MDRS Log, Commander Grieger

Last night we worked later than expected, and then we considered it being to late to watch a movie. We just chatted a little and went to bed around 2330.

Time 2002.0316.0800

Breakfast, today fried apples with bacon: One needs one apple and two slices of bacon per person (or may be the double amount in some cases, e.g. mine). Fry the bacan in a pan, then take it out and fry the apples - cut to pieces - in the grease from the bacon. When ready, put the apples in a bowl and crumble the bacon over it. Done.

Time 2002.0316.0850

Preparing EVA 33 performed by Erik and me. Finally I have managed to adjust all straps of my backpack properly and feel quite comfortable in the suit. We both attach mirrors to our wrist, which have proved to be very useful in several respects, see also EVA 33 report.

Time 2002.0316.0936

Erik and me enter the airlock for EVA.

Time 2002.0316.1227

Wind alarm sounds, has recorded a peak of 48 km/h. The flag is brought down.

Time 2002.0316.1245

Wind blows off the roof hatch. This could happen because after Jon had checked the roof yesterday, we fixed the hatch only partially, as we planned to go out soon again to repair it. However, due to the weather forecast predicting strong wind, we postponed this, but did not consider that the hatch has to be fixed quite thoroughly to secure it in the case of strong wind. Fortunately, even high wind speeds would not do much damage on Mars as the air density is much lower than on Earth. Otherwise we had to consider ourselves dead now. Jon went out to recover the hatch and brought it back in position, but this is only a temporary solution as something is broken off.

Time 2002.0316.1254

Wind peaks at 53 km/h.

Time 2002.0316.1504

End of EVA, regression completed. That was a long EVA and quite exhausting. We have a small snack and then we mark all the EVA waypoints we took coordinates of in the map and reconstruct our route. Take also voice recordings of our impressions and send to mission support. The navigation turned out to be much more difficult than we had expected and we lost our way various times, for details see EVA 33 report.

For me, coming from Germany, it was a copletely new experience to ride through such a wide contry. We cruised across it for more than five hours, without seeing a single soul, no other vehicle, no building, no sign of agriculture. Only some tire tracks ensured me that we were not the only humanoid creatures on this planet.

Meanwhile several repairing activities go on. Jon works on the construction of a new hatch for the roof, Nell and I found the cause for the malfunction of backpack #2, i.e. the switch, and replaced it by a spare. That was the first time I worked with a buthane powered soldering iron. Cool. Makes sense to have a tool for fixing electrics that does not rely on electricity. It was the last spare switch, and we also have no more spare fuses for the backpacks, see enineering report.

Preparation of dinner has already started, potato and corn chowder. I work on writing up this log.

Time 2002.0316.1920

Dinner.

Afterwards, we shall resume working on reports, today an EVA report and the engineering report. May be this night we shall later watch a movie.