Mission Day: 07

Day Seven
 
I am being to truly appreciate just how hard it will be to put someone on the surface of Mars and keep them alive. Or even how hard it was to get someone to the moon.
 
This morning we work up to 5% charge in the batteries and shortly after officially browned out.
 
For the crew of CBHMM1 this was not a massive problem as we simply waited until the backup generator kicked in. When the sun began to charge the batteries around 8:00am our lives went back to normal. But I could not help but thinking on the surface of Mars we would have all been dead.
 
We sent out to EVAs this morning. The first was a quick trip to Caradhras by Gord and Tom to place a surprise in the tube for the next crew. Caradhras was our first tube and the first tube of most crews by tradition. The “surprise” is a memory card on which crews leave notes, images, and videos for crews to find. In that spirit, last night we pieced together a video of our time here at HISEAS and this morning Gord and Tom returned the memory card for the next crew to find.
 
The second EVA of the morning was a science mission for NASA Goddard. Chad, Kent, Michaela, and I went to the Kessel Lava Tubes to map the tube for NASA and to study and determine whether the growth in the tube is bio or geo chemical in nature. The progress was slow but I have to admit it was cool to be working on another NASA project.
 
This afternoon we launched a third EVA led by Chad so Gord and Tom could see the Kessel Lava Tubes as they were the longest we had crawled through to date.
 
This evening we have one more brain health and performance assessment then our study will be done. I have reviewed our findings multiple times now and all I can say is we can do it – we can accurately track brain health and performance. In this case, as we have shown here – we can track changes in cognitive fatigue with precisions.
 
The possibilities are endless – imagine testing doctors before they operate, pilots before they fly, even businessmen before they make crucial decisions. We can do this now – the science is solid and clear.
 
I will post full summary results tomorrow as we need the data from our last session tonight as the last data point.
 
We are both excited and sad that our mission is coming to an end. It will be great to get back to the real world and our loved ones. At the same time, being a part of HISEAS and the research we have done has definitely been a high point in our lives and a truly amazing experience.
 
Goodnight from Mars.
 
O. Krigolson
 
End of Report