Some of us were to bed a little earlier last night. We all enjoyed the first part of the movie, "Dune" (year 2000 TV version). My light is out by 2300. But just before retiring I make a note about today's work: I will do "snaplists" and photograph the hab more thoroughly.

0706 It is stuffy and warm. I turn over again.

0730 I dress in shorts, my Northern California Mars Society t-shirt, and sandals. The clothes are all clean, but I feel grungy. Hmm, is that smell the rest of my clothes or me?

The usual routine: Bathroom, glass of water and a vitamin, start the time lapse video, and record the temperatures:

Maximum outside 19.5 C (67.1 F); Maximum inside 22.8C (73 F)
Minimum outside 15.1C (59.2 F); Minimum inside 18.1C (64.6 F)

It is warm for so early in the morning (67F). The sky is mostly cloudy. I go to Weather.com for the report. Wind is back in the forecast. Over the past five days, I recorded the following forecasts for today:

Forecast for today: Windy 78 Yesterday today was forecast to be: Windy 79 Two days ago the forecast for today was : Ptly Cldy 82/38 Three days ago: Ptly Cldy 80/25 Four days ago: T-Storms 81 Five days ago (last Wednesday): T-Storms 75

The forecast a day in advance is reliable, but everything else (at least in the past week) keeps changing. Don't like the weather forecast? Just wait a while.

0915-1030 Morning Planning Meeting. We review the status of report writing (good), I give guidelines for the rest of the week. Then we go around, asking what each person for plans for the day. Ideas about EVAs are noted but held aside. Yes, there are more reports to write or finish, data to retrieve from the greenhouse, waypoint and EVA charts to update, soil sampling equipment to prepare, and so on.

Then we discuss EVAs for the remainder of the week, factoring in objectives (exploration, sampling, photography), personnel (trying to give each person at least two opportunities), where people have been and want to go, and chore assignments. I record in the EVA spreadsheet cell for today: "Hab pedestrian sample (NV + B photo) + (JA suit hr later) to river wp 14 then continue; retrieve 102 wind catcher (JVA)." Later I write this on the schedule board. (But the second half will never happen.)

Next we discuss and plan water and fuel. Jan will send a note to mission support about a desired fuel delivery today or tomorrow and then again Friday. Finally, we agree to watch Dune Part II this evening.

It was a classic planning session, and I'm glad I have most of it on videotape.

1015-1115 I fiddle with email and photographs, and make a template for snaplists. A snapshot captures a moment visually; a snaplist captures it in a list: Every 15 minutes I list in a table where everyone is and what they are doing.

With my Mac on the PC network, I send my template to the hab computer and print it. (Later I search on the net, but find no Macintosh driver for this printer.)

1115-1215 Individual work. The wind is picking up. David prepares lunch.

1215-1300 Lunch: Spicy pepper cheese broccoli soup, tuna "fajitas", chips, cheese, and apples. Very satisfying.

A pattern emerges: Some of us are reactive, jumping up to do something different when the thought strikes us: During lunch Jan sends a note to mission support about the wind. David goes down to the freezer to take out something for dinner. I'm very reactive. Before lunch (when Jan was in the loft measuring the wind speed through the hatch), I selected the barometer on my watch, then I thought to photograph Jan and the dust blowing outside. I see Vladimir working around the plants, so I take a photo. I then notice the south portal is flopping open and dust is on the computer, so I elicit Jan's help to close it. He goes to get some screws. My stateroom window is creaking; I notice dust all over, and get duct tape to hold it closed. I take more pictures of the dust storm. Jan announces it is now 56 mph.

Yet in all this, Andrea, David, and Nancy stay in one place: Andrea is at her computer in the workstation area; Vladimir is at the hab computer downloading data from the Ecologger; Nancy is working in the lab on the lower deck; David is working in the galley.

I had noticed this same pattern when I did time lapse recordings of the Haughton-Mars work tent in 1999--some people stayed seated for an hour or more, others moved every few minutes.

Are there two different states of mind or modes of concentrating: Reactive and fixated? Are these personality differences or changing during the day or in different circumstances? How do these modes affect productivity? These are both forms of concentration: One changes easily, the other stays focused on one activity.

1300-1330 Individual work. Interestingly, what people were doing at 1300 they were all still doing at 1315. Evidently, we are now all concentrating on a single activity.

1330-1600 Nancy, Vladimir, and I begin a subgroup activity that continues for 2.5 hours. Nancy has prepared sample 'devices' to be used to gather soil around the hab. Vladimir will assist and I will document. Nancy has nicely (once again) laid out labeled ziplock bags with collection devices. She explains the procedure to me and Vladimir. This is a pleasant change, for no scientist ever did this with me at Haughton. Nancy likes to show and tell what she is doing in advance. It makes learning a lot easier.

The dust storm outside makes the EVA especially exciting. What a gift for a photographer! Dust bands are blowing horizontally, with long visible curving lines twisting around painted hummocks, and just a gray-white gauze in the distance. Above the sky is blue-gray, but mostly cloudy. Is the wind more important than water in shaping this landscape?

All goes well until an equipment bag is dropped. The animate wind plays a game with us. The bag is just out of reach, once, twice--just jump and you can stop it. But in that hesitation of getting ready to jump, the bag soars up into the air, far far away. So far you must laugh. It is hopeless. Regrouping, Vladimir suggests that we abort the EVA and reconfigure the equipment.

Meanwhile, back inside, a fixated crew: Andrea and Jan at their workstations, David in the galley.

Nancy and Vladimir return to the EVA with all their equipment tethered by ribbons and redistributed: What Vladimir must reach is in Nancy's pockets, and vice versa. I videotape this session. It is a stunning example of collaboration, use of tools designed for gloves, and struggling with the wind. Zubrin was right about grit and determination. But I think Mars will supply the sand.

1600-1653 Mostly individual work. Nancy and Vladimir, now back from their EVA, are wandering or perhaps getting resettled. They move (independently) from the mess table to the CD player to the floor (eating a snack) to staterooms. Everyone else stays put.

1653-1713 The bucket brigade: We refill the water tank in the loft. Five of us make short work of this, but after 20 minutes of lifting 2-5 gallon containers, you are glad it is over.

As we work, I am wondering how to simulate this in the "work practice" modeling tool we are developing at NASA/Ames Research Center. The trick is modeling the container being handed over. Each person must release, but only after the next person in line has gotten hold. I notice that we say things like, "Okay" or "Got it." Of course, as the person releasing the container, you can feel the change in weight. Here's another case where modeling the physical world (with gravity or not) is necessary for modeling human behavior.

1713-1930 Individual work again. The wind is really picking up. Unfortunately, the hab's weather station has been off line for over a day. We are unable to restart it and have asked mission support for help (there's a phone number, but it's not much use here on Mars).

A few people take the opportunity for showers. Most are working in one place again, distributed almost evenly from the hab computer, workstation area, staterooms, and in the laboratory. Stopping what I am doing every 15 minutes to record our activities is not difficult--I find that everyone tends to work in one preferred place or to move between two places (David moves today between the galley and his stateroom; Andrea moves between the hab computer and her laptop). This individual stability helps maintain privacy, as well as predictability in sharing the space.

At this time, I send an email to my colleagues at Ames. I want them to begin thinking about designing software that will make the GPS unit fully invisible to an explorer. I don't want to wait for a satellite fix; I don't want to transcribe readings. I don't want to ever know the coordinates at all, let alone have to manually enter or compare them or number waypoints. I want a program to answer questions while I'm on EVA: "Has anyone taken samples near here before?" I also want the program to tell me things like: "Warning, you are within 10 minutes of the reserve fuel supply required for safe return to the hab." Being here at MDRS this past week has given me very clear ideas about the navigation assistance and other monitoring required during remote exploration on ATVs. Until now, back at Ames and JSC, we weren't sure what to build; we had the methods, but not the requirements. That's why I call what we are doing here "empirical requirements analysis"--finding out what you need to build by doing simulations in the field.

At 1815 the generator is refilled, and we hear the familiar ring as the power (and lights) go out. A light rain begins around 1845 and by 1930 the sun is backlighting clouds in the northwest, where it has been solid gray-white all day. The front is passing through. A new minimum for the day occurs (65F). The forecast maximum of 78 didn't come close (only 72F). But it was windy! If the sound weren't enough, including the wind vane creaking and cracking, we can sometimes feel the hab shaking slightly.

1945-2045 We hear crackling of sparks in the loft and my computer cursor freezes. There is a flash of lightning. We shut down the network and close our computers. Just in time for dinner. Tonight it's pork fajitas (without the quotes). Andrea asks, how could we be so hungry again?

At dinner I ask, "Do you feel isolated here?" Nobody does. Why not? We realize isolation or remoteness has several dimensions. Are you physically alone? No, we have more company than we usually do at home. We spend more time in group activities than we do at work or home. Are we isolated from the outdoors? No, we go on EVA often enough (and for safety we do not wear suits when refueling the generator). Are we isolated from civilization? No, Hanksville (as small as a town can be), is twenty minutes by four-wheel drive, and we could walk there without much trouble. We are really isolated in only one way: We have essentially no interaction with other people (aside from our fuel and water supplier). I remind the group that were we to be transported back to Salt Lake Airport, we would dumbstruck by the crowds.

So how does the isolation we experience at MDRS compare to Mars or FMARS in the Arctic? FMARS is more like Mars in being more completely isolated from civilization. Both MDRS and FMARS are unlike Mars in our contact with the outdoors (we can feel and breath the air, even in suits). But MDRS, during my rotation at least, is isolated from other people, so it is more like Mars than FMARS (where the press visits almost daily or even lives with us, and base camp with dozens of people and daily roar of planes or helicopters is much closer than Hanksville).

At MDRS we are surrounded by many square miles of open land, our private backyard--somewhat like camping in a carefully chosen mountain valley. We feel secure and not isolated. We are caught up in our activities with each other. We are busy all the time. It seems unlikely that the first crew on Mars will ever feel lonely. Yet, what do we know? We have been here just over a week. How would we feel after a month? A year? That's why simulated missions are necessary.

2000 The wind is getting ferocious. Over 60 mph was forecast, and it's surely more than the 55 mph we recorded earlier, for now the hab vibrates more often and the wind mast is continuously banking, twisting, squeaking--like an old wooden boat grinding against its moorings.

By 2115 it is over, the wind that has dominated our thoughts all day and forced an EVA to be postponed, leaves us alone among the sand, rocks, and hummocks. Alone together.

Bill Clancey
MDRS Rotation 5 Commander