Prequel: Washington, DC, USA - April 2001

"We should do it. This will be our chance to show that you don't have to be a fighter pilot to be a space explorer", said George Ball, Vice President of the United Association of Plumber and Pipefitters Union (UA) speaking at the join meeting with representatives of the International Sheetmetal Workers Union to representatives of the Mars Society, Robert Zubrin and Frank Schubert, where it was agreed that the two Unions would donate the funds necessary to finance the building of the Mars Desert Research Station. (Source "Mars on Earth" by Robert Zubrin, page 175)

Present Day: The Pisces One Expedition

"Very few are chosen to be rocketed off of this planet to represent all mankind in the exploration of outer space. Those smiling faces you see on TV and in the news reels walking out to the waiting spacecraft on the pad are the final results of a monumental collaboration. When years of engineering development, scientific research, crew training and the personal sacrifice by all, in the form of time away from loved ones, reaches the apex of preparation, it is time to fly."

In the not too distant future, words similar to these will ring out from radios and TV sets around the world as the crew of Mars One boards their Habitat Lander for a six month journey into deep space, that will accumulate in mankind's representatives leaving the first human footprints on the Planet Mars.

The clock is counting down to that fateful day. The members of the "Pisces One Expedition" are proud to have been selected from the many who applied, to be amongst the those who helped get Mars One ready for flight, through undertaking the thirty fifth analogue research mission at the Mars Desert Research Station.

First we wish to thank the Mars Society members worldwide and the Society's corporate sponsors for their gracious support of the Society's two research stations and for the funding they contributed through memberships and donations that made the Pisces One Expedition possible. Through your generosity, we proved that a multi national team from four countries on three continents, from both hemispheres of this planet can pool their knowledge, education and resources and mold themselves into a functional team, able to overcome great hardship and adversity to try and get the job done.

The Pisces team had so much fun and was faced with such great challenges, we let it be known at this time that we are all ready and willing to undertake another analogue habitat research mission on behalf of the Mars Society. We had great time and are ready to do it again next year (around, of course, February - March, on Pisces Two).

So do NOT let the problems Pisces One faced get you down folks, we learned valuable lessons from them that will be of benefit to future MDRS, FMARS, EuroMars and MarsOz crews and eventually the real Mars exploration crews. The remote science and medical oversight teams who observe and monitor the performance of the volunteer crews are taking notes of what does and does not work during these analogue research missions. The events and solutions to the problems that occurred on this year's Pisces One Expedition are not going to be wasted.

Finally let me conclude my opening remarks with a special thanks to the United Association of Plumber and Pipefitters Union (UA) and International Sheetmetal Workers Union who's generous donations enabled the building of the MDRS station. On February 20th, 2005, this union man (a eighteen year member of the O.F.A.A.A. of BC)(industrial paramedic) walked into a research station built by union funds. On the far wall next to the inner airlock door was the UA Union crest, there to greet us. Yes Brother Ball, you were correct, you don't have to be a fighter pilot to do space research.

Sincerest thanks on behalf of the international crew of the Pisces One Expedition to both Unions for helping to make what is only a dream for many, come true for the few who make it through the selection process.

Engineering & Exploration - Flexibility Was Our Key To Success

Pisces One was a Swedish aeronautical engineer, a Brazilian MD, a pair of Americans (one a computer scientist and the other an HVAC engineer) and a Canadian Industrial Paramedic/Spaceflight Historian. We got the job done to the best of our abilities because even on analogue Mars, to quote Dr. Zubrin's reply to a Denver journalist after the air drop failure at Flashline during it's construction, "Yeah, that's right, Failure is not an option". (Source "Mars on Earth" by Robert Zubrin page 125).

Our adventure started in the middle of the night of February 19th during our descent to analogue Mars over the snow covered mountain passes of central Utah. Due to anomalies in the driving directions to the HAB, combined with an under reading odometer, we got the MDRS truck "Big Blue" well and truly bogged on the wrong road, (after 4 attempts to get up that road to the HAB). This resulted in an unplanned 5 km EVA Zero, a middle of the night to hike into Hanksville and safety. Had trouble keeping Anthony walking straight, he had never seen skies so crystal clear before in his life.

At the HAB we found a major upgrade was still underway and that evening after the hand over to me of command of the MDRS station, Crew 34's Commander Paul Graham (of the Junkyard Wars refit team) came to me for a private Commander to Commander conference. He needed the assistance of the Pisces One team to finish up critical jobs that his crew started, (but which had nearly driven them into the ground getting as much done as they did). I did not hesitate in answering YES, those tasks had to be completed, my team is yours, sir.

When I announced my decision at next morning's briefing, to a man my team all said "Let's do it" and followed Paul out the door to take on 3 days of "out of sim" engineering tasks. They watched, listened and learned new skills. I am very proud of the way the Pisces One team dove in and helped relieve Paul of a very heavy burden. No Engineer likes to leave a job half done and Pisces One was there for him when he needed us. See the Crew 35 mission log's web pages for details of what we accomplished and how under Paul's guidance. On a happier note, together Paul and I performed Pisces One's first "in-sim" EVA (at night lit by a first quarter moon) that Sunday night to welcome Adam and Felipe when they drove up in "Big Blue" under Don Foutz's guidance. I will treasure the memory of the bugged eyed astonished looks on Felipe's and Adam's faces for a long time.

Thank you Paul for making the first four days of Pisces One a memorable and educational engineering experience. Our thanks to his assistant Artemis Westerberg for her sewing up the gaping ripped up bottoms of most of the EVA suits, cooking our meals for the first three days and for a treat most of us will relish for a long time, her HAB baked apple pie. These two refit team visitors did a wonderful job (with our help) of getting the station up a safe level of functionality before they had to go home.

The Ever Shrinking Crew Fights On:

The remainder of week one was exploration EVA's (expecting an RST request for data and photo's to appear at any moment). By Saturday evening we had concluded 7 EVA's, four pedestrian and five motorised on ATV's covering over 55 km's of the area around the HAB. I rotated everyone through the EVA Commander's position, so that they could gain field conditions command experience over unseen terrain for each new journey of exploration.

On our mid mission Sunday we reluctantly did a round trip to Denver in "Big Blue" to take to the airport Felipe and Kevin who needed to return home for professional work related reasons. Not to waste the trip, I recorded with my GPS the coordinates of the major turning and refueling points of this journey to update the "Driving Directions To The HAB". They are now sent to each crew as a part of their pre mission briefing, so there will be no more crews getting lost trying to find the HAB.

Now we were down from five Mars-nauts to three, but our priorities were still part engineering and part science as Paul had left us with a 4 page list of incomplete refits tasks, or punch list, that needed doing. My only personal chance at a long range exploration EVA was Monday afternoon, but I aborted it when I saw the local weather forecast was for 3 days of rain. I did this so we could tackle the much needed painting of the new EVA airlocks external platform handrails. The wood had had four days to dry since the last down pour of rain and I wanted to get that wood under a protective coat of paint before it got too wet repeatedly and started to warp and self destruct. This was broadcast live via our Web Cam as I had by then worked out how to make a web cam see outside with the aid of sunglasses.

By this time I had been sick with a cold 3 days and it would only get worse as the bug descended into my chest. So instead of spending my 50th birthday in an EVA suit out exploring the hills of analogue Mars, I was confined to the HAB coughing like a dragon and feeling like a freight train had hit me. Our acting HSO Adam put me to bed that night and as he was also my 2IC (XO), I handed command over to him. He and Tony ran the place (sticking their heads in my door regularly to consult me on priorities and bring me my medicine) for the final 3 days of our mission.

Being short handed gave us a first hand experience as to why the two person crew on ISS is mainly doing house keeping engineering chores. If I had not been sick RST would have gotten their EVA to Candor Chasma, in fact it would have been engineering in the mornings and EVA's in the afternoons for the whole of the second week (excepting of course Thursday March 3rd when we woke to a catastrophic generator failure (see Anthony's 03/03 reports on the Crew 35's reports page).

Thus Pisces One has the dubious honour of being the first ever three person crew to inhabit the MDRS (and we still tried to get the job done). In a way we were forced to simulate multiple fatalities, because of the way the attrition occurred.

One of original crew invitees never made it off of Earth. He had to refuse the invite due to work commitments. So five brave souls landed on analogue Mars. Then we had a simulated double fatality when we lost Felipe and Kevin. In response Adam took over Felipe duties as HSO and being a fully trained Swedish Army ambulance crew commander, he was in the right place at the right time when I ran a fever of 100'F and had to be put to bed. Anthony took over Kevin's engineering duties and built upon Kevin's engineer reports to produce a template for future crew engineers to use.

When ever they we not looking (working in the GreenHab or under the HAB do more post refit engineering clean up) the web cam would catch me sneaking out of my room to work at the computer for a few minutes, huddled in my sleeping bag or in a layer of blankets, reviewing reports for accuracy or updating the Operations Manual to version 8-2 (which I got off to Crew 36 Commander Shannon successfully) so they would have an idea of the major changes that had occurred at the HAB. I was not going to let this bug defeat me from helping my crew make Pisces One at least a partial success.

On the last day I loaded up on the cold meds and hauled myself out of bed, so I could help out on the final day. At the end of the day I was taken on an "out of sim" EVA in the PEV by Anthony and Adam, so I could see and photograph for myself the parts of the area around MDRS I never got to see while organising and sending all those exploration EVA's the previous week.

Anyhow that illness plagued me for three more weeks after I got home (and as I later found out, another of our team also fell ill after returning home). So that is why our Final Mission reports are running about a month late. Our apologies to Gus our web master for the delay an inconvenience and to all the Mars Society members and sponsors out there waiting for these reports.

The were only two down sides in my eyes to being short handed and overloaded with incomplete engineering refit tasks.

First (as it related to crew moral and therefore crew functionality) was the repeatedly planned but never executed Crew Movie Night. It was put off repeatedly (due to the heavy workload) until on the last night of our stay when we finally got to relax and watch a movie. I learned many, many years ago when I was serving in the military that recreational down time is critical to improving moral and it gives your crew time to unwind and recover from too much stress.

Secondly was that our planned Science objectives suffered greatly. We had a variety of scientific objectives, but because of broken equipment, refit and post-refit work, the loss of one crew member pre-mission and two crewmembers in the middle of the mission, few of the objectives were achieved:

Here is a synopsis of our projects again and a brief summary of their end of mission status from Anthony.

• Project M.O.S.S. - Musk Observatory Supernova Survey (Hugh S. Gregory) Status: On hold; Comment: Can still be implemented once telescope is made functional.
• Advanced HVAC Systems Project (Kevin Saka) Status: Initial Data collected; Comment: Project hindered by refit work requirements over flowing into our rotation.
• Simulated EVA Medivac Emergencies (Hugh S. Gregory, Anthony Francis, Felipe Broering, Adam Rehnberg) Status: Cancelled; Reason: Initially delayed by refit work and cancelled on safety grounds when the (by then short handed) Crew suffered illness of a member (unsafe to leave one person alone in the HAB for an extended period).
• Cognitive Performance Project (Felipe Broering) Status: Cancelled; Reason: Time lost due to refit work overflow and recalled to home for professional reasons.
• Information Assistance Project (Anthony Francis) Status: Initial data collected; Comment: Project hindered by refit work requirements over flowing into our rotation.
  
  Lessons Learned on Crew 35:
  
  All in all, the Pisces One Expedition was very disappointed in the amount of science we were able to get done. We suggest the following lessons need to be learned:
  1. Call for proposals must be delivered in advance, not post crew selection and two weeks before mission launch
  2. Peer Review feedback of projects must be given pre-mission in a timely fashion
  3. RST Science requests need to be delivered in advance (see Science Summary Report for explanation).
  4. Science equipment at HAB should be checked out prior to crew arrival.
  5. Refit tasks must be complete before science starts,
  6. A full crew complement is crucial - Crew short handed from the get go really hurt us
  
  
  Epilogue - We Will Be Back:
  
  Despite these caveats, we all had a lot of fun, and came away with many science ideas that we hope to contribute to the MDRS and pre-Mars mission research in future. Hopefully we will all be back next year and at this time we do have openings for Crew Scientists (Geologists and Biologists preferred) and Engineers on next years Pisces Two Expedition.
  
  Applications to be a volunteer on Pisces Two can be sent us care of The Mars Society. No guarantee of anything, no pay, hard work, you pay your own way to and from Salt Lake City and get the chance as a volunteer to make a contribution to actual pre-Mars mission research and experience life in an analogue Mars HAB for two weeks at MDRS.
  
  Warmest Regards!
  
  Hugh S. Gregory, Spaceflight Historian and Industrial Paramedic/Safety Officer
  Mission Commander MDRS Crew 35
  The Pisces One Expedition.