Finally a nice clear morning on the analog Moon. This morning was again data and email processing while waiting for the sun to make things safe to travel and the day did start out nice and sunny.

Don began the crew transfer process at 09:30 using a large crew cab truck to successfully get into and out of the HAB to extract Guido, Steven, William and Laurel. I met them during breakfast over at Blondie's, a renowned interplanetary dinner and gift shop. They departed for SLC (Space Launch Complex, Utah) at 11:00 hours. I wish them well on their return journey to Earth and I hope that Laurel gets well soon. Being sick at the HAB for over a week must not have been much fun. Get well soon!

I then proceeded to EVA out to the HAB under sky's that were fast clouding over, where I joined my remaining team mates for a lovely lunch and assisted with handover preparations. During the day we did experience Wendy the generator shutting down repeatedly for no apparent reason that we could detect. Ben's activation of the Xantrex control monitoring software on the yellow observatory laptop made detection of these cut outs very easy to detect. After four of these cut outs Wendy finally started to produce serious uninterrupted power at around 42 amps and properly recharge the batteries for the night.

Veronica and the FLAME crew PEV arrived safely around 16:00. After welcoming hugs from my "little sister" and her kids, we all pitched in to form a human chain to get the vehicle unloaded in a manner that would not track a ton of clay mud into the HAB. Everything was stored temporarily on the Lab floor while Peter and Ben tackled final hand over clean up upstairs.

When Wendy next cut out shortly after FLAME's arrival, I took incoming Crew Engineer Menkes out with me to instruct him on the proper procedures for starting up Wendy and also the procedures for shutting Wendy down. I had him to this himself next time Wendy dropped off line an hour or so later (student practice under supervision) and he got it right the first time. I also briefed him on where the various gauges and meters he would be required to read and report on every night were located and explained how water cycled through the GreenHAB and were to plug and unplug the second settling tanks sump pump, when Wendy is off line.

Menkes then followed me around as I took exit photo's and he did the incoming photo's hot on my foot steps. We enjoyed a lovely FLAME family reunion dinner together with the younger crew members up dating me on how well their school marks have improved over the last year, their school projects and their ambitions.

At 20:00, due to our late supper Ben took Menkes under wing to do the engineering rounds and explain how to fill in the on line engineering report (a fabulous piece of software written by ET software engineer Steven Winikoff, also my crew 45 team mate). I departed for Lowellville Pressure dome at that time as a heavy snow fall started. I paused to get some lovely photographs of the HAB surrounded by falling snow, before setting off at a safe and modest pace for the ride back into Hanksville.

Along the way I found that the raging water run offs of earlier in the day were now reduced to mere trickles and the snow stopped completely by the time I got to the Cattle Guard Gate. The remainder of the ride along the road side EVA trails back into town was safe and uneventful and about 20 minutes after arriving at Lowellville it start to snow in ernest here as well.

It has been a wonderful and challenging crew rotation. I wish to again thank Peter Kokh and the Moon Society for their support of Project MAST. Tomorrow I will return to MDRS to assist with the extraction of Peter and Ben and as it is predicted to be sunny and clean, I will finally get those photos of the Robert Heinlein Memorial Simulated Pressure Tunnel to the GreenHAB to update Project MAST with.

Good night from a good analogue of the south pole of the Moon.