Dino Bone Huntin'

I'm not exactly sure how the day started but, for the second day in a row I was able to sleep through the night. The crew quarters seem to have a thermostat issue, this is exacerbated when its 50 degrees out during the day and below zero at night. I brought a winter rated sleeping bag that is suppose to be okay to use when your surroundings are 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Since this sleeping bag makes up my sheets, comforter, and part of my pillow, it gets uncomfortable at night when it gets 77 degrees in the hab.

I remember, once again it was oatmeal for breakfast. We found some de-hydrated mandarin oranges, they went pretty well with the Quaker Oats. The food here has been surprisingly good. I haven't cooked much, Daring Dave and Bianca are the only ones that are trusted with the cooking responsibilities. Lunch was tasty. Against all odds we were able to get some corned beef into the hab. This was a revitalizing experience, I felt day by day my red meat meter going down, but corned beef saved the day.

We didn't just eat all day, we actually had some research and work to get done. We had to drill all the holes for the radio telescope today so that everything can be constructed by the end of the weekend. There is a problem, we don’t have the extra 16 feet of coax cable needed to erect the telescope. I think were going to get the hardware part of the telescope finished so that the next crew can come and simply hook up the coax and the hear the radio emissions from the Sun and Jupiter.

I duct taped my camera to my analog simulation suit for our geological EVA. This was the best idea I've had all week. The video was spectacular, we call it the rover cam. When I get home and I have some more bandwidth to work with I will be able to upload the video file. Part of our EVA was to go dinosaur bone hunting. I think we spotted a dino bone, Commander Steve thought it was a rib bone. I also found some living organisms on some rocks. They're called Lycans, I found two types yellow and white. The yellow Lycan reminded. They look like little polyps under the microscope.

As a crew we hope to have most of our research conducted by the end of the weekend. This should allow time for the climbing that I have been planning on doing. Another day with minimal engineering problems and good sleep, I can't complain about that.

I've never had tofu, but apparently NASA or the Mars Society is in cahoots with the tofu makers. We have enough tofu to start using it as paper weights. Luckily Daring Dave knows how to cook tofu, so dinner was enchilada style tofu. I didn't think it was possible, but it was very good.

Hey for all those interested in this reporting, I have begun to embark on my next endeavor. I have found a company, Nastar, that has a Suborbital Scientist training program. The program consist of launch and re-entry simulations. Up to 6G flights in the x and z direction(front to back and head to toe). Also parabolic flights and sub-orbital space flight simulators.

Life good here on Mars,
Astro Paul