Journalist report sol 8
Mars delivered animal, vegetable, and mineral on sol 8—a day that, to this Journalist’s eye, hinted at what things might be like if we were here for way longer. The animal was a small, adorable mouse the Journalist spotted under the lower kitchen cabinets. After a supply drop, we set out a metal trap including a chunk of a cookie prepared days ago by our Crew Artist. Nada yet; we’re hoping for a successful hair trigger by morning. The vegetables were in fact fruits (tomatoes), used in the chili our Artist made for a wildly successful dinner that went along with mac & cheese. The minerals were—yes—rocks, scanned by our Engineer during EVA just outside the Hab. With our Artist, our Engineer also repaired some tears in the walkway tarps during EVA, which the Journalist found somewhat Buddhist considering the whole set-up will be torn down shortly.
Our Commander and HSO piloted the drone, resulting in one premature crash that ended up being unserious. The two of them and the Journalist set out for Compass Rock, where the HSO used a new filming technique and took a beautiful 360 video of the formation. Sporadic and indecisive rains, along with the simple task being completed, brought them home early. The crew took group photos (cute); ate said chili-mac; and, now, are zeroing in on our Commander’s object of interest with Google Earth and various compass readings to use during tomorrow’s grande-monolith-finale EVA.
Earlier in the day, the Journalist asked her crewmates what they would be doing at this point in the mission on a longterm Mars stay. We assumed it would still be mostly preliminary tasks—health tests, Hab set-up, water measurements. Whether or not we find the Monolith, we’re grateful to make so much progress in two nearly-complete weeks.