Date and time: 27 April 2012
Written by: Mike Bodnar, Crew 118, First Officer

It's easy to forget that deserts can be cold. Being millions of kilometres further from the Sun than Earth, Mars - despite being a desert planet - is well below freezing most of the year.

So to wake up to a chilly morning in the Hab today was a timely reminder that even on Earth deserts can be extreme at both ends of the temperature scale. Not that it was freezing, but given the very warm days we have had (endured?) this week it was a bit of a shock to find the air temperature a brisk 14 degrees Celsius. Just like home!

Undaunted by the cool morning three of the crew set off on an EVA to Kissing Camel Range, approximately 10 kilometres away, to scout for fossils and anything else of interest.

Kissing Cammels Range

While they were out, Don the Flight Engineer became Don the Flight Potter, as he took some clay he created from desert soils and began shaping a bowl, using an old cast-off piece of space helmet as a template. If he can find a good and safe way of firing it, or baking it, he plans to take it back to Australia as a handmade souvenir of his stay here.

The first long-term explorers on Mars might make their own ornaments and bowls, if their water supply allows, to help alleviate the long days of EVAs, analysing and report writing.

Meanwhile, Commander Mogosanu and I went on an EVA near the Hab to check out a proposed site for moving the Musk Observatory to, since it can't stay where it is due to subsidence of its base. We also scouted a second possible location a bit further away, which we both agreed gave better sky views, although more power calling would be needed to reach it.

Later in the day I helped Don with a water pump problem, which we discovered when we were trying to transfer water from the mobile tank on the trailer to the Hab's main supply. The electric submersible pump wouldn't operate, so instead we turned to science for the answer, and, because the trailer tank was higher than the Hab tank, used the good old-fashioned siphoning technique to transfer the H20. It worked a treat. Ironically, a couple of hours later the electric pump decided to function again!

But it brought home that pumps and knowing how to maintain them, will be a big thing for Martian settlers. Think about it: the air supply, water supply, airlock pressurising and depressurising, hydroponics, the waste water system... all of these will rely on pumps operating efficiently. The humble pump could literally be a matter of life or death for Martian explorers.

And let's not forget the value of heat pumps on the cold windswept deserts of Mars. Which reminds me, tonight's forecast here is for near freezing!

ENDS.