![\"Carla](\"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/mdrs_crew89\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_8825.JPG\")
<\/a>Carla and Kiri cleaning the Hab floor<\/p><\/div> Today we had a real weekend day on Mars! We breakfasted on a delicious, fresh-baked casserole made of reconstituted egg whites, Velveeta cheese, and pre-cooked bacon, based on a recipe Carla found. Then we spent a couple of hours cleaning house—wiping, sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping.
<\/a>Luis cleaning the stovetop<\/p><\/div> It was warm enough, and the work strenuous enough, that I ended stripping down to a tank top. Pretty crazy when the temperatures outside are below freezing! But hurrah, the Hab floor is once again a cheery blue color. Luis, brave soul, tackled cleaning the stove and under the burners. The new stove surface, which is actually black, was entirely unrecognizable. He then covered it with aluminum foil, further obscuring its identity in clean radiance. Brian baked some more bread. (Boy, do we love our “cooking” days!) <\/p>\n
Mike, who had been up until the wee hours collecting data with the newly operational radio telescope, retired to his stateroom ensconced in his headphones to listen to the buzz of the night sky, based on recordings collected while the crew slept. Apparently this was sufficiently sleep-inducing that he succumbed to a nap. Actually, we’d all had something of a late night because we decided to stay up until midnight so as to transfer some large files (e.g., download printer drivers and upload movies to YouTube!). Our bandwidth from 5 a.m. to midnight is severely restricted, so the only practical way to do these tasks is to wait for that midnight to 5 a.m. window. To pass the time until midnight, we played several games of Guesstures, which is a variant on charades that we found to be quite entertaining! Carla emerged as a real champion of portraying a variety of characters and concepts with lightning speed. Mike is feeling inadequate and is intent on a rematch. Luis complained that the stress was killing him, so we strapped Brian’s heartrate monitor on him and found that sure enough, his heartrate would go from about 90 (when guessing) up to about 160 (when portraying concepts and trying to get his teammates to guess!).<\/p>\n
It was a slow day in Internet-land today. An unattended download after our late-night session did not complete by 5 a.m. (and yes, we know better!). Therefore, around 6 a.m., we’d apparently consumed our entire bandwidth for the day and our access was throttled back (to a total allocation of about 3 kbps—aie!). This was excruciating for all involved. I found it particularly painful because I’d so hoped to use this slow, indoor day to make real progress on my actual research project: automatically associating geotags with images that don’t otherwise have GPS coordinates associated with them. I spent most of the day simply identifying which pieces of software I lacked and, because of the bandwidth restriction, could not download. Prior to the mission, I’d planned to do my analysis in Matlab, and had downloaded several packages that I would use to analyze the images with. But even on good net days here at the Hab, I can’t maintain a good enough connection to the Matlab license server to make that work at all. So I decided to switch over to Python, which I can run independently on my computer, without net access. Except that I then also needed to install new packages for the same analysis goals, in Python rather than Matlab. I’ve made some progress, but not nearly what I’d hoped for!<\/p>\n
<\/a>Brian near Radio Ridge Road<\/p><\/div> The day was not, however, a total loss. After lunch, Brian and Luis suited up for EVA 13. Their goal was to traverse Radio Ridge Road to check out a potential site for a seismic survey, recommended by Carol Stoker, the Commander of MDRS Crew 83. That crew had surveyed an inverted channel feature with ground-penetrating radar. Luis wanted to collect some more rock, soil, and snow samples—the more diverse, the better. They set out with Luis in the lead, since he thought he remembered the way from EVA 6 (both EVAs headed up Sagan Street at the beginning). They made it to the base of Olympus Mons but at that point encountered a few dead ends, because the terrain looked quite different with snow blanketing it. The road was steep, and once Brian had to get out and push Luis’s ATV to help keep it moving. As the follower, lucky Brian was able to avoid the sticky spots that Luis discovered.<\/p>\n
<\/a>The Hab as seen from Radio Ridge<\/p><\/div> They struck Radio Ridge Road without difficulty. From up on the ridge, they could see cliffs all around, with snow collected in patches on the red layers. They could also see the Hab from above, as well as Musk Observatory. They observed a lot of animal tracks along the way. They made their way south along the Ridge, seeking the GPS coordinates specified by Carol. As they went south, they encountered another ridge that intersected Radio Ridge perpendicularly—and this was the spot they sought. They walked the profile, and learned that it may not be smooth enough for the seismic survey, since the instruments need to be towed along the ground.<\/p>\n