December 24, 2002

Photos now up! I intend to start working on a proper photo gallery soon as well. I've also been updating the highlights of the trip during the past few days, and I intend to update After the Fact whenever some interesting Crew 9 related event occurs, so check back if you're interested.

When I last left readers five days ago in Utah, I was just about to go outside and play Ella's Viking game. In the next few days at Utah things were incredibly hectic and busy, and what's more, I didn't really feel like writing much. Now that I'm back in the UK and have gotten over most of the jetlag, here's the rest of my weblog.

19th December (continued from previous entry)

Ella's Viking game, which is called 'Kubb', adhered to the time-honoured tradition of throwing things at other things, which in this case used the low-tech method of 'sticks being thrown at other sticks'. Unsurprisingly, Ella's team (Ella and Mike) managed to win with little difficulty, a result which I attribute to Ella's undoubted proficiency at the game caused by her vast experience.

After the win, we all proceeded to take all the 'funny' photos that we'd dreamt up involving the spacesuits. Nikki wanted several photos of her wearing her band's T-shirt, and then Duncan and I marched out to the dumping area of the hab, picked up an old and presumably broken toilet, and took a series of photos that involved us sitting on the toilet (in spacesuits) reading one of Ella's Swedish newspapers. 'It's funny in so many different ways', said Duncan, to which I added, 'Just think of how versatile this is - we can use it for Christmas cards, birthday cards, posters, photos...'

All silliness over, we went back inside for more drinking and dinner. Dinner tonight was unusual - we decided to cook some French packets of food that had very appetising photos of chicken and fish dishes on them. I was mildly worried to see that they were of the 'boil in the bag' type but I said nothing. it wasn't until we actually opened them that the complaints started flying around about how they smelt like 'dog food and cat food' respectively. For my part, they seemed ok, but at least a couple of people vowed not to touch them. No wonder there were so many of them left in the pantry...

Following all the inevitable report writing and the ongoing saga of our tensions with Mission Support, we watched Galaxy Quest. I've seen bits and pieces of Galaxy Quest several times now since it was on practically continuous rotation on Sky Premiere, but I'd never seen it all of the way through. It was great - definitely one of the best comedy SF movies out. Alas, only myself, Nikki and Eric were there to see it all the way through, with the rest of the crew gradually peeling off to bed.

The Moon looks strangely large in Utah... must be the flat landscape and clear skies.

The space-age French packets of food, ready for consumption (or something like that).

20th December

Today was Duncan and Ella's last full day at the hab. Ella had to leave on the 20th because her flight on the 21st was in the morning (which meant that she wouldn't be able to drive up on the 21st in time) and Duncan went with her so he'd be able to provide assistance if the truck broke down.

We spent most of today helping construct the new observatory with Frank and Jeff - this involved hauling up the walls and dome. We also embarked on a cleaning frenzy to tidy up the hab for crew 10 who'd be arriving tomorrow afternoon.

At lunch (soup, as usual) we chatted with Frank Schubert (the hab's architect) about the new hab being built in Iceland. The Iceland hab is set to be an upgrade of the basic Arctic and Desert design, with three floors and more high tech systems. It's also going to be on very interesting terrain, situated right beside a lava flow from a volcano. Even better, it's going to be in Europe, which means it'll be easier for me to get to (and I wouldn't say no to doing a stint at the Iceland hab). First things first though - when I get back to the UK I'm going to get in touch with the UK Mars Society people and give them a report on my experiences in Utah and my recommendations for the Iceland - I suspect the list of recommendations will be long and detailed...

We also talked about the almost-mythical Factory Butte that looms enticingly on the horizon whenever we go on EVAs. Frank's managed to get there once, and according to him it takes about 40 minutes to get there, and you need to be an experienced ATV rider. Well, we're about as experienced as you can get for people who've ridden on ATVs for two weeks, take that as you will. The reason why it's a difficult ride is because at one point, when you're coming up out of a wash to higher ground, you have to gun the ATV up a steep slope and also avoid falling to your death due to the 50 feet (or metres, it doesn't matter) drop just beside where you're driving.

This fightin' talk didn't dissuade Duncan or I, and in any case it seemed like Frank was pretty eager to have a spin on the new ATVs, so the three of us planned to make an outing the afternoon, ostensibly to map out the route to the Butte on GPS for the benefit of future geological missions.

Alas, it was all for naught. Duncan was tied up being filmed by Eric in a Tyvek suit doing stuff in the GreenHab, and Frank completely lost track of time working on the observatory so that by the time we were all available, it was about 4pm - far too late to make an outing that could take up to two hours.

The reason why we'd all met up in the afternoon in the first place was because a Bureau of Land Management truck had worryingly shown up on the hab; the presence of an open sewage system might have had something to do with this, we speculated. As it turned out, they didn't have any mandate on the land we were on and they'd just dropped by to say hello. Another potential disaster averted (unlike the usual trend).

Mike and Ella went off to Hanksville on the truck to make some deliveries and to buy food, and after they'd come back, Ella showed up with a shark's tooth she'd bought from Don and then Ella, Nikki and I took off on a quick ATV ride (sans suits) to pick up some millions-of-years-old seashells for souvenirs and presents. I only took a few, but Nikki and especially Ella left the place with bulging bags of seashells.

After this, Nikki and I drove down to the 'Rock Garden' while Ella stayed back at the hab. Since the rock garden is right on the dirt track, it meant that we could do some serious ATV driving and practice our powerslide skills. While zooming down the road, I reflected that maybe next time I should wear gloves - that would of course prevent my fingers from freezing off.

Once there, we spent a bit of time climbing around and marvelling at the scenery - the rock garden is a narrow passage between two cliffs littered with large rocks and boulders that have fallen down from above. Some of the rocks are nice and segmented, meaning that you could find some nice fossil specimens there. No such luck, although we did have fun checking out the geology and formation of the place. Nikki is still mystified as to the composition of all the black rocks that are incongruously lying around the pace.

During the drive back to the hab on the ATVs, Nikki went first and kicked up such a cloud that I found myself literally eating dust, so I hung back for a bit. When we reached the turnoff for the hab, I gunned my ATV a bit (well, a lot) faster and tried to overtake her on the right. I did spot a bump in my way, but figured that I could handle it fine. I did actually handle it fine, but it wasn't as small or gradual as I thought, so I inadvertantly managed to get air on the ATV! After this happened, I mentally ticked off another of the resolutions that I'd made for the trip.

On our arrival back at the hab, we found that the truck had gone bust. Not entirely surprising, since it is essentially an old piece of crap, but it was very disappointing considering that Duncan and Ella had to use it tomorrow to drive back up to Salt Lake City. Investigation revealed that the truck's alternator wasn't working and we needed a new one. Mike managed to get it started, and then Duncan, Eric, Frank and Jeff all took off in the truck and Jeff's car to Hanksville to get it fixed.

From what I've been told, it was a quite a frantic time for them and in the absence of a suitable alternator in Hanksville, they tried driving to Green River, a slightly larger town which apparently had one. En-route, the weather turned extremely bad and they had no choice but to turn around and head to the hab.

Meanwhile, at the hab Ella, Nikki and I were twiddling our thumbs. After a while we decided to watch the Barbarella DVD. This was pretty bizarre; at the start, Barbarella (Jane Fonda) is floating around and slowly undressing from her space suit. 'So what,' I thought to myself, and had a look at the computer for new emails. When I looked back, Ms. Fonda was completely undressed and you could see upper nudity. Let's just say that we were all surprised, especially considering it was a PG rated film (albeit from the 60s, which explained things somewhat).

The rest of the film wasn't really graphic, although it did consist of Barbarella going around and having sex with various men in increasingly nonsensical situations. Anyway, at this point we realised that we were running out of beer, and we all hoped that people would return with more.

I can't actually remember if they did, but we had a party in the evening anyway, which saw all sorts of fun things happen, like a dancing session (with funky flashing lights supplied by Eric), showing off of gymnastics moves by Nikki and Mike, and a pushup competition between Duncan and Nikki. This intense physical activity was capped off by a handwrestling match that saw Eric beat everyone in the hab, to his utter delight. Once I'd uploaded the images to the computer, Eric wasted absolutely no time in emailing all his friends with a composite photo titled 'Eric seizes control of the hab'.

The party gradually slowed down as we all lazed around drinking beer and talking about dating and marriage. Marriage was summed up negatively by Ella as being merely for 'good sex, convenience and hormones' and even the 'good sex' part wasn't absolutely necessary.

At a very late hour, we all retired to bed and Duncan and Ella did some more packing.

(During all of this, we kept in contact with Mission Support and sorted out alternative transport arrangements now that the truck was temporarily dead - a long time Mars Society and MDRS supporter called John would be driving everyone around during the weekend from the hab to SLC. John is amazing.)

Some crazy dance action going on here.

Eric documenting all of our silliness for future posterity.

Nikki showing off her gymnastic talents.

Chatting at the table with all the accumulated detritus of the night.

Eric beating Nikki in the MDRS Open Armwrestle tournament, beaming triumphantly...

...and with exactly the same expression when he beats me at armwrestling.

21st December

I woke up to the sound of a continual knocking on my door, and then I realised that Duncan and Ella were leaving early in the morning. Feeling very tired, I pulled on some clothes and staggered out of my room into the bright lights of the main communal area - with Eric's camera pointed directly at me. That's one shot that I don't want to see in the film...

John was already at the hab, regaling us with tales of his construction and shakedown stints at the hab and the times when he's taken kids to the hab for a mini-rotation. He also told us the origin of the magical bucketful of beer that we found. When he did his kids rotation in the summer, he found large quantites of alcohol in the fridge. Since he didn't want the kids to get their hands on it, he hid it all over the hab above the shelves. We evidently found the beer part, but apparently he also found some wine and tequila that is, as yet, unaccounted for. Maybe a previous crew snarfed them, but maybe it's still there...

Eventually we went downstairs to load up John's truck. It was extremely cold outside and it seemed like the air was freezing, so my photos came out very weird. It had also been snowing, so the entire area around the hab was draped in white. While we'd see Duncan again up in Salt Lake City tomorrow (on the afternoon of the 22nd), Ella would have to depart before we'd arrive, so there were hugs and farewells all around. It was very sad to see the beginning of the breakup of the 'fellowship.'

Once Duncan and Ella were off, we staggered back upstairs in the hab and crawled into bed. I emerged a couple of hours later at 9am and went around, bemoaning the lack of food, cleaning things up, writing my final Health and Safety Report and feeling a bit depressed about the emptiness of the hab. With Duncan's departure, I also had to downgrade the level of the sarcasm meter.

While I was packing up my stuff, I noticed my origami book and paper that I'd taken in the mistaken belief that I'd have time to fold some origami. Feeling that it would be a nice way to pass the time, Nikki and I made a couple of traditional Japanese cranes and put them around the hab. I hung my to float in front of my Mars hab, and it bears a welcome message for my friend Katie who'll be in crew 11.

Larry and Larry (the father and son team featured previously in this weblog) turned up today with more gasoline. I wasn't out there, but I'm told that when Eric was telling them that he was a documentary filmmaker, the older Larry responded, 'That's some kinda bullshit' (you had to be there to hear the comic expression and timing). This phrase became one of the official crew 9 phrases of the rotation (alas, it came too late for Duncan and Ella to experience its full effect), along with 'blowing the doors off the joint' (by Eric) and an extended version that's about Nikki's band and goes: 'Yeah, Nikki plays in a band. You've probably hear of it, it's called Carlsonics. Signed by Arena Records, y'know'.

Further work on the observatory was done today as Frank fitted out the insides and Mike went on the final EVA of the trip, walking up to the observatory and seeing whether he could get inside and use it (no small feat, since the observatory is small and the space suit is cumbersome). Anyway, it all worked out fine.

What with the work on the observatory, driving out to Factory Butte wasn't an option today, but Nikki and I took off on a journey to Skyline Ridge; I'd been wanting to see it for days but there hadn't been a better time, and with this being our last full day at the hab, I really wanted to go. Plus, Duncan had nicked all of my seashells before he left because he'd forgotten to get his own, so I had to get some more.

Skyline Ridge was fantastic; these huge, towering cliffs with stratifications and weathered soil buttressing them. I climbed up after Nikki a little gingerly since I wasn't wearing my boots (you'd think I'd learn to put them on) and the drop was pretty large. Still, it was well worth the climb for the view you were rewarded with, and we gazed out on the land in the sad knowledge that this was the last time we'd get to see the landscape properly.

As we drived back from Skyline Ridge, we stopped off to pick up some really nice calcite crystals and seashells, which I now have sitting on a bag on my desk, awaiting cleaning.

Just as we got back to the hab, we saw John driving in with some crew 10 members. There were only three of them with him - Debi-Lee, Jennifer and Peter. Two others were at Hanksville checking up on the truck, and Heather was scheduled to arrive tomorrow since she was driving from California.

Since it was only around 4:30pm when they arrived, we had a lot more time to show them around the hab and also we showed them how to use the ATVs in daylight (unlike nighttime, when we got to see them).

Of course, we showed them how all of the hab works and after a couple of hours, Judd, the commander, showed up along with Gavin. It was a bit disconcerting when Gavin recognised me from the Founding Convention of the Mars Society five years ago. Anyway, apparently Eric has a great shot of me zooming through the operation of the hab's computer system at breakneck speed with Peter looking on in utter dismay. I also did my Health and Safety spiel.

Nikki and I cooked a nice dinner of chicken and tomato pasta sauce for the dozen or so people now infesting the hab, and then we set about passing on the sacred knowledge of the hab to crew 10, including the fact that the suit helmets are made out of garbage cans (a fact that was told to us repeatedly by crew 8), the Samouce Manoeuvre* and the operation of the Beverage Light.

(*The Samouce Manoeuvre is practically legend among crew 9. When we arrived at the hab, Dusty Samouce, the commander of crew 8, showed us how to suit up. While suited up, he described how one of their crew, Sini, would eat granola bars while out on EVA, using a highly bizarre arm and slurping movement that has to be seen to be believed. The Samouce Manoeuvre cannot be performed by crew 9 without lots of laughter.)

And at that point, we found a water leak. See, while we were cooking dinner, Frank Schubert was sitting down using his blowtorch at the dinner table, as if this were a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to do. He then installed a new water pump and rewired the heating system. We all oohed and ahhed over the increased velocity of the water coming out of the taps and that there would be reliable hot water available. And then we all forget that when the pipes started leaking over the pantry, presumably since they couldn't handle being pressurised.

The crew 9 members simply shrugged their shoulders and said, 'That's life at the hab' while happily thinking that it wasn't their problem any more. Judd, crew 10 commander, managed to repair it a bit by removing the pump and strategically placing buckets around the hab. Around then we discovered that Frank and Jeff had just disappeared from the hab, leaving all their tools outside and the ground torn up. They were not to be seen again, having presumably fled back to Colorado. Life in the hab, eh?

That evening, Mike remarked to us that Frank had told him that there was a system for the MDRS wherein successful crews are invited to come back for another rotation. While some might say that we didn't make any huge scientific advances (what crew has?), we have had to put up with conditions that would make any sane crew take off and all in the sewage experts, along with possibily a wrecking crew. I'm all up for a reunited crew 9 in Iceland, but Eric blanched a bit and said that he'd be seeing us all for the next six months as he edits the 55 or so hours of footage that he'd taken during our two week stay, and that'd probably be enough for him.

I'm not really going to talk about crew 10 here; it's hard to make judgements about people who you've only met for a few hours, but it did strike me that they were a bit boring and probably wouldn't gel as well as we did; and that's important, since you have to get along with your other crewmembers as they'll be the only five other people you'll see.

Crew 10 will probably be repairing the hab just as much we were, and what with installing the observatory and telescope they'll have their hands full. We were a bit mystified with their setting up of two teams (GreenHab and Telescope) as that seems a bit too rigid, but we'll see how they do.

We all eventually retired to bed at midnight after more packing, and that was our final night in the hab.

A nice sunset over Skyline Ridge.

Nikki traversing the steep slopes of Skyline Ridge.

A photo of me a fair ways up Skyline Ridge.

22nd December

Once again, I awoke to the sound of gentle and persistent knocking at my door from Mike, at about 6am. This was expected though, so I was more prepared and packed everything up pretty quickly.

Mike, Nikki and I all loaded our stuff up into John's truck, who'd turned up once again, and Eric put his stuff into Miles' truck (Miles is Judd's brother who'd helped with transportation to the hab); Eric wanted to film us drive off into the sunrise for the last scene of the film.

The back of John's truck was pretty cramped, but I figured that it was just good preparation for the flight back home. We slept for the most part, and as we approached Salt Lake City, I fiddled with my phone to get it to work (for some reason it thought that it had the headset plugged in, so I had to take apart my watch strap and mess about with the headset socket) and called Duncan about our arrival time.

*We stopped off for coffee and food along the way; I bought a pastrami sandwich for breakfast, which drew some strange looks. Doesn't anyone else eat meat sandwiches for breakfast, I ask you?

We finally arrived at the Comfort Inn at Salt Lake City at around 12pm; Eric had beaten us by a couple of minutes, and Duncan was awaiting us in the lobby looking freshly scrubbed and clean, as opposed to us savages who hadn't had proper showers for several days.

(A slight digression: When crew 9 first drove down to the hab from SLC, Eric barraged us with a constant, High Fidelity-esque questions of our Top 10 rock songs, tracks, albums, movies, books, actors, etc. A common thing he'd say was 'What's your Top 10 rock song? There is a right answer (i.e. Eric had a right answer). We all hated him for it after the third hour, but it did help us to get to know each other. Anyway, Eric received his comeuppance while driving up with Miles to SLC; Miles has something of an encyclopaedic knowledge of Utah, and relayed this knowledge to Eric, who was trying to get to sleep. Eric described it as 'So, how old do you think this mountain range is? There is a right answer...')

With all of us at the hotel, we piled in to Duncan's room and revelled in the amazingness of his working and hot shower. Once cleaned, we retired to the hotel lounge to chat and discuss our opinions of crew 10. We also talked about Iceland - Duncan stated that he would be happy to go to Iceland, providing that he got to stay in a hotel with jacuzzis. Consequently, I intend to broach the issue of jacuzzis when I next talk to the EuroMARS organisers (for crew morale, of course!)

At 1:30pm, a scant couple of hours after we arrived, we all took off to the airport since my flight left at 4pm and Nikki's shortly after. While going there, we talked to the driver of the shuttle bus we were on; the driver appeared completely apathetic about anything to do with space, and also managed to get us into a short argument about when the first moon landing occurred (yes, I know it was '69).

I checked in fine, as did Nikki, but Duncan couldn't since he was there too early. Mike spent an inordinate amount of time at the check in desk, which we thought was due to the cargo of our spit (medical purposes) he wanted to take with him. The reality turned out to be that he was telling the attendant all about our Mars thing, and managing to get free drinks vouchers for us - score one for crew 9! Eric tried to get an earlier flight, since he'd booked one for tomorrow, but was unsuccessful - so Eric was the first to leave...

We tried to figure out if the terminals of the airport were connected so we could all meet up after we checked in; they were, and this prompted a bit of quotage from Total Recall in which Michael 'Bad SF' Ironside screams to an underling about why all the blast doors had shut. The underling then pushes Ironside back and screams, 'They're all connected,' which we of course had to repeat.

So we all met up in the Squatters restaurant in the departure lounge, as recommended by Mike's check in attendant, and then I snarfed down my food since my flight was departing in a few minutes. I took a few photos, said goodbye to everyone, had hugs and handshakes and then left them all. It was sad to say goodbye to to everyone who'd I'd stayed with for the last two weeks - I definitely hope to see them all again sometime.

My flights back home (SLC to Chicago to Heathrow to Manchester) were pleasantly uneventful. Not only did all the flights arrive on time or even early, but they actually managed to get my luggage back to me at Manchester Airport, a feat that has been unequalled in my previous two journeys to the US.

I didn't manage to find the Swedish newspaper that Ella was featured in on Sunday at any of the airports I went to, unfortunately, but Duncan has emailed us with the article's web address. We're hoping to get a translation soon.

About two hours after I got back home, I had to wake myself up and go to a Christmas dinner; definitely a culture shock, having lots of people there and complicated food. When I finally got back home, I slept for about 14 hours, got up and here I am, trying to finish off my weblog account which has expanded into epic proportions (this post alone is nearing 5000 words). Once I've done that I'm going to start writing up a short email to the UK Mars Society with my recommendations for the Iceland hab...

The last of the photos...

Nikki looking contemplative in the comfort of the Comfort Inn.

Mike looking a bit surprised by the camera.

Eric looking tired in his big chair.

Duncan looking slightly bizarre with all his luggage and strange facial expression.

Some random thoughts and highlights about the trip

In the last few days, we checked out Duncan's iTunes Smart Playlist of the 25 most played songs; occupying first and second places were Blue Thunder and something else, which Duncan had been playing before the hab. At joint second place, I'm proud to say, was 'Across the Universe', my favourite, and then at fourth was 'Havalina' by the Pixies, which was Eric's doing. It turned out that only Eric and I had the rare talent of being able to tolerate and even enjoy playing favourite songs and albums repeatedly for several days, something which I'm enjoying being able to do without being assaulted now that I'm back at home.

We watched the famous spaceplane docking sequence of 2001 before Monsters Inc. or Total Recall (I can't remember whether I mentioned it). Anyway, at one point we had to turn the generator off for testing, during which time Duncan's laptop could still continue the movie - but without speakers. Since we'd all seen the movie before, we all proceeded to belt out the orchestral music (Blue Danube) in perfect time to the movie, if not perfect pitch...

I took about 550 photos during my time in Utah. To put that into perspective, I've only ever taken 1100 photos using my digital camera over the last two or three years. Not a bad number. All of the photos and our music mixes have been burned onto CD for crew 9 members. I might put up the playlists eventually.

Figuring out the fight line-up for the epic Crew 9 vs. Crew 8 match; I think it was agreed that most of Crew 9 would take on their respective counterparts, e.g. our commander Mike would take on their commander Dusty, etc. Since they didn't have a biology person and their crew only had five people, my role was to provide backup for whoever was against Sini, whom we all agreed would be a tough adversary.

One memory that will endure is Duncan doing a mouse karaoke of 'Havalina' into Eric's mini radio microphone wire. Also the practice of saying 'MIT' whenever he effected some magical engineering solution to a problem (e.g. replacing backpack fuses, constructing Beverage Light)

The constant blaming of every real and perceived problem to do with the hab either on Crew 8 or Mission Support.

While we were at the hab, Lord of the Rings was showing across the world. Since we were all movie and SF geeks, we all would have seen it on the premiere night along with our friends. This means that now we're back home, we have no-one to see the film with, so we'll all have to see it alone; but as I pointed out, at least we can rest easy in the knowledge that the other crew 9 members are in the same situation and we can think of them.

As I was flying back from Utah, it was strange how the memory goes so fast. Now that I'm sitting here at home at the computer, as I've done so many times, the experiences we had seem faded and distant; but that's how memory works unfortunately. At least I have all the photos and will stay in touch with everyone.

But there's a flipside about memory; the strongest things you remember are the most emotionally salient events, and you can be sure that there were a lot of them while we were at Utah - seeing the first sunrise, all the fun had as a crew, going out on ATVs into the beautiful landscape, all the travails and work we did, the last night party and the goodbye. It was one of the most memorable and intense two weeks I've ever had, and it's an experience that not many people get to have.

It's been great having you read this, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be here all night - tip the waiters, ask for the Martian cocktail at the bar, and I'll see you soon.

After the fact

I designed an MDRS Crew 9 patch and some Crew 9 branded merchandise such as T-shirts, mugs, calendars and other souvenirs at this MDRS Crew 9 CafePress shop. I'm probably going to order a whole load of stuff eventually, and I'm quite pleased with the patch.

More updates as they happen...

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