Day 5

I absolutely love my mornings out here. I'm usually the first up, so I head downstairs to look outside of the air lock at the beautiful terrain. A bit wet this morning, but still cannot wait to get out there today. I sit with a mug full of hot chocolate and answer emails from friends and family. The team slowly stumbles out of their rooms and we laugh about the previous days. There's no stress, no rush to school, no last minute exam preparations- just relaxing sittings with good friends.

Yesterday was a "cooking" day so we used some bread that Jessica had made on the previous cooking day to make french toast. We only had imitation egg whites and dehydrated milk, but Billy did a great job in making it appear like real french toast. I decided early that day that I wanted to launch the repeater without the antenna, so I traveled down the stairs to engineering to assemble the repeater station. With the help of Dan and some wire cutting, we got the solar panel charger hooked up to the battery and the Icom programmed. We talked to mission support about borrowing a solar panel from the side of the hab, as we would need this in order to keep the battery charged and to avoid having to travel to the station nightly to change out the 12V. They noted that the solar panel was not hooked up to anything critical and that we could use it. Excited, Chris and I suited up and went out on an EVA to retrieve the panel. I forgot how difficult it is to use any tools in the heavy gloves. Once we had disconnected the solar panel from the hab, we headed back inside. I hooked up the solar panel to the repeater, and Dan and I carried the station up to the observatory hill to make sure the battery was charging with ample sunlight. To our surprise, it actually was. What, something working? We were thrilled.

Speaking of working...DG, our supply chief, has become our hero. In one day, he brought us a full water tank, fixed the downstairs heater, put a new battery in the rover Viking II, and fixed our HabCar. We now have heat, water, and more methods of transportation.

Once Dan and I got back into the hab, I grabbed my shower stuff for another steamy 90 seconds. Oh, how thrilling. When I came out of the shower room, I saw Eric and Dan suited up, just coming back from an EVA to test voltages on the remaining solar panels. From what I gathered, we had not done anything to hurt the system by removing one of the panels. They desuited, and I went upstairs to comb my Oasis (the biodegradeable soap we use, ew) knotted hair. After that I cooked the crew an interesting dinner, which really wasn't as successful as I would have liked. I attempted cheesesteaks with imitation beef bits, onions, velveeta and bread pockets....but they were very average. We just keep thinking, in one week, we'll be able to get hamburger's and milkshakes in town. Our crew will go out of sim next Thursday, clean the hab Friday, and leave Saturday. It is odd to look at Facebook and see friend's statuses note that they are returning from spring break, while I am still here. I guess that means I should get to my homework...

We ended the evening by watching the first two episodes of the popular series "Firefly", which all of us "space nerds" love. This was followed by a good 9 hours of sleep. Brilliant.

Quotes:

"I was thinking we could have the "clam chowder of rage" for lunch tomorrow"-Jessica
"I'm going to come in your room with no core containment"-Chris
"Chris, Jon Kosh is on your door, but I think he's in woman form"-me

Plans for today:

Check on repeater and battery charge
Mapping EVA's
Senior design paper...

Miss y'all to earth and back,

Jillian
Crew 93-XO