This by far is the most difficult thing that I have ever had to write. On a day that began with such excitement as we saw the Space Shuttle Columbia re-entering to the south. It was moving very fast and it was very bright. It was a few minutes late, but Susie picked it up about halfway across the sky. We all really enjoyed it and I thought to a day in the future when Martians on the ground would be looking up at the sky to see incoming spacecraft in anticipation of who would be on board and what they brought with them.

We had gotten up early to see the re-entry and to see Mars through the telescope. Arno had trouble getting it focused, so we only saw a reddish-blob. He will try again in the morning to photograph Mars, but it's cloudy now and the odds don't look good. After seeing the re-entry, Susie stayed out a little longer to photograph the sunrise. The rest of us went inside and watched an Internet feed of NASA TV to see the landing. The minutes went by slowly, with only announcements that KSC was looking to acquire the shuttle after having lost communications over Dallas. I thought they meant the regular communications blackout from the re-entry plasma that blocks radio for a while during re-entry, but it became clear later that that was not the case. The planned time for landing came and went and I knew that the worst case senario was happening before our very eyes, but I didn't want to believe it.

The NASA announcer gave only a cryptic comment that NASA had declared a "contingency" which sounded like too mild a word. Crew 12 flew into action, looking for news updates from other sources. I won't go into the details since you already know them. We gradually came to realize that Columbia had been lost along with her crew. It affected Tara most of all because she works at Johnson Space Center and had met the crew. They had practiced drawing blood from her for experiments on STS-107 and she had joked around with them. Kevin volunteered to drive her into Hanksville so she could call her husband and I suspended the sim. The rest of us followed a little while later to pick her up and bring her back to the Hab so Kevin could leave for Phoenix as planned. In Hanksville we saw the awful replays on the news of Columbia breaking up over Dallas and we knew there could be no survivors. Susie said that she had heard a sonic boom-like sound while she was outside waiting for the sunrise, but we're not sure that was normal or not. I called my wife, as did Oleg, to tell her what was going on, and she hadn't heard the news yet. I've cried briefly several times today about all this, but somehow it doesn't seem real. It is too much like the Challenger disaster almost exactly 17 years ago to be believed.

After about an hour in Hanksville, Kevin headed for Phoenix to be with his father in Phoenix, who had undergone surgery last night. The rest of us headed back to the MDRS shortly thereafter, after talking with Larry Ekker who changes the oil in our generator and refills the main water tank, which he did today. Tara decided to stay in the MDRS instead of trying to get home earlier, brave young woman that she is. All of us continued on with our duties as best we could since we had to. The Buddhists have a saying for difficult times: "Haul water and chop wood," which means that you carry on with your daily tasks. It may sound simplistic, but it is comforting to me that I don't have to panic or become immobilized over such disasters (which means "bad star," a nasty word that). So we all did our equivalent to hauling water and chopping wood, which in one case literally is hauling water, by pumping, to our interior water tank for daily usage. I've taken over Kevin's engineering reporting in the interim and others are covering Oleg's tasks. I even finished sewing up the last space suit that had it's crotch ripped out by use. The suits still need more bubble polishing and a little more sewing in spots, but they're in much better shape than before

Part of the hauling wood part is that Oleg left about 11am to take the rover (truck) to Salt Lake City to lay in supplies for Crew 13 and to turn the truck over to them to complete the crew change. We're having to change that plan because Don Foutz sent us an instant message that Oleg had called from SLC to say that Crew 13 was delayed in Chicago and wouldn't get to SLC until midnight. Instead of getting here at midnight, they will stay in SLC and drive down early in the morning, arriving by 10 am. We have revised our plans to do about 30 min of training with Tara, Susie, and Arno if they get here by then. The Crew 13 driver will then take them to SLC. I will stay till noon to complete the training. If they're not here by 10 am, I'll take Tara to SLC and head home from there. Arno and Susie will stay to do the training since Arno and Susie don't fly out until Monday morning. We believe we've got the bases covered and we've got our fingers crossed.

So here we are on our final night in the Hab, working away on our final reports to finish hauling water and chopping wood. The dedication of this crew is truly remarkable. Yes, we're all deeply saddened by the loss of Columbia and her crew, but we forge on like the professionals that we are, another remarkable human trait. My admiration for Crew 12, which was at an all time high, has grown even higher. As I said before, we've got the best crew in the fleet. One thing I forgot, is that we decided to go for a little walk at 4 pm to get the cobwebs out. As we crossed the Lowell Highway, looking for and finding dinosaur fossil fragments, a car drove up. It was a German radio reporter, Sam, who I had agreed to allow to come out today in advance of the German Crew 13. I spent about an hour with him, recording lots of comments about the Mars Society, the purpose of the MDRS, and giving him a tour. It lightened up my mood considerably. While I did that, Susie, Tara, and Arno continued the walk and came bag with a treasure trove of small dinosaur fossils, petrified wood, shell fossils, and other intriguing rocks that were all within 400 meters (Arno's influence) of the Hab. Sometimes you don't know what's right under your feet until you look. The conclusions are that you can see a lot better without a scratched bubble in front of your eyes and that you can find important samples without going a long way from base.

So what does the loss of Columbia and crew mean to the space program and to sending humans to Mars? In the near term, there will be no Shuttle launches for a while. News on the web tonight indicate the cause of the disaster might have been a piece of insulation from the Shuttle's external tank hitting the left wing and damaging the heat shield tiles. Telemetry indicates loss of heat sensors in the left wing on re-entry. Tara had said people at JSC had told her about the insulation strike, but news reports indicate that NASA had evaluated it and concluded that there was no problem. I will be astounded that we know the cause of the disaster 12 hours after it happened, if that indeed turns out to be the cause. Tara works on the International Space Station project and it's too early to know the exact effect on that now.

In the long term, I hope some good will come out of this. I'm not a seer, but if I were the President, I would conclude that frequent human missions, as we have now, were too risky, since the most dangerous parts of spaceflight are the launches and re-entries. I would take the ISS to a near-term end point to get some research done there, but stop construction flights very soon. I would start a humans to Mars program immediately to lay the groundwork for a mission in ten years or less, with follow on missions every two years thereafter. That way, you could have only two manned launches per year to ISS on a Soyuz, and only one manned launch to Mars every other year, using the Mars Direct architecture. The political risk would be reduced since fewer manned launches per year would occur compared to now and fewer astronauts lives would be risked. I know I'm being a wild-eyed optimist with this scenario, but optimism is about all I have at the moment.

So this concludes the story of MDRS Crew 12. It was a glorious adventure for all of us and we hope that you enjoyed following along. Even with the sad ending, it was a blast for all of us, with the formation of good friendships, a reinvigoration of our belief in our fellow passengers on Earth, and a fond look forward to the day when it won't be a sim anymore. On that happy day, an astronaut will set foot on Mars, and begin the exploration of a whole new planet, using techniques that we have pioneered here. I have been honored to serve with this outstanding crew. I care deeply about each one of them and feel I have made five new friends. I also greatly appreciate the excellent Mission Support provided by Shannon Rupert's team based in San Diego, and the great work by Gus Frederick who so quickly posted our reports. I remain your humble servant and I look forward with great anticipation to when I can do this again. We wish you peace and safe journeys. Mars Desert Research Station Crew 12 is signing off now.