Tick-tock, tick-tock... that's not my watch making that noise but the rhythmic heart beat of Expedition Gamma living at MDRS. The crew training is complete and the crew is taking care of each other and taking care of the habitat. It is understandable why in the TV show Firefly they considered the spaceship the tenth character. Serenity was their home and a living machine. Without maintaining the ship, the crew would perish. The MDRS habitat, which we gave the temporary pet name Firefly, is a part of us. Having all three ATVs shut down was difficult to handle, but with an overhaul of maintenance, all three are purring and running as best as they can. This rebirth of well-used machinery is something that crews on Mars will one day face where they will have no choice but to make it work.

To recap the full story, yesterday we had three ATVs completely shut down on us only 100 meters away from the habitat. One ATV was able to tow back another but then shut down after the recovery. The crew of EVA-10 pushed the third ATV back to the habitat. The afternoon was spent tinkering and struggling to figure out what went wrong. Today the ATVs were ready again for excursion! Two of them were brought out into the field by Brogan and Seth (out of simulation) to make sure they were road worthy for future exploration. After receiving the engineering team's blessings, they were set out into the field for an afternoon EVA to Radio Ridge with Cassie, Seth, and Liz.

Excellent gypsum sheet crystals were found during the EVA and the team recovered a red "Elmo" balloon, which now sits happily in the habitat greeting the crew in the morning by the staircase. We had three ATV visitors visit the habitat this afternoon, who just sat outside the habitat and starred at Firefly while we starred back. We decided that if they came knocking on the door we would say hello, but otherwise we kept in simulation and just made sure they were being respectful of our home. The final EVA of the day featured Brogan, Seth, and Anna who spent an hour out by "Antarctica" designing a fuel depot for the ATVs including looking for scrap parts to help with construction. Similar missions to build the "gas station" will follow.

The rest of team spent the afternoon writing abstracts for various proposals and fixing habitat systems as usual. Tonight's spaghetti dinner with fresh garlic from the Green Habitat should refresh the crew and give them a sound sleep for a productive day in the field with two ATV EVAs planned for tomorrow. Tick-tock, tick-tock... the beat goes on... on to Mars!