No medical incidences to report. The crew is still in excellent health - we are now only 5 days and 19 hours away from the point where our Earth Return Vehicle will blast off and bring the crew safely back to our home planet. We just encountered a radiation alarm whch forced us into the radiation shelters in the airlocks for two hours without any further major incidence. Our protective measures included sealing the airlock windows with water bags to increase the absorptive mass, staying away at least 15 cm from the outer walls to have some nitrogen from the air between neutron sputtering surfaces and our bodies, shutting down non-life support electronics equipment to reduce the risk of single event upsets and static discharges.

Right after I had sent yesterdays HSO report we had a medical simulated incidence: our Flight Engineer "bumped" his head against the ceiling between the command and the laboratory deck - the wound was just simulated by artificial blood, but we decided to go for a real sim, by treating the patient full scale: this included providing first aid including putting sterile gauze on the wound, putting the patient on the ground, applying a cervical collar, taking vital parameters (blood pressure, heart rate, respiration frequency, general physical status, secondary injuries).

As a secondary treatment we brought our Flight Engineer to the upper deck, which is the cleanest place in the hab (except the laboratory areas), put on surgical coat, face- and headmask, dressed the wound with a surgical cover and applied surgical sterile staples in an artifical skin which has been radiation sterilized. The aim was to show, how much of a potential infection risk the crew faces when we treat open wounds under realistic conditions. We have put the artificial skin into the incubator and will see in a few days if there would have been an infection and if so, which germs would have caused it. (The incubator is used to simulate the temperature on the forehead of our poor patient.)

Otherwise -- after the two hours in the airlock -- the crew is extremely charged with the tasks at hand which will determine the daily life of the next five days.

From today on we will focus on what the simulation is all about: pure and undiluted exploration. More details are to follow, but will also include a lot of challenges from the HSO standpoint.

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HSO Personal Report:

Todays radiation alarm also put the crew to the test, as we had to pack the six of us into the two airlocks (two into the engineering, four into the main airlock), seal the station, power down each and every non-critical system and sit and wait. Fortunately it is to be expected that during a real mission, the spaceweather forecast will have a prediction capability which is ranging into days, not only hours based upon a better understanding of the processes going on in and on the sun, as well as the behaviour of the interplanetary magnetic field which acts as a "highway" for the charged particles. Therefore we had a 22 hour warning before hand and could adjust our activities accordingly.

I had feared that the two hours in a packed airlock could pose a problem when four adults are packed together in such a way. But, on the contrary, things turned out completely different (as I always say: in this station? Anything is possible!). Everyone had taken a book with him, but we didn't even manage to open it, as this situation turned out to be the first time we actually had time to talk about the mission from a standpoint apart from the experiment, the tight flightplan or other mission specific requirements, but from a personal point of view - and most important, how to use the next 5 days before we return to Earth as well as possible and add an additional taste to the expedition by setting even more ambitious tasks. - Details are to follow soon.

The sails are set. Hold your breath for something big: Exploration at its best.