The story of MDRS Crew 12 is not quite over yet. I'm in Evanston, Wyoming in a motel, waiting out a snowstorm. I wound up taking Tara Ruttley to Salt Lake City so she could make her flight. We left the Hab at 10 am and got to SLC airport at 3 pm after a stressful drive over a mountain pass between Price and Provo. It was snowing pretty hard and it looked like the highway hadn't been plowed yet. We had to go very slow at times and I couldn't let my attention waver, even though I had only 5 hours of sleep last night.

This came about because our relief crew from Germany didn't show up as planned at 10 am, because of the same snowstorm, even though they left SLC at 4:30 am. [I later found out that they didn't arrive until 1 pm, way too late for Tara.] Tara's flight was at 5:20 pm so we couldn't afford to wait. So I left Arno and Susie in charge of the Hab with instructions to train the new crew when they did arrive. Tara and I kept a lookout on our way to SLC, but never saw the truck. I planned to call our Hanksville contact, Don Foutz, when I got to SLC, after dropping off Tara. I wanted to find out if the new crew had shown up and that they had taken Arno and Susie back to SLC for their flights home on Monday. Fortunately, that did occur as planned, as I found out from Oleg Abramov at the Airport Comfort Inn (once I found it). I also met one of the new crew members (Tom Dirlich) who had not made the drive to the MDRS that morning. Klaus Totzek, commander of Crew 13, was bringing Susie and Arno back to SLC and would take the last crew member back to the Hab, although it would be very late at night.

So the crew changeover was completed, although it was very drawn out and it left me in SLC, 8 hours from home in Denver, Colorado. I called my wife to find out what the weather was expected to be and decided to start for home, but go only as far as I could safely. It turns out that was only 93 miles because the snow wasn't over on Interstate 80. I stopped after 2 hours of driving on slick and snowy roads. So here I sit, hoping for better weather and clear roads tomorrow morning. The forecast looks pretty good right now. [I made it home at 5 pm on Monday.] I've had a little more time to think about the Columbia disaster and I was somewhat surprised to find that the news channels are giving it essentially full-time coverage tonight. I hadn't realized how important the nation would deem the loss of Columbia and her crew.

I'm still not sure how this will all play out. I continue to hope and pray for the best - that triumph will come from tragedy, as it has so many times in the history of humanity. The exploration of space, including Mars, will continue. How can it not? Humans are not the type to turn tail and run in the face of adversity. We are strong and we are good at heart. We have our faults, but our destiny lies in the stars, not because it is preordained, but because we choose it to be. So help choose our destiny; join the Mars Society and help advance the cause of sending humans to Mars. We need you now more than ever. The only way to go is forward. To retreat is guarantee our extinction. We will restore the Earth as we learn to terraform Mars into another home for humanity. We learn by doing, we humans. If we stop doing great things, we stop learning to do even greater things. The struggle continues, even with setbacks such as the loss of Columbia. The only way to guarantee failure is to not try.

Crew 12 - over and out. See you on Mars.