Day 1

Up early this beautiful morning to watch the sunrise and start on a hefty breakfast for the crew. I somehow assume the role of cook each rotation, and surprisingly, enjoy coming up with creative ways to use the freeze dried ingredients. This morning, which was supposed to be pancakes and oatmeal, will be put on hold until tomorrow due to the fact this is a non-cooking day of the food study. Sadness.

Speaking of the crew members, let me tell you a little about them. The members of Crew 79 (GT's last year rotation) and the Georgia Tech Mars Society asked for applications for this year's rotation in September. By October we selected 10 promising astronauts, 6 of which would actually come to MDRS. The remaining 4, which were not selected for the trip itself, serve as mission support back at home. These members are greatly missed by our team and my best friend, Rebecca, serves as one. She's been keeping me up to date on Earth and we're grateful to have her on the team. (Love you, R!). Now...onto who is at MDRS this year...

First we have Dan, our Commander. Grad student in AE and Crew 69 and 79 veteran. Specializes in Wind Turbine Power and keeps us all in line. He, with the help of others, has been putting together a wind turbine and we will raise it on a nearby cliff today.
Billy, a veteran of Crew 79, is a grad student majoring in Robotics, and is serving as our Information and Technology Officer, in which he will be our photographer and mission support contact. He also is our rover lead, and will do several EVA's testing the Rover that a GT team built. Chris, an undergraduate in AE, our Chief Engineer, assumes the role I did last year...maintaining power to the Hab at all times, keeping all electronic equipment running and taking care of any ATV maintenance. It is more difficult then it sounds. Eric, also an undergraduate in AE, is serving as our Science Lead, where he will take care of the GreenHab, all plants, and the water line that connects from the GreenHab to our toilet, shower and sink. Also a difficult job. Jessica, also an undergraduate in AE, our Health and Safety Officer, is coordinating the food study and making sure we're all practicing safe habits. The food study consists of all freeze dried food and cooking/non-cooking days. More on that later. And finally, I'm serving as the Executive Officer, where I will be Dan's second-in-command, training for the position next year. This just means I'll be coordinating EVA's and making sure everyone is getting ample time to do their experiments. I also serve as the Radio Lead, doing a study on radio range on Mars terrain. Unlike any other crew, we bring our own Amateur Radio equipment and are all certified by the FCC (KJ4JZZ! ftw). We'll set up a repeater on Skyline Ridge, which is at an elevation of 4950 feet, as well as a base station at the hab, and hopefully enjoy stable communication between astronauts during EVA's using handheld radios. You guessed it- I am also an undergraduate at Tech- a super senior in Aerospace, graduating this fall. All said and done, this is a great crew with various talents and I'm looking forward to spending the next two weeks with them.

Onto the more fun stuff...yesterday. We all got up about 9 AM, blasting "Never gonna give you up" into Chris' bedroom to get him out of bed (teehee). After breakfast, Jessica and I started the food inventory and planning meals for the next two weeks. Since we haven't started our simulation yet (will start Tuesday), I am attempting to spend as much time outdoors as possible, without space suits. Helped Dan and Eric a bit with wind turbine assembly and suntanned out on the water talk. I then grabbed Jessica and Billy, the ATV keys, and we headed out for a 2 hour sprint around the mountains. It was truly a gorgeous, relaxing drive. In total we went 12 miles, at an average elevation of 4516 ft, at a highest speed of 36 mi/hr. Came back, did some reading, and I cooked dinner for the crew. Finished the day with watching "Coraline" with the crew...or sleeping through the movie....and off to bed around midnight.

Quotes from the day:

"Ugh, now I have corn sauce on my plate!" -Chris
"We didn't have Wasabi, but we had tabasco, so I put it up my nose. That HURT." -Me
"There's no crying in Mars"-Rebecca

Off to enjoy the last day out of sim,

Jillian
XO-Crew 93