Repulsive climate on the ‘moon’ puts the HI-SEAS crew into ‘low strength mode’ — Commander’s file: lunar day 6

Dr. Michaela Musilova is the director of Hawaii Inform Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) program, which conducts analog missions to the moon and Mars for scientific analysis at a habitat on the volcano Mauna Loa. At level to, she is accountable for the two-week Selene V lunar mission and contributed this file to Inform.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Commander’s file for the Selene V moon mission at HI-SEAS

Lunar day 6 (April 5, 2021)

The shaggy dog fable’s on us, over again. This time I changed into as soon as now not on the encourage of this cruel prank. As our Crew Operations Officer Dr. Lindsey Kishline wrote in her mission file on the new time: “Your total crew awoke very early on the new time and ran downstairs in the habitat all giddy with glee be pleased formative years on Christmas morning on the chance of a in the waste going on a moonwalk.” I plod to paraphrase the leisure, as some stronger language changed into as soon as typical. Rather then being greeted with a nice dawn be pleased we hoped, “filth storms” had been already raging exterior. They are the lunar identical to the rainstorms and fog that we now were experiencing on our analog missions at HI-SEAS, on the volcano Mauna Loa in Hawaii.

We awoke several hours sooner than fashioned to lead obvious of the “filth storms” that veritably engulf the habitat by midday. Our efforts to avoid the filth storms and in the waste make our first extravehicular exercise (EVA), moreover is called a moonwalk, had been in pointless. The plague of the “filth storms” at HI-SEAS continues. They’ve been complicating the lives of most HI-SEAS crews since October 2020. While I realize the crew’s frustration with being caught indoors for days on quit and now not being ready to set their analysis exterior, I set cherish the further discipline that these stipulations pose to the crew.

Linked: HI-SEAS crew battle to aid up hope as relentless storms foil their ‘moonwalks’

A few of the most simple reasons we make these analog missions is to test and prepare of us on how to work as a crew to resolve complications, with limited property, for the length of announce missions. If the filth storms did now not stress the crew out, then I would appreciate created some artificial complications to test them (factual be pleased I did on day 2 with my April Fools’ shaggy dog fable). As the director of HI-SEAS, I’m ready to appreciate my crew in Mission Withhold an eye on on “Earth” remotely disable a host of programs in the habitat, such because the facility and our digital connection to Earth. I can moreover produce artificial complications with our water present and our various applied sciences at HI-SEAS.

On the different hand, the crew is moreover here on mission to make their particular particular person analysis projects. Here is why being forced to be indoors thanks to “filth storms” is mainly anxious for Inform Sources Officer Gustavo Jamanca-Lino. Most of his analysis involves collecting lava rock samples and taking geological measurements for the length of EVAs. 

Gustavo thus spent the supreme few days reviewing technical documents to toughen his analysis, such because the characterization of lunar rocks with records from NASA’s robotic Surveyor 5 mission (which landed on the moon in 1967) and the Apollo 11 moon landing. He changed into as soon as critically in the particle distribution of the lunar regolith (such as soil on Earth), which is records that he’ll use for collecting lunar analog samples on the volcano Mauna Loa.

The leisure of the crew has fortunately now not been plagued by the climate, as an alternative of when we went into so-called “low strength mode.” That’s when we’re going to now not fully recharge the habitat’s batteries thru our solar panels for the length of “filth storms’ and we now must preserve strength as an different. To set that, we now must turn off all appliances, chargers and even experiments which would possibly perhaps presumably well presumably be now not crucial to our survival on the moon. This involves turning the temperature in the habitat down by a pair of levels, which the crew doesn’t skills. There now exist a pair of memes of me along the traces of someone looking frozen with the caption: “Lord Commander be be pleased ‘or now not it is miles now not chilly in here.'”

When we in the waste had sufficient strength, my crewmembers had been ready to assemble a 3D printer that changed into as soon as kindly donated to HI-SEAS by a typical crewmember. It changed into as soon as a a success crew effort that integrated attend from several people of our volunteer Mission Enhance crew.

Crew Biologist Dr. Brandy Nunez is taking excellent care of the 3D printer for the Selene V mission, on high of her various projects. They encompass audio recordings of sounds typical of a lunar analog mission inner the habitat and for the length of EVAs. Brandy is moreover for the time being rising seedlings in the lab, some of which bear recycling various habitat materials for use as fertilizers. This form of fertilizers is constituted of crewmembers’ hair, as portion of the nationwide Mission to Mars excessive faculty student competitors that I if truth be told were working in Slovakia for the previous few years. 

A few of the first objects that we 3D printed had been ribs for Science Communications Officer Bader Al Moulah’s analysis venture, which involves coaching astronauts without clinical levels to make lifestyles-saving surgeries after receiving a centered clinical curriculum. He has three procedures deliberate for the mission and to this level has performed the first method. It sharp treating and suturing a nice simulated laceration on a crewmember. 

Bader 3D printed the ribs in an effort to greater simulate his next method that would possibly perhaps be centered on mitigating a case of rigidity pneumothorax. It’s miles a lifestyles-threatening condition that develops when air leaks into the announce between the lungs and chest wall. 

In the meantime, Lindsey has been ready to set coding the experimental audio and visual stimuli to be typical in her perceptual EVA helmet experiment. She calculated field of search measurements for a host of planes of depth in the EVA helmets. To date, Lindsey has overcome several barriers in designing perceptual analysis on the moon, along side audio-visible latency with the accessible hardware and instrument, besides to the sphere of search being obscured attributable to a pair of of the helmets’ positive aspects. These encompass a heads-up mutter their non-public praises and a camera in the chin portion of the helmet.

The HI-SEAS lab is now fully inhabited by a pair of living organisms. Crew Engineer Sean Gellenbeck’s mushroom and algae tradition experiment is coexisting with all of Brandy’s plant yelp projects. The mushroom and algal cultures are sealed together in a little volume container. Sean is finding out the gas substitute between the two cultures. The CO2 level in the container is for the time being elevated and he expects it to plateau, then decrease because the algal tradition continues to grow and use the CO2 in the container.

Commander Musilova signing off hoping the “filth storms” will give the Selene V crew a ruin, especially as Gustavo can’t wait to head on an EVA to accumulate samples for his analysis venture. On the different hand, even when we will quit up confined indoors for longer, I’m confident the crew will continue to toughen each other with excessive spirits as they’ve been doing to this level. Day after day I deeply skills our time finding out from each other and getting to know each various better.

Follow Michaela Musilova on Twitter @astro_Michaela. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.