Another great day on Mars. Early morning jitters with the generator couldn’t take the gloss of the sunshine pouring in through the portholes. A big cooked breakfast by Kurt of bacon, pancakes and eggs kicked off a successful EVA to search for concretions in the morning. The afternoon EVA included four crewmembers to the Pinto Hills in the pressurised rover for trials with the CRV. The vehicle was lowered from three different sized cliffs, but problems with the camera precluded any successful imaging. A late dinner of Dutch influences, then some report writing and this crew is off to bed for some sleep…
April 20th, 2005
MDRS Log Book
The Crew 39 – Leonardo Project is going wild: huge plans are being prepared… EVAs to dream places, engineering developments and improvements of the Hab, documentaries of the project, etc. Our common ISU (International Space University) ground makes us a strong, confident, united team and the results show. We had some interesting discussions and SSP slide shows today… Martian greetings to all ISU alumni out there! We also want to thank the support from all friends and space fans who have been supporting and cheering. Obrigado!
April 19th, 2005
MDRS Log Book
Two EVAs for CRV cliffs exploration and geology studies. Interesting blue berry concretions found. Thermal hardware ready for experiment. Two EVA helmets repaired.
April 18th, 2005
MDRS Log Book
Second day of the mission. The full simulation has not yet really started since the Beyond 2000 guys went on beyond yesterday and since Kurt had to go back to Hanksville to fix his laptop. So we
April 18th, 2005
Washington DC Think Tank Publishes Zubrin Analysis of Space Program
An in-depth critique of the space program and a prescription of the radical steps necessary to make the new Bush administration “Vision for Space Exploration” real written by Mars Society president Dr. Robert Zubrin has been published in the Spring 2005 edition of “The New Atlantis,” the journal of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC). The Zubrin article, entitled “Getting Space Exploration Right,” includes fierce and systematic criticism of former NASA administrator’s non-destination driven approach of (not) implementing the president’s new human space exploration policy. It also diagnoses the source of the many debacles of the O’Keefe administration, including the Hubble fiasco, the Orbital Space Plane and JIMO program failures, and the Columbia disaster. Finally, the article lays out the technical approach needed for successful implementation of a human Moon-Mars exploration program.
April 17th, 2005
MDRS Log Book
Crew 39 – Leonardo Project has landed on Mars. It was a pretty long day until docking on the Martian Hab. Unpacking goods, hardware, supplies, etc; lots of footage for Beyond Productions TV taking place; testing the ATVs; performing first EVAs. We got the first hang of each task and the specifics of the complex and time consuming maintenance of the Hab. The scenic surroundings are awesome and everybody is feeling pretty enthusiastic about closing the hatch of the air lock tomorrow for full Mars Station simulation kick off. The engineering team had already some challenges keeping the power as the space-generator is playing some tricks on us. They have proven being worthy of the task.
April 13th, 2005
MDRS Log Book
Morning planning meeting to work out details of Boudreaux scouting in area beyond Pooh’s Corner; involved all subsystem teams
April 12th, 2005
MDRS Log Book
Continued progressing on two fronts — Boudreaux behavior debugging (moving forward with obstacle avoidance) and the ATV driver simulating a robot with visual touch screen display showing commands directed to the robot. Boudreaux has now made two runs to Pooh’s Corner; now testing the laser obstacle avoidance system for the first time (Boudreaux is a bit too conservative about hills). Also did two runs of the ATV/ERA display system; this is useful for several reasons: Testing Mobile Agents without a robot, showing use of an ATV with navigation advisor for an astronaut; showing use of display system to augment voice commanding with personal agent. Also changed cards in astronaut backpack computers to be more compatible with Tropos base station and relays.
April 5th, 2005
MDRS Log Book
Progress on the Mobile Agents system continues on all fronts: programming the robot arm to deploy the relay (by removing a pin); verifying network connectivity to all computers inside and outside the hab with Tropos relay from top of MDRS (seeing 10 db variance within 2 m shift in position); installing astronaut backpack upgrades (including new air system for helmet); language training test for astronauts; verifying and debugging voice recognition of commands and agent processing of voice commands (efficiency problem with backpack-B tracked to the UK/British recognizer for Abby); setup of EVA database (ScienceOrganizer) local server. Also handling logistics for visits next week from eight scientist colleagues and several reporters. Liam is preparing lamb stew for dinner.
January 11th, 2005
MDRS Crew 32
During the active field season, the crew of the Mars Desert Research Station rotates every 2 weeks. These are the scientists and engineers who live and work on site within the MDRS. They explore all of the facets of human exploration in a simulated Mars environment. The MDRS will be active for a 7 month period.