Journalist report sol 11
At 10:30 pm last night, our HSO heard the clang of our mousetrap and sprung into action with blue painter’s tape. The mouse was still in his cell by morning, with the bait of funfetti cake crumbs turned into dust by his reasonable anxiety. Before we could take him outside, we had a chatty breakfast while discussing tomorrow’s visit from CNBC, as well as technical things like mission summaries, GreenHab teardowns, and Hab clean-ups.
At 9, the Millennial EVA Crew (Engineer, HSO, Journalist) went to Candor Chasma and began the EVA by releasing the mouse. He had become strangely wet in his cage. He fell, cowering, out of the trap and darted behind a bush, and we saw him bound up the nearest tall hill and crest over its edge with Looney Toon speed. We wished him well and hoped that last night’s rains would give him a head start, and then we descended into the riverbed and hiked through the soft sandy floor. The HSO hoped to use her drone to weave in and out of the canyon, but after some attempts it seemed that the dust and many flights had gotten to it. (Some canned air back at the Hab cleared it up.) Upon our return we realized that no more EVAs would occur without a slight sim-breaking presence. While we were gone, our Crew Artist started tearing down the GreenHab, and our Commander spoke to the CNBC journalist who will be interviewing and hosting the segment in which we’ll participate.
The afternoon was quiet. We finished our final 100cameras module and watched 2010: The Year We Make Contact, which clarified many storylines for some and seemed wildly ‘80s to all. Dinner was quick, the dessert rice pudding was coconut, and our sense of the mission suddenly sprinting toward the finish line. Make it stop!