On Day Three started off at 07:00 with a breakfast of cerals, breads and coffee followed by a quick commanders briefing of the days duties. Contrary to what was discussed over dinner last night, a different day was in the offering.

Last night after sending in the Commanders Report for Day Two, the crew decided to burn the mid-night oil and work on their project reports instead of taking in a movie. Meanwhile, while Hugh and Paul retired to Hugh's stateroom for a private Commander to Commander conference. As a result of that meeting and the still partial state of some of the essential repairs, Hugh agreed to Paul's request for a loan of some of his crew to assist him finish the important parts of the refit engineering.

In hind sight it was an easy decision to make. Operations at MDRS are based on a four level priority system. 1- Safety, 2- Simulation, 3- Science, 4-Comfort.

So instead of announcing the training EVA with Adam, Anthony, Felipe and Kevin getting into analogue suites for the first time, I assigned Adam, Felipe and Kevin to work with Paul on "out of sim" external refit tasks and kept Anthony with me on the computers where we sorted, captioned and transmitted up to Mission Support images for the first two days of Crew 35.

But first while the breakfast dishes were getting washed up, I nipped down stairs and with a stiff brush scrubbed the caked dirt off of the Laboratory Deck for the area where the upstairs shoes were stored and out to about a radius of meters. This had the desired effect because the first thing Paul's helpers did was to complete the job. There was a deck under all that mud.

Artemis made a trip into Hanksville after breakfast to pick up supplies that were waiting for her at the Whispering Sands. Upon return she proceeded to repair all six analogue Surface Excursion Activity suits. This was most appreciated as the pants seat of my EVA suit was completely blown out. This event was transmitted world wide via web cam over the Internet as are all events on the upper deck of the Mars Desert Research Station.

After Anthony was finished helping me with he proceeded to clean out the ducting that had been temporarily stored in the airlock as well as hanging the floor mats outside on the porch rails to dry.

We broke for lunch about 14:00 hours and after lunch I embarked on a walk about inspection to see how the others were fairing. The downstairs Lab is much improved with a lot of unneeded materials salvaged to the Antartic pile on the far side of the Engineering Area. I also spotted the airlock floor mats hanging outside and beat them clean with a broom and put them back down.

I then proceeded to clean up the underside of the station and all remove all of the left over extension cords protruding out from under it and everytime one of Paul's helpers would walk by I would send them back to Paul with not only the parts Paul required but also a contribution for the Antartic pile.

I then went over to Engineering and assisted Paul, Kevin and Adam with the installation of the new remote control water feed pump. This was susposed to be a short task but ended up lasting from 16:00 to 20:15. With the replentishment of the in Hab tank now in progress (and the Toilet Supply Tank in the Green Hab empty)(meaning no water to flush the toilet), I ordered open season on the shower while the interior tank was filling up. I assisted the TST replentishment by doing four loads of dishes while the others hit the shower.

Work continued until 21:00 to get reports done, the remote control switch for the exterior water supply pump installed (Artemis and Paul handled that) and just to let us know this is the Blue Planet, the skys opened up and it proceeded to rain heavily.

Now after supper Paul and Anthony are going outside to finish off a plumbing task under the Hab while others do the dishes and reports are finished.

Tomorrows plans are undecided as Paul wishes to finish up a few tasks. This will be negotiated as I have two early departures in my crew whom I wish to get into EVA suits and in back "in-sim" which is what they came here for originally.

But all is on hold as it is raining heavily, so who knows what the surface conditions will be for tomorrow morning.

Good night from the crew of Pisces One Expeditons, MDRS Crew 35 on analogue Mars.