support yesterday proved correct and when we woke up, we could see snow coming down again and covering (this time with a smaller thickness) the terrain that was beginning to show up. Since this means at least one or two more days without EVAs, I called a meeting with the crew after breakfast, to ask ourselves the question "what would a Martian do?". In particular, we all know we are here to do something valuable, besides the obvious chance of studying ourselves in these conditions of isolation Knowing that many of our research projects are based on outdoor activities, we discussed our goals for the next couple of days. In the meanwhile, we waited for the pipes to thaw in order to be able to pump more water inside the habitat, which finally we were able to do in the early afternoon. For our extra goals, we had various proposals that I and other crew members brought up: GreenHab projects, outreach, and use of the solar observatory and science dome were talked about. We began with a simple task that occupied less for about one hour in the GreenHab (more details in other reports), and we discussed a larger project that will be proposed to the program director; we decided that we will produce descriptive and training videos of our life at MDRS; and we will wait for the Sun to finally reappear for some good astronomical observation. I think this was a good opportunity to figure out how to react, with our limited resources, to unexpected situations.
Cesare Guariniello, Commander