I have learned that one of the adventures of living in a simulated Martian habitat is your power supply. Our power supply is such an adventure that she (yes, she has gender) even has a name: Wendy. For the last week or so, it's been a routine to turn Wendy on and off (get your head out of the gutter) while she gets our batteries charged (get it out again), so that we don't always have to leave her running while she consumes fuel. Keep all of that on the back burner for now.

Another aspect of our stay is that we have a daily rotation of crew members who are "out of sim," which means if the $#!& hits the fan with any of our habitat's hardware then one of the two 'out of sim' persons goes to fix it. Yesterday was my turn to be one of the 'out of sim' people and the main responsibility of that person is to turn on Wendy for the night (gutter -- out) so we don't freeze. But being more of a pure science person on this crew, I know nearly nothing about how to do anything besides look at the generator, which lies more within the engineering domain.

Nevertheless, I go marching out to her knowing how to turn her on about as well as a 7th grader would (out of the gutter). So there I was, standing out under the infinite stars getting instruction via radio from our engineers about what to do with Wendy, and the instructions I received were: 'lift the lid of the black box and unscrew'. If this had been last year then unknowingly I might have stuck a piece of metal into a high voltage box and would now be a barbecued skirt steak. However, reflecting on my last half year of engineering school, I thought it better to say that I had no clue what to do, since engineers aren't exactly known for their rhetoric and I'm not particularly known for my abilities with women -- especially cranky ones like Wendy.

So I think it proper then to thank my lucky stars (all of which were out last night, and then some) that the engineering curriculum at Georgia Tech has taught me one of the most important lessons to learn: you might look like a schmuck for not knowing, but you could be a barbecued schmuck if you don't admit it.

Jason Sherwin, PAO
MDRS Crew 47