Katy and Vladimir in EVA suits

The Habitat is a cylindrical structure, 8 m in diameter and 6 m high, with two floors. On the ground floor are two entrances with simulated airlocks used to replicate the conditions for Extra-Vehicular Activities (EVAs) in space. A large room is used as a laboratory to prepare experiments and store instruments, and there is also a small bathroom and an incinerator toilet.

On the first floor is the electronic working area, with all computers, radios and other electronic gadgets along the wall, a dining/working/meeting table in the middle and a small kitchen in the corner. It also has six small rooms just big enough to climb into a sleeping bag in a sort of cupboard. Three circular windows allow you to contemplate the Haughton crater on one side, the Haynes Ridge in the middle and the lower canal, the small river running downstream.

Everything is still freshly built and the previous crew had to finish some DIY work of painting, plumbing and other chores. Well, we did our bit as well as the entire crew spent two hours this morning cleaning up the place to make it look like our home for the next week or so.

In this morning’s briefing we decided on several rules to govern how our community will live for the next week. It was agreed that one person per day would be in charge of preparing the food and cleaning up. We also discussed the need to reduce the number of external visitors in the Habitat to no more than two people at any one time, to make this simulation believable. It was decided to make an EVA this afternoon with Robert Zubrin, Katy Quinn and myself as crew. This would be a walking EVA of two hours in front of the Habitat, in order to search for rocks showing evidence of past life, such as fossils.

The rest of the crew will act as support for the EVA: Bill Clancey will document the technical aspects of putting on and taking off the suits, and monitor the communication exchanges; Steve Braham will follow the radio communications; and Charles Cockell, the microbiologist expert, will guide the choice of rocks to be collected.  
 

Briefing in the Habitat

After a quick lunch, prepared by me as I took the first duty turn, we started to don the suits needed for the EVA. Although these are not pressurised, they are quite high fidelity replicas of real space suits. They are made of a heavy-duty material and have a backpack which contains a fan for air circulation through two tubes which blow into the helmet. The helmet allows a nearly 180 degree visibility and a small tube, close to your mouth, provides fresh water. Before fixing the helmet to the rest of the suit and to the backpack you have to don headphones. What is left of the body is enclosed in boots and gloves. The suit has two badges on each shoulder: one is the Martian flag designed by Robert Zubrin: blue, green and red and the other is The Mars Society logo.

It took us nearly 1½ hours to don these suits, it took the previous crew of four people three hours to don the suits. Once dressed, we went into the airlock to simulate a 5-minute decompression and eventually exited the Habitat at 15:00. As soon as we were out we realised that the radio communications did not function properly. Something to do with the Vox system that enables one-way communications as soon as you speak loud enough. However, this consumes more battery power and it appears that the batteries were not fully recharged after the EVA of the first crew.

Nevertheless, we decided to proceed by using hand signals as we were staying close to, and in view of, the Habitat, and we started to collect rocks and fossils. All of the rocks encountered were Paleozoic, 300 to 400 million years old. Some were fossilised corals or shells, the remains of inter-tidal seabeds a few hundred million years old and others had been thrown about by the impact that formed the crater and were partially covered by a greenish grey foamy layer. Later on we were told by Charles, our team biologist, that these are blue green algae, or more scientifically Gloeocapsa sp.
 
 

Vladimir Pletser shows fossil 2G

Our EVA in the rain lasted a little under two hours and was relatively exhausting as the bulky suit made every movement difficult to perform; to avoid too much bending we collected the sample rocks with a long scoop and a metallic grabber. Because of the rain and the cold, condensation appeared inside the helmet, which made it even more difficult to see clearly as the rain droplets covered the helmet’s external surface. To make matter even worse, I found that when I bent down water escaped from the drinking tube into the helmet, making this EVA rather humid!

Upon return, we went through the reverse procedure in the airlock and delivered the samples to the team biologist. The EVA was most interesting and instructive, but it was with pleasure that we removed our helmets and suits. During the EVA debriefing, it became clear that any field activity under EVA conditions would require more than double the normal time. I then prepared the dinner, which consisted of cold tuna fish with olive oil, warm rice and green beans, and pears and apricot in syrup for dessert. Not too bad for a meal out of tin cans!

Tomorrow will be another busy day as two other EVAs are planned. The morning EVA will be motorised to reconnoitre the terrain further away from the Habitat and during the afternoon EVA we will conduct our geophysics experiment in Haynes Ridge, in front of the Habitat.

Signing off after a very exciting first day in our Martian Habitat and looking forward to another science day in the field.