Scattered clouds floating across a nice blue sky greeted the Pisces One Expedition to start Day 05 of their explorations on analogue Mars.

Header notes to last night's departure of Paul and Artemis. There are two "spacious" staterooms in the Hab which are wide enough for a small desk and space enough for a two or three person private conference in addition to the 1.3 meter wide berth. Traditionally the north room (the one with the window) goes to the Mission Commander and the south room goes to the 2IC or XO as they are two ranking analogue Mars-nauts who may have need of such facilities. However I was very well established in the south room so per MDRS protocol I offer it to my 2IC Adam Rehnberg. He accepted and moved over.

After the frantic pace of the last few days, last night we an evening of tranquility, when we composed our Daily Reports to the sound tracks of various Sci-Fi movies, TV shows and space exploration documentaries that I brought down with me for my crews enjoyment.

After five days together the five members of Pisces One team are moving about their tasks like an intertwining ballet choreographed by the needs of the moment. If someone needed help, it was volunteered before the question could be asked. We are getting to the stage of almost mind reading what the other needs to have done.

We have melded together into a team with a purpose and our mission is now two fold.

One, support the science object of our Scientist researchers (Hugh, Anthony and Felipe) and what ever tasks come up from the Remote Science Team back on Earth.

Second, finish cleaning up the lower deck post refit crew departure and the general area around the Hab so that Crew 36 does not inherit a pigsty.

But in order to accomplish those tasks, we first must learn to operate in the environment of analogue Mars in our Surface Excursion Activity suits.

After breakfast and clean up I held a pre-EVA briefing for all crew members, showing the EVA commander Felipe and his two trainees, Adam and Kevin the route for this mornings walking EVA. I also gave Felipe as EVA Commander the discretionary authority to deviate from the planned route as needed due to the soft ground made soggier by last nights short down pour of rain.

It took 1 hour for me and Anthony to suit up the EVA Four team (see EVA Four Report), give them a final check out and cycle them out through the air lock door due to the necessity of having to size up and fit out two new EVA'ers.

There was a quick "out of sim" EVA for Anthony to document their departure from the Hab and then it was time for daily house keeping with Hugh sweeping up the down stairs and Anthony heading upstairs to make our daily bread.

Morning routine for Anthony and myself was uploading the rest of Monday's photos, download Tuesdays and Wednesdays photos from the cameras for analysis and get a head start on today's reports.

The EVA Four team of Felipe, Adam and Kevin cycled back though the air lock after 1 hour and 56 minutes on the surface, where I de-suited them and de-contaminated them and we all headed up stairs for an all American lunch of whole wheat pasta with chili con carne partly made up with the left over meat sauce from last night's supper (nothing is going to waste in Pisces One) with more of Kevin's chocolate chip cookies.

After lunch activities consisted of answering e-mail, including one asking us for something Paul had forgotten. We found it and Paul and Artemis soon showed up for a farewell visit just as I was about to hop in the truck and take it into town before they left. So we have visitors in Hab right now while they collect things they forgot last night.

With the departure of our visitors, Anthony, Kevin and I headed down to the EVA suiting up room to prepare for the day's second (and delayed by at least an hour) training EVA, this one to be our first motorised EVA on ATV's.

This was a major step for Anthony as he was finally getting to Go EVA and his first would not be a walking familiarisation but straight up into the big leagues with an ATV EVA. (See Anthony's EVA Five report for details).

We were back in the Hab by 19:00, de-contaminated and de-suited and by 19:30 we were sitting down to lovely meal of pasta and smoked turkey sauce with tomato and onions. Adam proudly announced that tonight supper was Bachelor's Magic, Swedish style. For desert Kevin chased us all away from the oven and out came the Chocolate Chip cookie dough. Much better results this time mate.

We're now pounding our reports to the music Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band.

Tomorrow we have two ATV EVA's planned for some long range exploring and for those who are staying behind, Hab duties will include further clean up of the refit mess (we discovered the Laboratory floor today!!!) and catching up on individual projects and of course HABcom upstairs clean up. Hugh also will be familiarising himself with the Musk observatory and determining to what extent it is operational for commencing his project tomorrow night.

From the high desert in southern Utah, USA, a warm good night from the crew of Pisces One Expedition, the MDRS Crew 35 on analogue Mars.