Introduction:

Crew 27 was composed of members from three different countries: USA, England, and Peru. This international, intercultural and interdisciplinary diversity greatly enriched the crew. Crew 27's rotation at MDRS was from March 27th - April 11th.

The intent of this document is to provide a summary of the experiences and accomplishments by Crew 27.

Crew Experiences:

Julie Wardlow (England): I have had a great time at MDRS and I am very glad I was given the opportunity to come here. The landscape is incredible, and the experiences amazing. Every day at MDRS is unique and after 14 days here you realize just what an adventure we have had. As expected, EVAs are one of the highlights of Mars life, although there are many other aspects to it, especially when the weather turns against you! Apart from learning to drive an ATV and how to cope with being completely enclosed in a spacesuit, I have also learnt how to deal with a variety of breakdowns in a variety of situations. On top of all this, I have had a tremendous experience and I feel I have some idea of what the astronauts on the ISS may be feeling and the trials that they may face. The main thing I have discovered is that no matter how sophisticated robots such as Spirit and Opportunity get, there is no way that they could give an accurate impression of what the surface of Mars actually looks like; we have taken pictures which look like those sent back by the Mars rovers, but we have seen things that could not be captured on film. We need to send humans to Mars even if it just to see the surface.

Peter Collins (England): I came to MDRS having some preconceived ideas of what I was letting myself in for. They have mostly been confirmed, although I underestimated the magnitude of each. I thought that we would take time to learn the ropes and get things working, but I did not think it would take so long. I thought that the space suits would limit my perception of the outside world, but they seemed to turn it in to a kind of virtual reality. I like to feel the air and the dirt and the leaves of plants; I like being able to not have to think about moving around (going over rough terrain or even kneeling down in the space suits requires a lot more thought than it should, as your balance is all off). The space suits limit your experience of your surrounds to sight only, when there are so many other sensations available to the earth-bound hiker. I also thought that I would meet five great people and the crew would bond as a team - and I have made five great friends. I thought I might miss home, and I did. Finally, I did not expect the mission to have an effect on the way I look at life. In the same way you get an endorphin glow after strenuous exercise, this mission has given my life a good workout and I feel a lot better for it.

Bill Foltyn (USA): I have wholly enjoyed my mission rotation here at MDRS. There are so many things I could write about, but I think that the experience is something that cannot fully be appreciated unless one participates in it first hand. I feel honored to be a part of such a dynamic team, and in large a worthwhile and growing project. While here at MDRS, isolated from the world, I found that all my energy was focused on the needs at hand. The crew took a few days to assimilate to some of the nuances but after that things just started to get done. Accomplishing the short and long term goals became our life. Thinking about this only confirms what could be constructively possible for our civilization if we focused on higher aspirations and enjoyed the diversity the world has to offer.

Wil McCarthy (USA): Observations and Recommendations: Problems encountered by Crew 27 were mainly related to radio communications. The remote radio was inop at handover, and the MDRS suffers a chronic shortage of working, ergonomic radio headsets. Many of the headsets currently in the EVA room have the wrong type of connector, or will not fit inside a space suit helmet. By far the favorite headsets for this crew were simple, foam-covered ear buds with attached lapel mic and an alligator-type lapel clip. No other type of clip was able to retain the microphone in the proper position. A hat or headband is extremely useful in holding the earpiece in place. The wiring of the Radio Shack headsets is notably flimsy, as confirmed by several post-mortems on inoperative pieces.

I recommend that higher-quality headsets be obtained for the base, or that inexpensive headsets of the current type be issued to each crew member for their rotation, and treated as consumables rather than capital goods. Radio problems of the sort we've faced are not only inconvenient and potentially a safety risk, but also wildly unrealistic for a real space mission.

In addition, the base is low on test equipment such as digital multimeters, and on numerous consumables including wire, outdoor cable, electrical crimp connectors, 1/4" copper tubing, staple gun staples, light bulbs (both incandescent and fluorescent), switches and resistors, Velcro, rechargeable batteries (high-capacity NiMH for digital cameras are by far the best) and chargers, and printer paper (both 8.5x11 and 11x17). A three-hole punch would also be useful, as would an inexpensive "extra hands" work stand with adjustable arms and alligator clips. Additionally, I recommend, based on our EVA gloves experiments and our various Remote Radio Station Repair EVAs, that wires to be serviced at MDRS should be no smaller than 16 gauge wires.

To preserve the fiction of a "pressurized tunnel" to the generators, GreenHab, and water/fuel/trash trailer, additional rubber flooring grates could be used to lay down a specific path which denotes the tunnel. This would also reduce the amount of mud tracked into the hab following a rainy generator refill. I also recommend that the carpeting be removed from the kitchen area and replaced with ~20 square feet of linoleum tile or vynil floor sheeting to prevent spills from staining and to reduce the attraction of mice.

Please note that the hab skylight and front window are not watertight, and leak profusely in a strong rainstorm.

The analog space suits appear to be near the end of their service life. When these are replaced, a lighter version of Dewey Anderson's cooling vest would be a welcome addition, as it both regulates temperature and restricts movement for added realism. Duct-taping of the finger joints on the gloves also produces realistic stiffness and hand fatigue. A hard point on the end of the index finger (e.g., the ratchet end of a zip tie) is extremely useful for pressing radio buttons and manipulating small objects such as screws.

Three specific problems with the existing suit design are (a) a strong headwind will lift the helmet up, potentially displacing drinking tubes and radio headsets, obstructing vision, etc. (b) There is no good way to adjust the suit for people of varying height. The usual workaround is to lift excess material and duct tape around the waist -- an imperfect solution at best. (c) the snaps seem to have pulled out on several of the suit crotch flaps. To help address all three problems, I recommend an adjustable vertical strap with a quick disconnect, attaching the crotch flap to the chin of the helmet collar.

Overall, I feel we've had an exceptionally talented crew who worked well together and enjoyed each other's company. This has resulted in a very successful mission. We completed 21 EVAs, about evenly mixed between inspection/maintenance/repair, exploration, and geological science. We're leaving the facility in a better, cleaner, more operational condition than we found it, and our crew's younger members have received a crash course in science, engineering, and self-reliance. In addition, I feel we all have a greater appreciation for the problems and opportunities facing a real Mars mission, and will serve as effective ambassadors in the future. When a real Mars mission does finally take place, I'd like to think that most or all of the astronauts chosen for it will be, in one way or another, graduates of the MARS/MDRS program, possibly including one or more members of MDRS Crew 27.

James Russell (USA): Today is the last day of full simulation. The past 2 weeks has featured an algae purge, a finding that our system can denitrify, and an uphill battle against entropy. I have found this whole experience very stimulating and extremely useful for both my PhD research and on a personal level.

This mission though has not featured only the mundane or extraordinary Habitat Maintenance events. Simply the EVAs were fantastic, and in large part due to Bill Foltyn. Bill taught me a lot about geology and fossils, and sparked old memories of Mr. Waters' Earth Science class at Holy Cross High School. During that course, we used diluted hydrochloric acid and conducted hardness tests to determine rock types, and I also dreamed of creating a Lunar base. Well, this experience has been refreshing and interesting. In the end, I have a meteorite, a fossil, and a positive feeling in my heart all to bring home and share with my fiance, Sarah. Best Wishes from Mars, Jim.

Alex Diaz (Peru): When I was informed that I had been selected Commander for Crew 27, I truly did not know what to expect. I took the challenge as a great opportunity to grow both professionally, but most importantly personally. I had been in leadership positions before, however, never in a situation such as MDRS. Nonetheless, I looked forward to this experience and by the end of our rotation, I had not only been exposed to understanding the intricacies involved with living in an extreme environment, but also been exposed to different points of views, learned about other cultures and disciplines, and met some great and intriguing individuals.

As Commander of Crew 27, I honestly did not have to do a lot of "commanding". It only took us a few days to develop a unique sense of teamwork. Despite all our differences (i.e. personal, political, philosophical, etc.), we worked great as a team and we were truly extremely efficient. The crew accomplished great things and completed an outstanding rotation. It is amazing to see how well we worked as a team, and it was a genuine pleasure to have worked with such competent and interesting group of individuals.

From a personal point of view, I plan to apply the knowledge learned at MDRS to further human space exploration. I feel I leave MDRS with a greater understanding of the technological factors needed for Mars missions, but also with greater latitude in understanding the field of human factors. I also feel more confident in attaining one of my professional goals, which is to assist in the development of space technology utilization and space exploration research in Latin America. Specifically, I'm interested in utilizing the deserts of southern Peru and northern Chile as future Mars analog sites (similar to MDRS). These deserts are the driest in the world and scientists think they have great similitude to the surface of Mars; devoid not only of plants, animals or insects of any kind, but also of evidence of recent running water.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank everybody back home that supported me during my stay at MDRS. You all know who you are. Your support gave me the impetus to successfully take part and enjoy this great experience.

Accomplishments:

Julie Wardlow (England): Although we may not have made any pressing scientific discoveries at MDRS we have achieved a lot. We have, as far as possible, fixed the remote radio; we have been out to and tested the repeater, we have sorted out all the radios and headsets so that there is no longer a problem with only finding those that don't work on your way out on an EVA. We have also been to a number of new and exciting places, and found paths not on the maps, such as to Muddy Creek to the east of the Hab, and although we didn't manage to find a 'northwest passage' to Factory Bench, a negative result is as much of an achievement as a positive one. Above all though, we have worked as a team and despite our superficial difference, such as age, background and nationality we have bonded as a group.

Peter Collins (England): I had several goals for this mission: to contribute in a small way to achieving the goal of human Mars exploration; to have a great time with some fellow Mars-enthusiasts; to experience a landscape that I had never been to before; and to learn about the GreenHab. I have achieved these goals.

Bill Foltyn (USA): With as much as there is to do here on top of all the science, it is no wonder that this Habitat turns into an assortment of diverse conglomerations of equipment. As this is my final summary I thought I would put my opinion down and say this: There should be a more effective standard about how equipment is stored and maintained. I feel there should be an HSO for equipment, like an appointed maintenance engineer. They would ideally be able to tell any of the crew what tools are at hand, and were they are from day to day. I envision this process being very similar to how the registered installations disks are tracked in systems administration over a large office floor.

While here, I learned the most about the GreenHab function. I only participated about 5% of its over all function, but Jim was very generous in providing his knowledge to my haphazard questioning pertaining to his projects. I cannot precisely say what specific things I have learned, but I think it is because I have been surrounded by very intelligent people that have spent a good amount of time thinking about all aspects of life. Things like a Mega second versus a fortnight, and the why lad and bloke can be synonymous, or the pros and cons of nuclear rocket use for spacecraft insertion to earth orbits. However being that I was head geologist, all I have to say about the area that the Hab is situated in, is that there is a lot to discover. You could spend and entire rotation doing any single number of topics; Geomorphology, Paleontology, Petrology, Mineralogy, Sedimentology, Geography, and still not have enough time. I still believe that there are meteorites that can be found in this area. If someone conducts a more organized and systematic search, I believe that some fine samples can be acquired. Finally if you have good photographic software one could make tremendous panoramas, when timed with the sunrise and sunsets. I will try to have some of the larger ones I constructed posted on the web (but they are large. Approx 3Mb to 11Mb files).

I hope the few things I did will help the overall endeavor of getting humans to Mars. Fixing radios, organizing tools, network optimization, fixing suits, customizing backpacks, rebuilding ear pieces, putting up shelves, doing medical tests, organizing EVA operations, teaching GPS functionality, and the list goes on. Final conclusion is that all crew members must be mentally pliable, creative, and malleable; while at the same time, some of the crew should be specialists and the other part should be able to fill the gaps and have a practical understanding of the mission objectives.

Wil McCarthy (USA): During my stay at MDRS, I completed an assessment and photographic survey of MDRS facilities and equipment for Pioneer Astronautics staff. Repaired the Remote Radio control console, and traced the remaining Remote Radio reception problems to a short in the (spliced and badly weathered) outdoor cable. The radio is now ~66% functional as opposed to 0% functional, but full functionality (i.e., intelligible reception of incoming signals) will require a replacement cable at least 800' in length, rated for outdoor use and containing at least four independent conduction paths.

Performed multiple exploration and human factors tasks, including a personal schedule logbook for all crew members and 5 courses of cognitive/psychological evaluation. Removed a malfunctioning ATV 1 from service. Extensive renovations to GreenHab. Numerous flow diagrams, manuals, and written procedures have been created and posted near the relevant equipment.

Published a brief account of the mission on SciFi.com (2000 words for ~300,000 readers), and will endeavor to publish the full Journalist Reports in an additional venue upon my return to civilization. As a science fiction writer, I will be drawing upon these experiences for the rest of my life.

James Russell (USA): My PhD science objective for this time was to understand crew time and crew productivity. With the cooperation of my fellow crew members, we logged our daily activities in 15 minute increments. In the coming weeks, I will compare the actual daily activities against our schedule (and ISS's crew schedule). In addition to crew time, I have gained insight into different factors that affect crew productivity. A specific event that decreased my productivity was a headache due to an equipment malfunction on an EVA Another surprising finding with respect to scheduling, was the amount of time that I spent writing reports and creating/updating crew procedures. I feel that the breakdown of the crew logs in terms of Personal Maintenance, Habitat Maintenance, and Science will be very interesting when compared to the current ISS and proposed Mars mission schedules.

As for other accomplishments here, they mostly focus around IV (intra vehicular) maintenance. With the help of Peter Collins, the GreenHab and main hab were brought back in line. In particular the GreenHab system has not been working well this season, which led to green "unsanitary" water being used to flush our toilet. To bring this system back to working order though, we needed to first figure out the current operational state, which included understanding the electrical and water flows. This was not an easy task as adequate documentation was lacking; however, by the last day of full simulation, we had both power and water flow diagrams documented for mission support and posted in the GreenHab for future crews.

For our legacy, Peter and I did not only document the system, but improved it. This was accomplished by running a laboratory experiment and actively modifying the current GreenHab state and documenting the correct procedures. The GreenHab was modified by removing the algae from the system and implementing measures to reduce further growth. The removal of the algae was accomplished by actively bleaching the bioballs in the trickling filter #2 and scraping the algae off the walls of the tanks and trickling filter reservoirs. This created a short spike in the total suspended solids, until it was washed out of the system. Currently, with the addition of covers to the tanks and trickling filters, the concentration of total suspended solids has been significantly reduced, which will extend the life of the toilet supply tank filters and associated pump.

Now, without algae, the status of the system was still not fully understood. In the "old" system, the algae dominated and utilized the carbon in the wastewater, but did not consume the ammonia or nitrate. To understand the new system, we conducted a nitrification/denitrification test in the laboratory with suspended solids (in part bacteria) from the 55 gallon double cone tank. This experiment had alternating 6 hour cycles of mixing with a stir bar (for aeration and thus nitrification) and off for denitrification. After 5 days, the nitrate was fully removed, but no nitrification (ammonia conversion to nitrate).

At this point, we still do not know the full operational state, because we do not have a dissolved oxygen meter or the complete materials and equipment to determine the carbon loading. However, we have continually added solids from the bottom of the 110 gallon tank in an effort to inoculate the trickling filter #2 and thus the rest of the system. I pushed aside the top layer of bioballs today and saw a healthy growth of brownish bacteria (not algae), which indicates that system appears to be reestablishing itself. In addition to the bacteria, plants (water hyacinths and water lettuce) were added to the tanks to uptake carbon and nitrate, but I do not have much experience with their effects on the system dynamics.

Over the coming two weeks with the new sensor web to be installed by Crew 28, more information will be gathered to fill in data holes. Hopefully the sensor web will be able to collect the following data near to these specified ranges and sensitivity (NH3: 0-5 mg/L stdev 0.5 mg/L, NO2: 0-5 mg/L stdev 0.5 mg/L, NO3: 0-30 mg/L stdev 2 mg/L, COD: 0-300 mg/L stdev 20 mg/L, DO 0-8 mg/L stdev 0.25 mg/L, TSS: 10-200 mg/L). In case the sensor net only measures pH and temperature, the following additional sensors could be added and calibrated to measure most of the data: ammonia probe, turbidity probe, and dissolved oxygen probe. To measure TSS and COD accurately, though you would need an analytical balance, a vacuum pump, and a spectrophotometer (along with the COD vials already in stock). To measure NO2 and NO3, you could conduct colorimetric tests.

In my opinion, the system currently has excess capacity and very long residence times (~3 days per 100 gallon tank). With this excess capacity it should not be a problem with a functioning system to remove the carbonaceous material, ammonia, and nitrate. In fact most of the load should be removed by the trickling filters, which can nitrify NH3 filled water cascading over the bioballs and denitrify nitrate in the trickling filter reservoir. Furthermore, due to the long residence time, I believe it would be useful to gather a greater diversity of data than more frequent data at this point as diurnal effects will only be seen in the 100 gallon and 110 gallon tanks with the exception of temperature dependent effects.

By the way, the GreenHab chocolate pudding was delicious.

Alex Diaz (Peru): As an MDRS crew, we completed several outstanding goals. These are outlined in my colleague's summaries above, and to avoid redundancy, I won't repeat them in this section. From a personal point of view, however, I'll mention a few personal goals. One of my main interests at MDRS was to experience how humans perform in extreme environments. I feel I accomplished this, and though I may not have the proper Human Factors background to analyze what I observed, I truly feel that I have gathered some real valuable data that I'll pass along to Human Factor Specialists colleagues of mine. Furthermore, this experience has furthered my interest in the area of Humans Factors. Specifically, I'm very interested in studying the psychological effects of long-term isolation, and also understanding the effects on individual, interpersonal, and organizational behavior, and how these affect overall individual and team performance.

Additionally, given my background (The Boeing Company ISS EVA Team), I was also particularly interested in the MDRS EVA suit fidelity, specifically the EVA Gloves. I came to MDRS understanding that the more common complaints heard from the astronaut crew (regarding EVA gloves), is that it becomes tiresome to do repetitive finger or grasping tasks. They much prefer tasks that use the large arm muscles than the small finger muscles. That's because fingers get tired working against the stiffness of the glove. To that end, one of our goals here was to make our MDRS EVA gloves thicker and stiffer. Throughout our two-week rotation, we conducted an EVA glove accessibility experiment with the use of an ISS EVA connector accessibility mock-up from The Boeing Company's ISS EVA team (refer to photos uploaded on 4/1/04), and proceeded to experiment with different glove alternatives. The most notable of these alternatives was the utilization of latex gloves under the ski gloves, adapting metal plummer's tape (of the sort used to secure pipes to walls, etc.) to the gloves, and wrapping the ski gloves (each finger) with duct tape. Our EVA glove experiments yielded that the best simulation alternative was the utilization of duct tape on top of the ski gloves. Using this alternative proved that, in fact, the gloves were stiffer and crewmembers' hands were more fatigued after the EVAs. In essence, we leave MDRS feeling more confident that utilizing one set of ski gloves wrapped with duct tape (each finger) does a better job at simulating EVA gloves.

Lastly, MDRS and my curiosity with EVAs, have allowed me to confirm that the most effective construction and operations in other planets will synergistically employ human-robot buddy systems. While robots may work best under highly predictable conditions, humans are able to adapt better to an unpredictable environment. That is why the human factor in space exploration is indispensable. Mars EVA activities will be inherently dangerous, and their use is a hazardous procedure that should be researched thoroughly. Nonetheless, Mars EVAs will be an essential and versatile part of human activities on the Martian surface for efficient colony buildup on Mars.