We took some time off last night to watch another movie. This time the selection was the goofy alien invasion spoof “Mars Attacks.” The crew got a real kick out of it. In fact, they got so high on the film that this morning, when the EVA team did their radio voice checks, everyone substituted Martian talk “Ack, Ack Ack, Ack Ack Ack,” for the usual integer count to ten.

The weather today was fair, with the prospect for better tomorrow and Tuesday. So we decided to seize the time to perform a reconnaissance EVA to try to find the best site for Vladimir’s geophone flute seismic sounding experiment. The crew was Vladimir, Katy, and I, and our target area to survey was the Von Braun Planitia, a large flat expanse stretching north from the hills overlooking the Lowell Canal.

Last night we finally were able to get everyone to stop working at the same time and have some group R&R watching a DVD projector image of the movie “The Vertical Limit.” If you’ve seen this movie you know that the scenery and cinematography are incredible, but the action is ridiculously contrived, with the climbers making one absurd mistake after another in order to maintain the momentum of the film as an avalanche of literal cliffhangers. It had us all in stitches.

It rained today. Sometimes it was light rain, sometimes heavy. Sometimes it was just rain, at other times it was mixed with a bit of snow. We hoped for a break in the rain so we could do a brief EVA to retrieve data stored in Bill Clancey’s Campbell Scientific weather station, which is positioned near the airstrip across the valley.

We held a morning meeting after breakfast and then set things in motion for a very involved three person EVA. The plan was to deploy Vladimirs’ geophone flute on Haynes Ridge under Mars mission EVA constraints and then fire it up to engage in subsurface seismic exploration.

Our crew moved into the Flashline Station shortly after 9 PM last night. I had hoped for a celebratory meeting of the two crews as they met during the exchange, but it didn’t happen that way. Instead, the shortage of ATVs made it necessary for us to travel to the station two at a time, so that two of the first crew would return the vehicles for the next two of ours, and so forth. Vladimir and I get to the hab first. Sam Burbank explains to me the electrical wiring system of the hab, making it emphatically clear that the system was Frank Schubert’s creation, not his own. I see his point. The wiring system was clearly designed by someone with a unique sense of humor. Appropriate alterations are planned. Pascal, the departing commander, then gives me a briefing on the overall condition of the station, and wishes me well for our upcoming shift. Then the last of my crew arrives, Pascal departs, and we are on our own. We spend a bit of time stowing the large shipment of food we have brought with us, and then retire for the night.

The second phase has begun with new members added to the crew. The new commander is Dr. Robert Zubrin. Other new crew members include Dr. Vladimir Plester a physicist with the European Space Agency, Dr. William Clancey a computer scientist from NASA AMES and Katy Quinn who is just completing her Ph.D. in geology at MIT. Remaining in the hab for Phase 2 are Chief Engineer Dr. Stephen Braham of Simon Fraser University and Dr. Charlie Cockell, biologist from the British Antarctic Survey. Today the crew spent the morning doing some housekeeping in the hab. This afternoon the crew perfomed an EVA on Haynes Ridge. The goal of the EVA was to search for fossils along the ridge. The EVA was quite successful.

Daily audio narrative reports from the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) provided by NASA scientist Pascal Lee. Available in both MP3 and WAV formats.

Late last evening the report came in that the first crew had completed a four person motorized EVA surveying some of Devon’s canyon systems that closely mimic those found on Mars. Led by Pascal, and including Charles Cockell of the British Antarctic Survey, Rainer Effenhauser of NASA JSC, and Frank Schubert, the excursion was a spectacular success that really illustrated the unique capabilities for wide ranging field exploration over unimproved terrain that human exploration teams will bring to Mars.

The day began chill and rainy, and I awoke feeling like a cold might be coming on. I switched into thermal underwear and woolens, and after some hot tea and the onset of slightly warmer and dryer weather after breakfast, I felt a lot better.