100 EVAs, 100 Days to Earth

The crew working together on EVA 100. It's one hundred and seven days to mission's end. Sometimes, it seems like we're a few days from home instead of 15 weeks. Most days, it feels like we just marked the first 100 days on sMars. I can see us all sitting around the couch downstairs wearing scarves, balancing our musical instruments while arranging radios and rock samples to spell out "100". Then, just like that, it's day 258 and we're coming up on the 4th quarter. The better part of a year - of our life on simulated Mars - dissolved into mix of everything we've done to keep this dome-shaped ship afloat. Our mission began on August 28th. By November's end, we had pretty much discovered, unearthed, and dusted off everything we couldn't live without, and as well as quite a few things we could. We found all of the science supplies; the secret filters that wanted regular changing; and the surprise foodstuffs left for us by previous crews. I remember thinking, "Wow - that is a LOT of lentils." By then, our first crops were starting to come in. Our aquaponics systems were nearly online. We had successful cheese, yogurt, and bread cultures, which struggled, as we did, to stay warm through the darkening days. Three solid months of dome life had given us the data we needed to make less and less daylight stretch further and further. We knew when the desk lights had to go off; when the heater could go on; how much cooking we could get done and when, assuming that the Sun came out that...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news