Journalist's Report

February 26, 2008

Biobabe



This morning a couple of the crew took a leap of faith and attempted
oatmeal with dried apple snacks instead of granola and blueberries.
Some weren't too impressed by the oatmeal due to the fact that there
wasn't any brown sugar to be found in the pantry.

After this interesting breakfast FAM, LOx, and Googly took a trip to
the GreenHab to try a science experiment. Baking soda was poured down
the overflow drain followed by boiling water in an attempt to dislodge
a blockage. Unfortunately baking soda was not quite powerful enough
nor do we completely understand the cause of the blockage so more
research is needed to uncover this mystery.

Today the entire crew took an extended EVA in our pressurized rover.
We meandered to Factory Butte and Coal Mine Wash. Training on field
documentation methodology and collection of geology samples was
initiated there. FDM was quite new to the engineering team and took a
little time to adjust to. The purpose of FDM as explained back by a
couple of the engineers after the outing was that when the scientists
want a day off the engineers can go out and take samples for them.

Blondie didn't take to being in the sun for as long as we were out
there. He is a slightly redder and crispier form of Blondie than he
was before. Blondie's favorite part of the entire excursion was the
"rock climbing" that took place after the FDM training. Many
interesting photographs were taken during this time of the adventure.
Kim discovered scientific methodology was slightly more difficult than
he had initially thought but quickly adapted and collected a beautiful
sample from the coal bed. Googly learned quite a bit during the FDM
training and didn't want to stop exploring. LOx found the most
exciting part to be when he stole the rock hammer from FAM and
discovered that the beds of sandstone around us easily reverted back to
the sand from which they were originally created. Whisky found it
very fascinating to observe the wheels in the engineers minds roll as
they learned how to gather scientific samples. Whisky also found the
pressurized rover satisfactory for carting around our full crew
compliment. FAM greatly enjoyed sharing her knowledge about the local
sediment as well as climbing around on the rocks to get amazing
pictures. Biobabe greatly enjoyed watching the engineering team
discover the trials of the basic science world but am glad that there
are so many engineers on our crew because I would be pretty scared to
have to take care of the hab if the engineers took a day off, due to
the immense time and effort they put into keeping the hab running
smoothly.

At the end of the EVA it was discovered that it was past lunch time.
It was decided that a visit to a local Martian eatery was exactly what
the Flight Surgeon ordered. The crew joked that the fried food at the
eatery was probably healthier than the freeze dried food we have been
eating for the past week.

All and all it was and amazing day. The whole crew learned more about
geology and confirmed what they had previously learned about geology.