Astronomy (Jenny): Last night we successfully aligned the telescope and took a look at Saturn, which the crew enjoyed. Then we attached the CCD camera in hopes of taking a picture of Saturn. However, when we attempted to focus the CCD, we ran into some errors that we were unable to resolve. We also locked the keys in the observatory before returning to the hab last night, so today we went on a break-in mission. We successfully rescued the keys without damaging any part of the observatory.

Human Factors (Jan): The participants keep taking MASCOT and MOODY tests. In addition, each participating crewmember completed a PHADES habitability survey today.

Radiation (Jason): The data from the 3/30 EVA was processed today. Although the proper radiation and GPS data was obtained to create a radiation map of the route, the shielding data returned problematic results. Starting with the two-layer shielding experiment, there was actually an increase in the radiation counts/minute from when it had been calibrated outside the structure to when it was placed inside. While this does not rule out the efficacy of in-Situ resources to provide adequate shielding from radiation, the increase in radiation received by the Gamma Scout is puzzling because the detector was beneath two-layers of sand bags filled with ~ 10 inches of material in all directions above the ground.

There are two possibilities for the increase in radiation levels: the time of day (near noon) and weather conditions (sunny) caused the increase, or the actual second layer of sand bags caused the increase. However, the latter proposition does not seem plausible since the data from one layer of sand bags on the 3/25 EVA revealed a decrease in the radiation levels; this data was taken in the late afternoon though. Therefore it is most likely that the time of day and weather conditions are the most plausible reason for the changes in radiation counts/minute. It was hoped with the Gamma Scout that the signal-to-noise ratio would be high enough to determine if the sand bags had a predictive ability to provide shielding from gamma rays. However, the incompatible conclusions between the 3/25 and 3/20 EVAs may indicate that the noise created by atmospheric and solar phenomena overwhelm the Gamma Scout's ability to detect a non-trivial change in gamma ray levels. This does not seem like a just conclusion though because fluctuations in radiation levels were measured, and they simply indicated a non-predicted increase in radiation.

Jenny Rome
MDRS Crew 47