Overview:

Crew 28, The ninth rotation of the Mars Desert Research Station's third field season begins on April 11. During our two weeks on Mars, we hope to focus on several projects related to the GreenHab portion of the Station. Additionally, individual members are planning several other projects and house-keeping activities, including but not limited to evaluation of the Musk Observatory systems, photo documentation of the Hab area from a vantage point of Mars Analogs and an evaluation of the Hab and it's systems and how they work, (or don't).

Additionally, we may be performing several specific tasks from the Remote Science Team (RST), which may include culturing some of the GreenHab effluent, re-evaluation of a geologic site reported on members by of Crew 14 last field season, and sample collection and(or) photo documentation for Dr. Penelope Boston's on-going desert varnish research.

The Crew:

MDRS Crew-28, like many of the past crews, is composed of a variety of folks of diverse talents and nationalities. Besides myself, an instructional technologist with a background in graphic arts, cinematography and photography from Oregon, we have Gregorio Drayer, a Venezuelan engineer, student master of engineering with a music background, Steve Featherstone, a Journalist with experience with GPS systems, Kathleen Johnson, a professional artist and photographer from Los Angeles and Dr. Greg Michael, a research fellow from the European Space Agency out of the UK. Our sixth member is Alyssa Rzeszutko, a senior in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign

Needless to say, our crew seems to be unique in that we all have strong left and right-brain skills and abilities. The arts and engineering may well define our mission. Visit the Crew 28 Bios section of the MDRS Website for further information on this team:

GreenHab:

An ongoing project at MDRS has been the GreenHab project, a large greenhouse located adjacent to the Hab proper. Currently, its primary function is to treat and recycle gray water from the Hab for re-use in the toilet. Ongoing tasks have been the monitoring of the variable within this "living" system. In the past, this has involved manually taking readings visually via common systems like analog devices for temperature and humidity, and paper "test strips" for other variables such as pH and chemical content.

One of our goals is to automate, as much as possible, these basic data acquisition tasks. By making use of computer data loggers already on scene, and additional hardware that we will bring out, we hope to establish a system that should record many of these variables with minimum human interaction, and do so on a more regular schedule and more data points. This will allow us to eventually track trends that maybe transparent with just two readings per day.

Salad Machine:

A personal project of the Commander, the MDRS "Salad Machine" is an automated portable hydroponics system for the growing of fresh vegetables for future crews. The initial crops will consist of tomatoes from the Utah State University's Plant Physiology Lab, developed under contract by NASA for ET Agriculture use, primarily for use on ISS. The system consists of four individual plant growth modules, with a combined growing space of approximately one square meter. The system makes use of a "flood and drain" system, with the plants growing in an inert, grainy substrate of volcanic cinders.

Four times daily, a timer activates a submerged pump in each of the four modules, which transport the nutrient solution up into the substrate. The pump runs for just one minute, enough time to flood the growth area. When the minute is up, the pump turns off, and the solution drains back by gravity into the holding tank until the next cycle. Power for this unit will be initially provided by a bank 12vdc batteries, kept charged by a 72 watt Photovoltaic Array. If the system proves functional, we will move it over to the main Hab power system at the end of our rotation. Location of the unit is tentatively planned to be in the GreenHab itself, so the afore mentioned environmental monitoring of the GH will be especially critical.

Weather Station:

Another critical dataset that has been neglected has been basic environmental information. GreenHab Coordinator Gary Fisher is providing an Onset digital weather station for the Hab, with an integrated digital data logger. One of our first projects is to get this unit up and running so that we can provide accurate weather data for the area. This unit will be integrated into the GreenHab for power, and should be pretty much automated, requiring periodic data downloading every week or two.

Musk Observatory:

Working with Musk Coordinator Peter Detterline, Dr. Michael and myself plan to evaluate the basic systems, and if need be, assist Peter in some basic functions to help get the Observatory up to 100% operational capability. After getting the observatory up and running, Greg Drayer will try to show his crewmates the comet C/2002 LINEAR T7 that will be raising by the East around 10° of altitude from the horizon during the last days of the mission. If the observation is accomplished he will report the observations to the JPL Comet Homepage (http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov) from the MDRS.

Photo Studies:

As time permits, Kathleen Johnson hopes to work on two photographic studies: to explore and document the surrounding landscape and discover how/why it is thought to be analogous, why it is inspiring for this purpose, and to imagine herself within it; and to study the design of the Hab as speculative architecture, particularly the GreenHab Living Machine and its reclamation systems.

GPS Communication:

Steve Featherstone will be bringing two Garmin Rhino's that will allow two-way communication of both voice and GPS data. These VHF radios with GPS built in can be used in the field and to locate each other. The GPS coordinates are embedded in the VHF signal, and you can see where the other person is in relation to your position, map features, or waypoints. Steve is the author of an upcoming book on GPS use, so his expertise in this area will be greatly appreciated.

Media & Education Outreach:

Since one of our crew is a Journalist, we will of course be blowing our Martian horns far and wide. Steve Featherstone will be doing a daily Mars Blog for the online 'zine "Slate." He will also be collecting sound bytes during the rotation for an upcoming piece to be broadcast on NPR's Weekend Edition, sometime after the rotation ends.

I have contacted several media outlets in Oregon, and will also be doing a daily report for the Salem, Oregon Statesman-Journal newspaper's Education Team Website. This follows an opening article, coming out on Friday, April 9 reporting on our mission. Additionally, I will be working with several teacher friends here in state to send data and images back to their science students relating to our GreenHab & plant growth work as well as some filtered monochrome imaging with some High School art students. The idea here is to send black & white images of scenes shot through various colored filters and in stereo pairs, so that the students can re-combine them to create color images, as well as stereo anaglyphs, using the MER Rover images as a model.

Yuri's Night:

Since our rotation includes April 12, we decided to host a small celebration, honoring the memory of Yuri Gagarin, the first human to orbit the planet. The MDRS affair will join 42 other Yuri's Night parties in 20 countries around the globe, including the South Pole in the Antarctic.