Today Jody and I were on cook crew, so we were up at 6:15 a.m. to refuel the backup generator and start it up. It was chilly out, with some pieces of ice in some of the puddles. Breakfast this morning was everyone's favorite, grits. To complement the grits, we also served eggs, bacon, fruit, and toast. We run a full-service kitchen here! Breakfast served, by 8:00 we were all in the midst of our morning planning meeting.

This morning Jody and I were to go on a longer EVA of about three hours. This would take us to the far end of Cow Dung Road, stopping to collect geological and biological samples along the way. Jody was to take GPS readings to locate the samples as we collected them.

We suited up and left the Hab at about 10:30 a. m. on ATVs. We park the ATVs out in the compound, across the yard from the station. I had ridden an ATV once in my life, last Sunday morning, for about 45 seconds, so I was a bit timid in starting off. After Jody drove off on his four-wheeler, leaving me behind, David came over and sensibly reminded me that vehicles usually move better when they are in gear. Once I solved that problem, I set off in a stately pace to follow Jody's dust.

We had agreed this morning that since he was the scientist on this mission, I was to be the EVA leader. That plan was fine until my radio stopped working within a few hundred yards of the Hab. So from that point on, I could hear EVA-Hab transmissions but could not make them. Jody took over the radio responsibilities as well as the science, and we continued on our way. Gradually I became more comfortable on my machine and discovered that my former life as a horsewoman helped me as I bumped over rocks and ditches. By the end of the day I was motoring along in high gear and in high spirits.

The first stop that we made was to collect samples from point A on our map, but once we parked the ATVs and walked the kilometer to the site, we were disappointed to see that the hill was going to be difficult to climb and would use up too much of our allotted three hours. So I took photographs while Jody collected sampled and took readings.

It was a beautiful morning, with blue skies broken here and there with fluffy white clouds. The hills and bluffs stood out starkly against the sky; everything seemed in perfect focus, even through the helmet I wore. As we proceeded, we saw some signs of life-a pair of birds flew up in front of us, and at one point a small lizard scuttled away out of my path. As we drove further down Cow Dung Road, we observed more and more dry grasses. These wouldn't be found on Mars, but they broke up the expanse of rock and made us feel further from the Hab than we actually were. Our goal was to look for outcrops of Dakota sandstone at points Jody had identified on the topo map, and we did indeed find the Dakota. But we also took other samples that he found interesting, and he did some sketches of certain formations to complement his samples and my photos of the area.

After more than two and a half hours in the field, we headed back to the Hab. I sped back down the dirt road as if I had ridden an ATV all my life. Along the way we stopped to pick up some other samples of rock that Jody had noticed sparkling on clay slopes. We hopped off the ATVs, unhooked the bungee cords holding the box on, and clumsily opened the geology box and fumbled with the zipper bags.

Everything we do with our hands on EVA is difficult. For one thing, we can't see well out of the helmets; I can't see anything south of my chin, though if I hold my arms out I can see my hands-but seeing a notebook I need to open isn't the same as opening it.

Folks who want a similar experience should try putting on oven mitts and flipping through a cookbook for a particular recipe, then copying out the recipe on index cards using a magic marker. Or take dictation from someone sitting in a car with the windows all rolled up. This action would simulate the experience I had copying down GPS coordinates as Jody called them out. To see what doing minute tasks in EVA gloves is like, take the oven mitts now and try to remove a splinter with a pair of tweezers.

When it's time, we leave pavement and turn onto Cow Dung Road, a dirt road that winds through the desert. We travel through desert and rocks about three and a half miles, then turn off on the smaller MDRS road. Until then, we've gotten only a glimpse of the Hab through a break in the hills, but once we make our turn, the station comes into view. Behind it are small hills that hide the rest of the desert from view; on one of these sits the Musk Observatory. We climb a fairly steep path to reach it, and from the Observatory we can see beyond the Hab and off to the landscape beyond.

While Jody and I were gone today, Tim, Kim, and Derek went to the Observatory and assessed what shape it was in. They were excited about seeing what they would be able to do there. Unfortunately, the observatory computer wasn't working, so no stargazing tonight, despite the relatively clear sky tonight. They reported tonight that they set up Kim's laptop to receive feeds from the radio telescope. All through supper tonight they commented happily as we listened to static and other white noise that the telescope picked up.

While they were involved in the astronomy projects, David was Hab comm. for Jody and me. We reported in to him every fifteen minutes during our EVA. He kept records of our activities and location throughout the mission and provided support when needed. Running Hab comm. is an important but often thankless job.

Essentially, the man on the radio back at the Hab is limited as to what else he can do while an EVA team is in the field. He has to carry a radio if he leaves the Hab comm. desk, and he needs to have note-taking materials with him at all times. Then when the team returns, everyone excitedly meets the incoming crew at the airlock door, and they get all the attention and glory. The poor Hab comm. guy greets and debriefs the returning crew, but no one generally asks him how his day went.

In addition to manning the Hab, David also took temperature readings in the GreenHab today to pass on to the folks who set it up. The GreenHab was built in part to process the gray water from the station, but it is not functioning right now. It is a cylinder about ten feet tall which is covered in corrugated clear plastic roofing material. There are doors at each end, but the south door is blocked. One enters through the North door.

Inside, there are tanks on the right which are designed to recycle water. When the Hab is up and running, pumps keep water flowing, with higher tanks feeding lower ones; the cycle is repeated when the water is pumped back up into the taller tank. On the left is some storage along with some bedding plants in various states of deteriorating health. The whole place smells a bit composty--not unpleasant, just organic.

We all reported on our activities tonight and traded stories over tacos and peanut butter pie. After Jody finished the dishes, we all sat down at our laptops and began typing furiously to finish our reports to send to be posted on the Mars Society web site.

Before I close, I wanted to report that we here at the Hab received some good news this week. Kim Binsted, our artificial intelligence expert, has gotten word that she has received a faculty fellowship at Ames Research Center in Ames, California, for this coming summer. This fellowship is for full-time engineering and science educators at U.S colleges and universities. We wanted to hear all about it and pestered her to give us details.

She tells us that she will be working on a prototype tool for large-scale collaboration between a diverse group of experts. The hypothetical situation she will be focusing on involves decoding a message sent by a non-human intelligence. Decoding such a message would require coordinated input from all sorts of scientists. The problem is, how do you relate an idea from one expert, say a linguist, to that of an expert in a very different area, such as an astronomer? The system, she says, keeps track of a large number of experts' ideas and how they relate, as well as the confidence of each expert in each idea (i.e. was it just a wild guess, or are they pretty sure it's right?), and connections to code chunks (i.e. computer programs) that could be used to process the message.

Tonight's movie was "Contact," a film we thought appropriate for the MDRS Crew 15. We watch all movies on Derek's laptop; with the Hab darkened, we can convince ourselves that the uncomfortable metal folding chairs are theater seats, and that the peanut butter pie is Reece's Cups from the concession stand. Not really, but it sounds nice.