Day 9 - Lots of EVA's

Day 9 Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/bjg222/MDRS2010Day9

Today was a busy day! As usual, Jillian and I were both up be the rest of the crew. We had breakfast, and by the time everybody else woke up (it was around 10:30 by the time Chris got up!), Jillian and I were ready for the next mapping and radio range test EVA. Today we decided to test out the hab base station without the antenna (No, they still haven’t arrived!), which ultimately meant that we had absolutely no radio coverage away from the hab! Jillian and I rode due north of the hab to a small canyon called Lith Canyon that’s just south of Box Canyon that we visited early last week. This was one of the few places that I had yet to visit around here after last year, so it was exciting. It’s was a fun ATV ride, especially because near the end of the trail to the canyon is a small, but steep hill! It was probably about 15 feet high, but it was at least a 30 to 45 degree slope! Unfortunately, I didn’t think to stop and get a picture, though I’ve got plenty of pictures of the canyon itself. After leaving there, we headed south, back past the hab, almost to the actual paved road that leads to Hanksville. All in all, we were gone about an hour and a half! That leaves only a small handful of trails that are left to map! Now if only the antennas show up, then we could really test the radio range! After we got back, we had lunch, and then Dan, Jessica, and Eric suited up for another trip up to the wind turbine. Dan fixed the electronics yesterday, so they took the control box back up and reconnected it to the turbine and started things up again. Now it’s working pretty much as it’s supposed to! The next step is just to monitor it and see how much power it generates. According to Mission Support, we’re apparently supposed to take a break halfway through our two week rotation, but it just doesn’t make much sense, if you’re simulating a Mars mission, to randomly break sim for an afternoon in the middle. So rather than break sim, we took a recreational EVA! Dan, Eric, Chris, and Jessica suited up and hopped on the ATV’s to go see if they could find those dinosaur bones we were looking for when we first got here. Apparently we were looking on the wrong spot last time. Jillian and I stayed behind, since we’d gotten to ride the ATV’s quite a bit, to give people who hadn’t gotten around as much a chance. I took advantage of the quiet time (The hab was so quiet with nobody around!) to get some more studying done. I’m still behind my schedule, but not as much as I was! The four of them wandered around for almost two hours, but still didn’t find any dinosaur bones, though they did stumble upon some cattle! After they got back, Dan suited up for one more trip up to the wind turbine to check on it, then it was dinner time. Dinner today, being a non-cooking day, consisted of reconstituted chicken primavera, which surprisingly wasn’t half bad, and instant mashed potatoes. After dinner, the typical submitting of reports and collection of pictures took place, then after some more episodes of Firefly, it was off to bed!