Weather: Mostly cloudy; breezy with storms closer later afternoon; low 10c (50F) high 31.4c (88.5 F), humidity 8% at 4:50 pm.

Crew Physical Status: Productive, nose to the grindstone.

Brief Narrative of Today's Results: The new power agent system came online this afternoon, a collaboration between Ron, Mike, and John, which more than doubled the voice commands available. This new system allows questions about historical averages, maximums, and readings at particular times. Alerts about changes in the system, including particular values for amps and volts, can be sent to individuals or everyone. Voice notes can be forwarded to particular people or everyone.

The new system is much more powerful as historical information is essential for making decisions (e.g., when to shut down the generator to change the oil) and understanding changes (e.g., is the circuit breaker popping because of a change in power usage?). Such historical data is not available at the inverter or the OneMeter display.

John and Paul performed significant, difficult maintenance to the GreenHab filter system (see report).

Don Foutz reports that the diesel generator throttle control had somehow disconnected; he will bring Wendy back online by tomorrow.

EVA: No sims today.

Plans for Tomorrow: Continue testing new voice commands in practical situations.

Report Transmission Schedule:

1. Engineering Report (by 9 pm)
2. GreenHab Report (by 9 pm)
3. EVA Report (by 9 pm)
4. CDR Journal (now)
5. Guest Journal (Maarten Sierhuis)

Inventory: Prepared and sent list of items for next crew, broken into "Purchase," "Don't Purchase," and "Present, but limited." Suggested that they buy anything not on the list they care about (and accepting inquiries).

Support Requested: Nothing required.

Miscellaneous #1: The serendipity of today's low temperature has finally given me a way of answering questions like "Is 91F more than 30c?" Notice that 10c = 50F. Remembering that 20c = 68F (a pivotal point for human comfort and the temperature of chemicals for black & white photography), and keeping in mind that the factor is 1.8 or 10 degrees Celsius for 18 degrees Fahrenheit, you can now easily see that 30c = 86F. (And of course you knew that 0c = 32F.)

Miscellaneous #2: Maarten's joke from dinner: "How do you tell a Dutch guy in a triathlon? He's the swimmer with the wooden shoes floating on the surface."

Miscellaneous #3: How to catch mice in the Hab: Put a tall plastic garbage can adjacent to table on lower deck. Place apple core in bottom of can. Wait until mouse is scurrying inside and unable to escape. Carry the can outside and dump mouse. Close hatch door. Repeat.

Bill Clancey
Commander, MDRS Crew 49