Roxy update:

Miss Roxy is a couple of days shy of 5 months old. She is very getting very big...37lbs to be exact. And as of Sunday she lost all of her puppy teeth...a very bloody mess.

Click here for pics:

Here is a video of Roxy versus Lemon:

Roxy vs. Lemon

House Update:

As of August 19th, the bricking is almost done.

The drywalling is mostly done.

Next up texture and paint.

Click here to see some pics.

Semi-bricked

The mysterious Mt. Fuji

Today, I get my only day off during this two week trip. My coworkers and I decided it would be a good idea to take a tour of the Hakone/Mt. Fuji area.

Here is my day:

We took the Tsukuba Express to Akihabara. Then took the JR line down to Shimbashi.

And I got some McDonalds for breakfast, since it was in front of our tour bus meeting place. Yummy egg mcmuffin. :)

We got on the bus and our tour guide was this little japanese lady. Miyaki-san, she told us to call her Mickey since it will be easier to remember. While heading to Mt. Fuji, she informs us that we are about to hit a traffic jam. Summer vacation has started and everyone usually goes out of tokyo for the weekend. She is hilarious. She was talking about the japanese toilet. asking if we have tried it or not. "Just to remember to sit down before pressing any buttons. Or else we will have to wash our face." LOL

Continuing on towards Fuji, she informs us that the traffic is bad, so we need to go to Hakone first. Which takes about 1.5hr from Tokyo. She begins telling stories about the Japanese people and how the avg life span of Japanese women ranks #1 in the world and how Japanese men are #3 and that women live much longer than men. And then comes another classic joke, "why do Japanese women live longer the men? Because they don't have wives." So funny coming from a quiet Japanese lady. When we got to Hakone, all we could see was a haze/fog/clouds. The resort is suppose to be one of the nicest scenery around. Hakone is a district southeast of Tokyo. It circles Lake Ashinoko which was formed 3000yrs ago when the hakone volcano erupted leaving a huge lake bed behind. The lake is 741 meters above sea level. Which is awesome...supposedly. Anyways, we arrive at lakeside and we get on a pirate ship of sort. Which is pretty fitting with the fog and all. as we make it across the lake, we could see only about 20ft in any direction. But it eventually clears up to about 100 ft. Then it starts to rain. This is what is should look like http://www.free-photos.org/photos/lakeashinoko.jpg and http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/629e6/ee891/.

Next we grab lunch and it was not that great, but hey i was hungry so it wasn't too bad.

After lunch we end up driving another hour and a half to Mr. Fuji. Which we were hoping for a nice view of. No such luck. It continues to rain and the mist was even worst going up the mountain.

We ascend from first station (of 10), can't see anything, then the second station...and then we stop at the 5th station, they can't drive much further up, and nothing to look at but fog. I got some souvenirs and a picture saying 2400m and points to souvenir shop.

So after 40 min, we call it a day and the bus drives us to the bullet train station where we will take the train back to tokyo. As we were driving away, the right side of Mt. Fuji kind of cleared up enough to see the line of the mountain. But that is about the whole trip.

So disappointing, but at least it wasn't work.

FMARS Week 4

I can't believe we leave Devon Island in less than 2 days... this month has gone so fast! What an adventure...

This final week has been spent finishing Brian's EM experiment, flying Joe's UAV a few more times, heating the gypsum to make water and plaster, and getting started with our close out and shut down activities.

As an aside, I am thinking about this mission and about how I did as a fake astronaut. I certainly felt like I could play the part, no problem. I'm also thinking about what traits contribute to the success I've had here at FMARS and which lead to the success of real astronauts. So far, I have had the following thoughts on this matter:

I would like to thank my mother for bestowing upon me many of the inherent qualities that have been ESSENTIAL for my mental and physical well-being as a fake (and someday real) astronaut:
-Stomach of steel: It's immensely helpful to be able to eat pretty much anything and not have to worry about having problems digesting or getting sick. Of course there are many things I would RATHER not eat (i.e. beef, pork, onions, etc. etc.) but the important part is that I CAN eat whatever. The food fake and real astronauts have to eat is mostly dried, canned, bottled, rehydratable crap that makes some people feel ill. Luckily this astronaut does not have a problem with that...
-Super Immune System: My kick @$$ immune system should be bottled and sold. One crowning achievement was sharing a bed with my cousin for 4 days when he had strep and not getting so much as a sniffle. These awesome white blood cells have fought off whatever germs are around this Hab that the other crew members got sick off of throughout the mission. So for that, I am extremely grateful. Being sick in space is not only a waste of crew time and government money, it's extremely disappointing for the crew member who spent their entire life training for these moments only to have it ruined by some bug.
-Camel bladder: Like mother, like daughter we both have the camel bladder. On average I pee 2 times a day, and that has not changed up here. It's very useful when you go out in your spacesuit on a 6 hour EVA to not have to pee... Also when you have to pee in a bucket, it's nice to minimize the trips to the bathroom...
-Sleeping like a Rock: OK, so to be fair, I don't think that I INHERITED this trait from my mom. But she instilled it in me by vaccuuming under my crib as I slept as a baby (and in my room up through my teenage years) and by never saying "Shhhh, the baby is sleeeeping" She conditioned me to sleep through just about anything and for that I say THANK YOU!!! All the other crew members here sleep with their doors tightly shut to block out noise and light... I sleep with the door wide open and have to be specifically woken up each day or I sleep right through the loud talking, water pump noise, walking around the hab, cooking breakfast, etc. It's a blessing, really really it is.
-Dedication: My mom says, "Do it right or not at all." That attitude has gotten me through tough times along the way where I've considered the amount of work ahead of me and thought it easier to be content with the great things I've already done than keep working my tail off for these massive goals. I know my mom would never do a job half-@$$ed so it keeps me going.
-Ambition: For as long as I can remember, my mom told me I could be anything I wanted. No limits, no suggestions about what I SHOULD be, just that I could be anything I wanted. Even when I said in a second grade project that I wanted to be a waitress... my mom supported that. In middle school when I wanted to become a lawyer (not an attorney!) my mom was on board with that too. It's refreshing that she will always have my back no matter what I choose to be.

And I got these other inherent, essential astronaut traits from my father:
-The Inquiring Mind: Always asking why? and wanting to know how things work... that comes directly from my Dad... the man who built his own race car as a teenager and takes apart just about any device that comes into his possession. It is this trait (well, my version of it, not his...) that keeps me perpetually in school, always learning new things.
-Entrepreneurial Spirit: My dad has started countless businesses always looking for that "home run." The spirit of wanting to create and to be part of something spectacular is a major driving force in my life. It's because of this that I want to blaze new trails that will have a lasting effect on the future of space exploration.

And an extremely important piece from my stepdad "Turttle":
-Creativity: Once when I was a Little Star about 20 yrs ago and my mom and Turttle were still just dating, we had a final show and afterward we were each asked to bring on stage the person who was the source of our artistic talent. To me, there was no question. It was Turttle. So with the rest of my family laughing their arses off (they were all certain I would drag my mom up there) I brought Turttle on stage and introduced him as such. Talk about stealing the show... but it was true. From the beginning, Turttle has encouraged me to be creative and taught me how to draw and do artistic things. I still need a creative outlet (what with being such a techie during my day job) and that is one of the major reasons why I scrapbook. As an astronaut, it's critical to have an open mind and come up with alternative solutions to problems. This is best done by someone with a creative streak...

From my Grandma, who I miss terribly and think of daily:
-Cooking: This of course comes via my mom as well, but it has been thoughts of my Grandma in the kitchen making our favorite recipes that come to my mind as I attempt to cook here at FMARS. I've made many of her recipes with varying levels of success here with limited ingredients. It's the willingness to improvise and experiment with recipes and ingredients that makes a good cook. I have unofficially been named crew chef during our stay here, and I hope that sharing some of my Grandma's recipes has been enjoyable for my crewmates (I know they scarfed down all Grandma's recipes, so I can assume it was yummy!)
-Stubbornness: My Grandma was as stubborn as they come, and I've got a lot of that. Sometimes in this space exploration business you have to be stubborn and stick to your guns to get things done. And it's crucial to not let your opinions and observations get stomped on by stronger personalities. It's that type of stomping that led to the Challenger accident. If only some of those people who knew about the O-ring problems had Grandmas like mine....

Those are my musings for the moment. Now I must go write a Science Report.

07/26/09

FMARS Week 3

Hi again from "Mars"! It's hard to believe we are entering our last week here on Devon Island! It's going by so fast.... I'm super excited to get home and see Loi and Roxy though :-D

Here is a re-cap of Week 3, the most Mars-like week yet:

To date we've completed 12 EVAs (aka spacewalks), accomplishing a lot of science objectives. Brian and Christy installed the seismometer and antenna at a remote location, and Brian is collecting data remotely.

Here is Christy and Brian deploying the antenna for the seismometer

All of us have been involved in the 4 EVAs dedicated to Brian's other experiment, the time-domain electromagnetic survey. This involves laying out 40m x 40m squares of wire in very specific orientation (which is quite difficult on the rocky terrain with only a generic tape measure). For all the physics nerds, here is a description of the experiment which takes advantage of Faraday's Law of induction, very cool.

Brian taking measurements from the "Orange Box" The small white ring is the receiver of the induced EMF. Current measured from it can help determine the make up of the subsurface layers

Here I am helping to measure out one side of the 40m x 4om loop

I have also helped Joe fly the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) once in sim. It's a really awesome little machine. It's like a souped up RC plane, mostly used by the military to survey battle areas in advance. We are using it to scout out interesting geological sites for EVAs. Here are some of the videos taken from the onboard camera. I've named him Herbie. :-)

Flying Herbie using the manual controls (looks like a PS3 controller...)

Herbie is controlled via a laptop that uploads coordinates and points for him to fly to. The operator can also control and lock the camera on certain items of interest (i.e. the Hab). After a crash landing the first flight (luckily Herbie was unscathed) when the laptop battery died in the field, Joe rigged up a system with a power inverter to hook the laptop up to the ATV battery to keep a steady flow of power. So far it has worked beautifully.

After we safely landed Herbie the UAV, Joe and I took a drive over to Cornell Lake (not Carnell Lake as in the ex-Steeler unfortunately) on the ATVs and climbed to the top of a nearby peakl to look for signs of a hydrothermal pipe for Vernon. We found some cool rocks and Joe dug a hole...

Joe and I at the summit

A very cool rock

Joe digging his Hole

I also went on a pedestrian EVA with Vernon to test out his geological "field computer" which is basically a GPS that records geological information as well as GPS coordinates of interesting sites. We walked over the nearest ridge and saw firsthand some of the awesome leftovers from an ancient glacier.... it had carved out a jagged valley and our stream now runs through it. Chip got to go on that EVA too....

Chip is officially an FMARS XII 2009 Member!

On July 20, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, we conducted our longest EVA yet to the Gemini Hills region. This area was of particular interest to Vernon because of a suspected gypsum deposit. Gypsum is a compound of calcium sulfate and water, and can be broken down to provide a supply of water. After about 3 hours of getting lost driving around in the crater and looking for alien life.....

My vantage point as out of sim gunner and photographer :-)

Petey, the Arctic Hare we randomly ran across

Wasn't kidding about being lost...

We arrived at Gemini Hills and soon found the gypsum deposit. We collected gypsum, but have yet to try to break it down into water. That is on the agenda for the upcoming week; Vernon will bake the gypsum at 150-200 deg C to release the water. Breaking down minerals for their components will very likely be a skill needed by future Mars explorers, so this is good practice.

In continuing food reports... Here are some of the recipes I have made for the crew:

• Peanut Butter Kisses cookies two times so far, and the entire batch has disappeared in a matter of hours... :-)
• pumpkin pie with pretzel crust
• pineapple upside down cake which didn't rise because I couldn't whip the fake egg whites until stiff.. haha. But it still tasted good!
• chocolate chip pancakes from sratch, no Bisquick crap
• spinach chicken casserole
• Strawberry bars made with oatmeal and brown sugar
  
• southern BBQ dinner of biscuits, BBQ chicken, baked beans, and scalloped potatoes
• Grandma's homemade pierogi. This was particularly challenging because the recipe calls for 1 cup of sour cream... We have none of this. The closest thing we have is powdered skim milk... I decided to experiment and concoct sour cream. Instead of 4 tbsp of milk powder in 1 cup of milk, I went 1 for 1 powder to milk and it still wasn't thick enough. I kept adding powder until it got thick enough to resemble sour cream. And oddly enough, it worked! The pierogi tasted very good! Even with reconstituted potatoes and cheez whiz mixture for filling... ha
  

For the kiddos: One of my crew mates said she saw some reindeer fly over the other day... If we run into Santa, I'll tell him you're all being VERY good.

07/23/09