Walden5

Well, yesterday was our last day alone at the MDRS Hab. We broke Sim last night and are expecting Crew 66 to arrive sometime this evening. The time has really flown by - definitely a result of being very busy and around interesting people.

After a few heavenly days of consistent electrical power and running water, we’ve hit another power glitch. “Wendy”, our primary diesel generator, won’t start again and so we’ve been on a severe power and internet ration. I’ve got quite a backlog of images and thoughts to post once I get back to earth and have a reliable internet connection.

In the meantime, here are a couple of responses I’ve been waiting to make to things folks have written in:

Jordy writes:
“if you could just stop at a Walmart on your way to space…I’d love a shot of you on Mars with a VHS copy of Total Recall…”

Total Recall DVD

RDS writes:
up in AK. we used to use a simple light bulb covered with a cardboard box which then covered the frozen valve, connection,pipe, etc. to help keep things thawed and moving. The slight heat given off by the bulb generally did the trick! Good luck with the mission!!!!!!!!!!!

Water pipe housing

Lamp heating water pipe

Well, we tried this and initially the little lamp we put inside the housing just didn’t have enough oomph to warm the water pipe. But we replaced it the next day with a small space heater and voilá - running water!!! Thanks!

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