Crew 297 – Janus 1 Journalist – David Laude
Today’s two EVAs were simply to seek, find, "hide and seek" again, the mock nuclear power system (NPS). Mission support provided a simulated landing site for the NPS. The Crew Commander (not on requested EVA) gave an approximate landing site, which will be within 1000 feet from the real location. This EVA utilized known searching methods to find the NPS. The morning’s EVA team with both Matts and Sean, sought and found it in less than 10 minutes! Once found, it was collected and a new simulated landing site was selected and recorded for the next EVA crew to recover.
Just after 1PM, Pawel, Dave and Sarah headed north on Cow Dung Road on rovers Opportunity (Oppy) and Spirit. The longer drive than usual allowed more time to indulge one’s vision upon a stark, but remarkable landscape of shapes and Marian soil and rock tones. Lacking was any sense of green, except for an occasional small green patch of mineral tainted regolith sometimes found while on foot.
Reaching our destination, we departed our separate ways to cover a broad section of ground, all of us heading south while spreading out and believing we were at the most northern perimeter of the search area. After about 25 minutes of what seemed like a scenic hike where no person had been before, Pawel discovered the NPS. Once found, the crew continued to explore the region for geological interests.
During the afternoon EVA, Sean had gotten a design for a funnel printing on the 3D printer. A funnel was one item of kitchen utility that we didn’t have. The usefulness of such a printer can not be understated for a moderate to long-term space mission. A funnel is only one of a very large variety of objects that are possible to print.