Author: jburk

Crew 274 Journalist Report 1-31-2023

Sol: 2

Author: Tony DiBernardo, Crew Journalist

Title: Dandelion Day

Crew 274 woke up this morning at 7:30am to the song “Hall of Fame” by The Script and a recorded message from Dr. Albin, emphasizing that our efforts represent a small but important step in bringing humanity to the red planet, Mars. The team made pancakes, listened to their new collaborative playlist, and started on their Emotional Recognition Test and Psychological Surveys.

EVA Activity

Today, we were able to begin Nick “X-Man” Pender’s research while out on on EVA. His experiment includes incrementally longer EVAs over the course of the mission, eventually placing caches a 2-hour hike from the hab to test their ability to withstand in a simulated Martian environment and to support the crew on a 3-hour EVA. Today’s EVAs involved 2 teams of analog astronauts, led by Pender and Bill “Titan” O’Hara, hiking 30 minutes from the hab and back. Tony “Iron Man” DiBernardo joined both EVAs, collecting footage of his crewmates traversing the simulated martian landscape. The goal for today’s EVAs was to establish a 30-minute baseline traveling speed and distance while in an EVA spacesuit. We discovered that the pace of travel is 2.3 mph with an attainable distance of 1 mile in 30 minutes. Future EVAs for the supply cache experiment will utilize this information to place a cache 2 hiking hours from the habitat. The two EVAs started and ended on time with breathtaking views, fascinating rock formations, and a continuous process to settle into our EVa suits.

GreenHab

After the crew woke up, Tyler “Houston” Hines recorded overnight temperature data and observational documentation which showed promise for the remainder of the study. Overall, the sets of microgreens seem to have maintained their moisture and temperature throughout the second sol. Then, Tyler took a progress report of the space-exposed LDEF tomato seeds and assisted Commander Sarah “Ceres” Guthrie in planting dandelion seeds in lunar and martian regolith. The dandelion study is for a 2nd grader at Millersville Elementary School in Maryland. She is an aspiring astronaut and was curious if dandelions could be grown on Mars. ARG-1M graciously offered to facilitate this study, and both Lunar and Martian regolith were donated to the study.

Astronomy

Crew Astronomers Salina “Nova” Pena and Noah “Phoenix” Loy worked from the Musk Solar Observatory today to do a test run on the equipment before collecting data for their research. They observed a few Sun spots on the surface of the Sun and set up the MDRS Robotic Observatory through Skynet to observe High Amplitude Delta Scuti (HADS) Variable Star V0799 AUR.

Engineering

As midday approached, the toilet started giving off a foul smell and Mission Support was contacted, as the crew suspected the toilet had an issue. Mission Support came to the hab and assessed the situation, informing the crew engineers Lex “Kepler” Lojek and Bill “Titan” O’Hara that Mission Support had to empty the toilet. During mission training prior to ingress, there was a miscommunication regarding when the toilet requires emptying into the septic system, so Mission Support clarified the instructions.

We ended the day getting an earlier start on our end-of-day reports than we did yesterday, hoping to have more time to relax, reset, and recover from the two EVAs. Tomorrow we look forward to a cold morning, more EVAs, and loading the images of the HADS Variable Star that were taken overnight.

Crew 274 Journalist Report 1-30-2023

Sol: 1

Author: Tony DiBernardo, Crew Journalist

Title: The Inner Light

After a successful arrival and ingress into MDRS yesterday, Crew 274 woke up in simulation this morning at 7:30am to the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and a recorded message from Dr. Kristen Miller, inspiring the team with advice and encouragement to embrace the experience. The “Wake Up Song” tradition, dating back to the Gemini program, will live on through the crew as each day they’ll hear a song and message sent to them from a family member or supporter of the program. Then, every morning, each crew member will complete an Emotional Recognition Test and a Psychological Survey that consists of 234 questions to track changes in each crew member over the course of the mission.

The crew consists of 8 members, all with their own experiments:

Commander Sarah “Ceres” Guthrie
Experiment: Evaluating Contingency EVAs and Rescue Techniques for Planetary Surface Missions

Crew Engineer Lex “Kepler” Lojek.
Experiment: Focused breathing and its effects on physiological indicators of stress and performance.

Crew Astronomer Salina “Nova” Pena
Experiment: Generating Multi-bandpass Lightcurve Data on HADS Variable Star v0799 AUR

Crew Astronomer Noah “Phoenix” Loy
Experiment: Analyze Solar Flare, CME, and Daily Space Weather Data

Health & Safety Officer Nick “X-Man” Pender
Experiment: Supply Cache Use for Extension of Human Exploration on Mars

GreenHab Officer Tyler “Houston” Hines
Experiment: Observing Growth Rates Of Space-Exposed Seeds In Martian Simulated Regolith Samples

Hab Specialist, Secondary Engineer Bill “Titan” O’Hara
Experiment: Habitat Design Case Study

Crew Journalist Tony “Iron Man” DiBernardo
Experiment: In-Hab and Extravehicular Media & Outreach

EVA Activity

On the first day of the mission, two training EVAs are required of the crew by MDRS Mission Support to walk through all EVA practices and procedures. Prior to the first EVA, Tony “Ironman” DiBernardo had an issue with the air supply connections being cross-threaded on his EVA suit. We moved to a different suit for the EVA and afterwards, Lex “Kepler” Lojek and Bill “Titan” O’Hara were able to troubleshoot and repair the suit. Both EVA crews used the rovers to drive out to Marble Ritual, a landmark nearby the habitat. The assignment was to perform an hour-long EVA and return safely. The crew members became familiar with the rovers, explored, collected rocks and petrified wood, and acclimated to the new simulated martian landscape.

GreenHab

Tyler “Houston” Hines, Greenhab Officer, began his two experiments in the science dome. His experiments involve growing seeds in a mixture of simulated Mars regolith, organic material and water infused with potassium, nitrogen, phosphorus. The seeds being tested are standard microgreens and seeds from NASA SEEDS experiment, which flew seeds to space aboard the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), launching in 1984 aboard Space Shuttle Challenger and returned in 1990 by Space Shuttle Columbia. Tyler was advised by HSO Nick “X-Man” Pender on the memory functionality of the Thermo-hygrometer and will continue to water and monitor growth throughout the remainder of the mission.

Astronomy

Crew astronomers Noah “Phoenix” Loy and Salina “Nova” Pena canceled all operations due to cloudy weather and non-optimal viewing conditions, but were able to take required pictures of the Musk Observatory, including the astronomy laptop boxes, the first aid kit and the solar telescope. They plan to continue heliophysics and High Amplitude Delta Scuty (HADS) observations tomorrow, weather permitting.

Hab Design

Bill “Titan” O’Hara started a draft of a habitat design case study report. This report will explore and analyze the effectiveness of the design of the MDRS habitat to inform the design of future habitats. Bill also worked with Salina to take a complete inventory on all food in the hab, identifying and planning our use of food for the remainder of the mission.

Engineering

Lex “Kepler” Lojek took measurements of the water level to find that the crew used more water than was originally allocated per day to have the water supply last for the duration of the mission. Prior to entering simulation, he made a starting measurement of 491 gallons, which gives the crew approximately 35 gallons per day for drinking, showering, dishes, bathroom use, and all other water usage excluding watering plants in the GreenHab. Before 5pm on Day 1, Lex measured a total water tank volume of 445 gallons, coming out to 46 gallons used by the crew so far. Thoughts were thrown around by the crew on water conservation efforts, such as using cooking and dishwashing water for other uses, but the crew agreed to continue for 2 more days without extreme water rationing to create a more accurate estimate of projected daily use.

Health & Safety

Health & Safety Officer, Nick “X-Man” Pender, will be conducting an experiment to implement supply caches along EVA routes to set a baseline for safe travel distances by foot. Identifying these limits will ensure that no terrestrial astronaut will be without supplies should an emergency occur while on EVA. Today, Nick tested the operability of an in-suit hydration system and confirmed that the proposed hydration hose and GU Energy gel pack can indeed fit into EVA helmet. He plotted the route for tomorrow’s EVAs which will establish a 30-minute hiking distance baseline and he prepared the GPS equipment for crew use on all future EVAs. During dinner, Nick alerted Mission Control of a broken oven knob that wouldn’t allow us to turn the stove off on one burner. Ultimately, we pulled of the knob and forced the knob to the off position with pliers.

We ended the day cooking spaghetti with dehydrated bean-bolognese pasta and parmesan while watching Star Trek TNG S5E25: The Inner Light. Tomorrow, we look forward to clear skies and safe EVAs. Ad Martes!