Mars Base Diary

2004 Closure Diary

For those of you who are following along regularly, you can jump to the end.

9/17/04 day –1
Frankie (my wife) dropped me off in the evening. We hauled the last of the books, tools, etc in and then I spent the evening reading. Just before going to bed I turned the heat down, keeping the upstairs around 60 and the downstairs around 45.

9/18/04 day 1
2 pm. I entered Mars Base Zero and locked the door behind me. Then Frankie stapled the tape across the door so it couldn’t be opened from the outside. I needed the staple gun so she went around front and passed it back through the plastic, which I then stapled shut. So now I’m shut in until I run out of food!

9/19/04 day 2
I had left the heat up a bit last night because I had a sore throat and didn’t want to get a bad cold. I wasn’t feeling any worse the next morning, so I think it worked.

For breakfast I dug up a potato and cooked it in the microwave. I also ate a carrot. I spent the morning programming the computer (writing a computer program to generate web pages, one per plant, from the data I’ve been logging.) I spent the early afternoon researching, trying to find a reference that will tell me how long and at what temperature is needed to sterilize human waste. I remember 160 degrees for several days, but would prefer to have a graph (though I doubt I’ll be able to find something like that).

I decided on a heavy lunch, digging another potato plant and making mashed potatoes (just boiled and mashed them). I also picked 3 tomatoes and cooked them with a few grams of parsley to make a sauce for the potatoes. Alas, I didn’t like it much.

After lunch I got caught up on this and logged today’s data, both into the diet program and the harvest data. This year I expect to have a fair amount of extra time, so I’m logging several things I haven’t in the past, such as the weight of plant waste added to the compost pile.

I spent the afternoon working on the ISECCo web site. For dinner I finished off the mashed potatoes and tomato sauce. Need to figure out how to make a better sauce! It really wasn’t much good.

Kraig stopped by in the early evening, and we had a really nice chat through the plastic. I spent the rest of the evening reading, going to bed around 11 when I finished my book.

9/20/04 Day 3
During the night the thermostat started sticking. The first time it was dark and I just thought I had too many blankets on, so all I did was turn it down. The second time I was getting ready to get up and saw that the temperature was up to 74°, or about 5° warmer than I had the thermostat set. It turned off when I rapped the thermostat. Hopefully the rapping will fix it; the few times it has been on today it hasn’t stuck so I think it did.

I was feeling a touch of cabin fever this morning, so I made a good breakfast of fried potatoes and onions and then put in half an hour exercising. This burned off any possible depression.

I spent the morning being useful. I looked over the seed packages and found that spinach matures in just 38 days (probably needs to be pretty warm though) so I planted half the tray I’d planted the radishes in (I didn’t have space on the heat pad for more planting trays), and will pinch off the radishes when they come up. I also blocked off the air leaks along the west wall (stapled the visqueen to the wall), which wasn’t leaking too bad, but every little bit helps. Don’t really need it today, for it is in the 50’s outside. I also cleaned and washed the counter—something it was sadly needing.

I have now been living on this diet for 3 full days, and feel that I’ve probably flushed the majority of the non-Mars Base Zero diet from my body, so I set up to begin sterilizing my waste products for use on the garden (urine) or compost (feces). I hadn’t brought any way to measure my urine, so I took a plastic cup and put water in it while it was on the scale. Since 1 milliliter of water weighs 1 gram, I could make a measuring cup using it: I poured water in until I had 50 ml of water, marked the cup, poured in another 50 ml, marked the cup, and kept doing this until the cup was full. I had started collecting my urine at midnight, and had a cup’s worth so after measuring it I put it in a plastic cup in a pot on the stove and cooked it on simmer for 45 minutes to sterilize it. The odor was less than expected until it had been on for 40 minutes, and then it started to smell so I shut if off. I think it was starting to break down; I don’t want that—just sterilized! The cup had melted the top edge, but that didn’t cause a problem, other than wasting the cup. When it was cool I mixed it with 10 parts water (too keep it from being too rich for the plants) and dumped it on the garden.

Sterilizing feces was a little less straight forward. I have a croc pot which is just for this. I took a 2 liter soda bottle and cut it down so it just fit in the croc pot, put a little dry dirt in the bottom (so it will pour out) and will collect my feces in this and then try to sterilize it before adding it to the compost pile. I’m hoping that a little dirt on top of the feces will keep the odor down while I’m sterilizing it—we’ll see!

In the early afternoon Frankie stopped by to say hello. She had been out showing one of our cabins, and was passing by anyhow. We had a nice visit while Richie played in the sand pile and investigated an old car.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon doing data entry, entering and analyzing all the hours we’ve worked this summer for ISECCo. Pretty interesting results! Frankie and I have worked the most, followed by Debi and Ruth. Other people have contributed modest amounts, with the total number of volunteer hours at a little over 250 to date. I also analyzed what we worked on, and came up with construction at 1/3 of the hours; operations at almost half with the remainder being office stuff.

In the late afternoon I found some pots so I planted some more radishes, spinach and lettuce in the pots. I couldn’t cover them because all my towels were in use, but I did put them on the heat pad to help keep them warm.

I put another plastic cup with urine in it on the stove. Meltdown. Again! This time the cup melted from the bottom up, making it accordion. Of course all the urine spilled into the pot (ug). I finished sterilizing it and then let it cool before I thinned it and put it on the garden. I also got the feces sterilizer going; hope it doesn’t melt the plastic container I have there; not only would it make a real mess but I’ve only got one container!

I dug up another potato plant and it turned out to be a big one. Not sure if I’ll manage to eat all of it for dinner (over a kilogram, or about 2.5 pounds worth!)

It started to rain in the late afternoon, and by early evening a piece of the plastic roof was starting to sag where the water wasn’t draining over the wall. I poked a small hole in it and put a bucket under it, and over the course of the evening I poured about 10 gallons of water on the garden. If it keeps raining overnight I expect it’ll overflow and I’ll be shoveling it off the floor again—but that is no big deal; there was 30 gallons of water on the floor (1”) when I got here Thursday.

I spent the evening playing on the computer, doing data entry, making ISECCo web sites, etc. I wasn’t doing it very seriously though, so I didn’t log my time (usually when I’m working on ISECCo projects I log my time so we can keep track of what all is going on…but this time I wasn’t working just on ISECCo stuff, so I didn’t). I called Frankie at 9, logged onto the internet briefly and then went to bed.

9/21/04 Day 4
I had eaten rather a huge amount of potatoes yesterday, so I decided to eat other things for breakfast and lunch today. So I dined on carrots, turnips, cabbage and the little bit of potato that was left over. Unfortunately, in spite of the bulk, I was left feeling rather hungry—not surprising, since all I’d eaten only added up to about 250 kcalories.

I spent the morning working on little projects. It had rained some more during the night, so I watered the plants with the rain water plus some of the stored water. I started harvesting the wheat, getting it about 1/3 harvested. It is being slow because I am snipping the head off and then snipping the stalk off, so I can get an estimate of how much the mice have eaten—I fear it is going to be a rather significant amount. I also set up a tub for the compost pile for composting (sterilized) human solid waste.

After lunch I spent half an hour exercising, had a snack and then discovered the furnace wasn’t working right. I’d been wondering why the fan was on all the time so I check out the furnace. The temperature was ok, but the return line from the unit heater (where the fan is) wasn’t as hot as it should be. After some investigation I determined that the furnace controller box wasn’t providing power to the circulating pump. I didn’t manage to figure out why not, so I jumped the power directly to the pump. I’ll have to turn the pump off by hand if it gets too warm, but the only day the pump has turned off (by the thermostat) since I moved in was the very sunny day we had the other day.

Laura had managed to talk ACS (the local phone company) into getting the phone hooked up (finally), and in the evening Kraig stopped by and hooked it up for me. So now I can make all those phone calls that have been accumulating, check my email, etc.

9/22/04 Day 5
The wheat that I had started to cut yesterday had been seriously attacked overnight by mice. So I finished harvesting it, and took half of it and spent the majority of the afternoon working on analyzing it. I wanted to determine the amount that we could have harvested if the mice hadn’t gotten into it, which meant figuring out how many heads there were, and how much the average amount of grain there was per complete head. This entailed a lot of counting. I didn’t manage to get done with it, but got about half of it sorted, weighted and counted before I quit.

The northwest corner of the building was not very well sealed, so I put another piece of plastic over it and sealed it a little better. While working in that corner, I also cleared a spot on the work bench to put the feces sterilizer, because it was pretty smelly when in operation (I have been running it for about 4 hours each day) and was hoping that by moving it to the far end of the facility I wouldn’t have to smell it so much. We’ll see whether this works!

During the day the sun came out at intermittent times. Whenever it did it warmed right up. So I kept the temperature turned down a little, to conserve heating oil.

My food for the day was eaten mostly at noon, when I made a very full frying pan of potatoes and onions. I have been eating my big meal of the day around noon instead of the evening; this gives me more energy later in the day. I am usually left feeling stuffed, yet still hungry. I think this has something to do with not having any fat in the diet (my average daily fat consumption is 1.8 grams/day; about 2/3 of this is from the fat that occurs naturally in potatoes, so you can imagine I’m not even aware I’m eating it!). I did an analysis of my diet to date, and found there are a few things I’m low on. Vitamin B12, which you only get from animals or bacteria, is non-existent according to my analysis program. There are two factors that keep this from being a problem. First is you can actually get enough vitamin B12 from the soil bacteria that are found on freshly washed vegetables! The second is that, even if I’m not getting enough, it takes years before any deficiency shows up because your body stores a considerable amount, and uses it very slowly.

Several other vitamins and minerals are more important though. I’m only getting 15% of the vitamin E that I need. Selenium, calcium and zinc are all low as well (16%, 23% and 29% respectively). Sodium is only at 37%, but I don’t know how critical that is. I’m probably getting more selenium and zinc than is shown, because of the small amounts of soil I end up eating with all my root crops (it only takes an incredibly tiny amounts to meet RDA—an ounce of zinc will last 4.5 years!). Calcium may be more critical, but I have heard that people on vegetarian diets are much more efficient at absorbing calcium (supposedly the Chinese only get about 1/3 of the RDA of calcium, but they are perfectly health). Hope that is true!

9/23/04 Day 6
I had stayed up very late again, downloading big files off the internet (rolls of film). I’ve now got two of the six rolls I want to download. So it’ll be a few more late nights. Still I managed to get up at 8:30, and spent the morning on the phone doing business. By noon I was really hungry, so I picked a turnip to take the edge off, and then made borsch (beet soup). It turned out very well, so I’m glad I made a lot. Of course I managed to eat most of it (2/3 of a quart sized pot), which means I’ll finish it for dinner.

My cold was slightly worse this morning, but I was feeling better by the time lunch was ready. I spent some time watering the garden, getting the urine sterilizer started (just a pot on the stove with glasses in it) and working on the wheat analysis. By mid-afternoon I was starting to feel a little run down (combination between my cold and not enough sleep I suspect) so I decided to relax the rest of the day and picked up a good book (Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg).

It had been snowing hard when I woke up. A little bit was sticking to the plastic, so I turned the heat up a bit to melt it off. The snow quit by noon, but then the wind picked up a bit and tended to blow the plastic around. Which helped removed the leaves that had been sticking. I have to keep an eye on the plastic because it is not super well secured at the top, and too much weight will pull it down.

9/24/04 Day 7
I didn’t sleep very well last night because of my cold. I usually turn the heat down to around 55°, but last night when I did that I got pretty congested so I turned it back up to 65°. During the day I turn it up quite a ways, because at the plant canopy (the most important area I’m interested in!) it is usually 10-15° colder than the thermostat location in the loft. So during the day I frequently turn it up to 75°, which keeps the plants above 60°—usually.

I hadn’t eaten very much calorie-wise yesterday (I ate until I was stuffed, but the calorie density was so low I only managed to stuff down 1,000 kcal!), so I fried up a huge (3 pounds) batch of potatoes. This made for both breakfast and lunch. I still wasn’t very hungry by dinnertime, so I made a salad and a small amount of potato soup. Turned out to be just right.

I was pretty unproductive during the day, spending most of the time reading or playing on the computer. In the evening I did a little bit of work upstairs, getting the desk cleaned up.

9/25/04 Day 8
I woke up at 6 am and couldn’t get back to sleep, partly because I was a bit congested. So I got up and spent about 5 hours working on updating the ISECCo web site, writing the first week update to email to our members.

2 pm this afternoon marked the end of the first full week I’ve been locked inside. Everything is going well except for my cough, which I am starting to wonder if it is a cold or not; during the night it seemed I would cough worse when the fan was on. I am wondering if the dust or the plants decaying are causing it. So I tackled the problem on several fronts today: I watered all the areas of dry soil (ie those areas where the plants had been harvested that I haven’t been watering since there wasn’t anything there); I bagged about half of the dead potato plants; I wore a carbon filter mask about half the day and I did a good bit of exercising. Not sure which one of these things did the trick, but by evening my congestion was much better.

Frankie stopped by today and we talked through the window. They had just been at the farmer’s market, and were telling me about what they bought. I reached over and picked a tomato and asked Richie if they got some and he said yes. I picked a couple more and he counted them. (Proud Dad?) When they were about to leave I held my hand against the plastic and Richie (age 2) immediately ran over and pressed his hand against mine. Then, of course, Frankie did too.

I spent a good bit of the afternoon reading Molecular Biology of the Cell, and in the late afternoon I put up the 3 pieces of missing insulation in the loft. Now the only place left to insulate is the arctic entry. After dinner (baked potatoes) I made some phone calls and then downloaded some more photos off the internet. The roll I got this evening was one that had the photos we took of Mars Base Zero in August, so I need to get them uploaded to the web site. I also uploaded all the stuff I’d written this morning and got the update sent out…

Today is the first day I’ve had to pick more than two potato plants. The first two were pretty small though, so I really needed the third to get enough food. Didn’t eat much else though; just the three tomatoes I’d picked for Richie to count and a couple of carrots.

9/26/04 Day 9
I slept very well all night, my congestion seems to be breaking up nicely. Not sure which of the solutions I tried work, but one of them did! Still have a bit of a cough though. Hope it goes away soon!

I spent some time using the last of the water this morning, since Frankie is going to be coming over to give me more. I also finished off the fertilizer water, watering all the key plants (ie those that are still growing!)

I spent quite a bit of time on the internet this morning, looking at CELSS related web sites. Also did several hours of reading in my Biology of the Cell, and some time sorting mail and stuff.

Brunch was fried potatoes and onions. Getting to be a regular for me…for dinner I cooked up a big pot of borsch, which I made heavy on the potatoes and light on everything else. Turned out ok though.

A lot of wind today, which is making it cold in here, as well as stripping the staples out of one corner of the visqueen. When Frankie showed up around 6 I had her screw plywood over the area the staples had pulled out to reseal it. But before she did we took advantage of the opening to sneak a quick kiss. I told her she should have brought a hamburger *grin* as well as a kiss.

The hose that we use to get water with was in the entry way, so I snaked the end out to Frankie through the (missing) deadbolt hole. She took the end over to the Smyth’s and hooked it up. Then I added water to the furnace, the two 30 gallon containers used to water plants with, and of course I soaked the plants. All watered for the next week, I hope! The only thing I didn’t get was drinking water, which I ran out of the first jug at dinner time. But I’ve another jug, so I should have another week before I need to worry about it. Not bad, 9 days on 4 gallons of water. Of course it helps with all the vegetables I’m eating: I actually pee more than I drink because of them!

9/27/04 Day 10
I was pretty hungry when I first got up so I picked a turnip and ate it to take the edge off. Then I added a carrot before getting going on my usual potatoes. Today I harvested two large plants; one had 8 potatoes for a total weight of over 1500 grams (nearly 3 pounds). The second plant wasn’t nearly so productive, but even so I didn’t manage to finish both by the end of the day. Fried potatoes for breakfast, baked potatoes for lunch and boiled potatoes for dinner. I was feeling hungry for something different, so I made a salad from lettuce, spinach (not very much; the supply is limited), swiss chard, tomato and onion. Turned out very well.

I was trying a different technique with the feces sterilizer; namely only running the sterilizer every 2-3 days. Today, unfortunately, was the day. Within a couple of hours of starting it the smell was starting to build up. So I wore the gas mask for awhile. Thinking about ways to filter the odor before I have to smell it…perhaps run the fumes down into the soil bed?

The weather was pretty flaky all day. Sun, rain, hail, snow…sometimes all together. I had to keep the heat turned pretty high because some of it was sticking to the plastic and I didn’t want it to build up and pull the plastic down. By evening it looked like there was an inch or two of snow on the ground.

In the evening Fraser of Universe Today called and we had a nice chat about Mars Base Zero. After our conversation he wrote an article about us. I stayed up pretty late to review it and also to get some photos uploaded to the internet so he could pick one for the article.

9/28/04 Day 11
I woke up coughing at 7 am, so I spent a couple of hours reading MboC before getting up and checking my email. Sure enough, Fraser had published the article. I answered a couple of emails that resulted from that and then headed downstairs.

I watered everything very well, partly on the theory that it might help my cough. It is quite a bit cooler out today and the air gaps are leaking pretty bad, so I spent a few minutes spraying foam into some of the worst ones. It helped some; I really need to get the insulation up in the arctic entry though; there is a major gap in the ceiling there.

Breakfast was fried potatoes. I had been putting a small amount of cabbage into it each morning, but this morning I didn’t—I haven’t picked the next cabbage yet. Maybe this afternoon or this evening…

I dumped the sterilized feces into the feces compost, and started a new jar. Still thinking about building a tent for it and then blowing the exhaust from it down into the soil bed.

Today I started two days of logging absolutely everything I do. The purpose of this is to determine how much of my time is spent maintaining the biosphere; how much is spent eating; and how much is spent doing other things like this diary.

I spent most of the afternoon reading or working on the computer. In the late afternoon I got ambitious and put up about half the insulation in the artic entry that had fallen out over the last few years.

Dinner turned out very well: potato and carrot soup, with onions and parsley. A tad too much parsley (9 grams; try 6), but very good none-the-less.

Back on the web all evening.

9/29/04 Day 12
Today I didn’t write a diary at all—but I did keep a minute-by-minute log of my activities:

11:42	11:43	phone call
11:43	12:06	study
12:06	12:08	pee, dress
12:08	12:09	phone call
12:09	12:15	get downstairs (ladder in entry)
12:15	12:18	start urine sterilizing
12:18	12:21	wash hands, face
12:21	12:36	harvest, clean, weight, record
12:36	12:38	phone call
12:38	12:50	harvest, clean, weight, record
12:50	12:54	daydream
12:54	13:12	cut & cook
13:12	13:30	Newsminer photos
13:30	13:32	harvest, clean, weight, record
13:32	13:35	cut & cook
13:35	14:01	insulate entry
14:01	14:02	phone call
14:02	14:05	eat
14:05	14:07	phone call
14:07	14:20	eat
14:20	14:23	teeth
14:23	14:31	water plants
14:31	14:33	stuff to compost pile
14:33	15:26	study
15:26	15:27	pee
15:27	15:41	study
15:41	15:42	phone call
15:42	15:56	study
15:56	15:58	phone call
15:58	17:03	study
17:03	17:05	phone call
17:05	17:29	study
17:29	17:40	daydream
17:40	17:41	pee
17:41	17:50	eat
17:50	17:51	phone call
17:51	17:59	eat
17:59	18:51	insulate entry
18:51	18:53	phone call
18:53	18:58	start urine sterilizing
18:58	19:03	email
19:03	19:35	exercise
19:35	19:38	fertilize strawberry flowers
19:38	19:42	harvest, clean, weight, record
19:42	19:55	cut & cook
19:55	20:54	email
20:54	21:35	data entry
21:35	21:45	eat
21:45	21:58	data entry
21:58	22:09	read
22:09	22:25	phone call
22:25	23:10	read
23:10	23:14	eat
23:14	23:15	pee
23:15	23:17	teeth
23:17	24:00	read

The breakdown of the two days I logged was interesting. I did two analysis, one with a wide array of activities and the second grouping all activities into three categories:

All categories:

Divided into just 3 categories:

9/30/04 Day 13
I didn’t sleep very well last night; my cough kept me awake until about 3 am and then I woke up at 8 and couldn’t get back to sleep. I spent a lot of time during the day wearing the gas mask; it seems to help my cough.

Using the feces sterilizer was such a pain because of the odor I quite doing it every time I used it. I let it build up for a day or two, but it couldn’t be put off any longer: it was full. So I decided I didn’t want to deal with the odor, and put in half an hour building a plastic tent for it. Then I put an exhaust fan inside the tent, with a tube running down into the soil. This worked to a certain extent; I’d say ¾ of the smell was gone. But there is still enough left to be annoying. Next time I have to run it I think I’ll burry the hose deeper; this time I only went about 2/3 of the way down the soil bed. Put it at the bottom: then maybe it’ll catch all the smell.

My general impression is that this technique is not going to work. It is putting too many volatiles into the air. I think perhaps what needs to happen is to use a bucket, cover it with dirt, let it dry and then sterilize it. See if that gets rid of the odor. Another possibility is to use some kind of pressure cooker. Have to try out a few ideas to find one that’ll work I guess; this one is failing.

I spent most of the day reading by MBotC book; didn’t even do my exercises.

Food was baked potatoes for breakfast, a HUGE pan (as always!) of fried potatoes for a late lunch and then a nice salad for dinner. The lettuce spot, though small, is putting out just about the right amount of lettuce to have 1-2 salads a week. It is probably the only thing in here that is actually growing as fast as I’m eating it! Not that I really expected much growth—too cold down on the floor; usually in the 40’s and maybe up to 55°, unless the sun is out and then it’ll go to 70°. But we’ve only had about 3 days of sun since I moved in, not enough to spur growth. Which isn’t to say things aren’t growing, just slowly.

10/1/04 Day 14
Frankie wound up in the hospital today. She has been throwing up most of what she eats for the last few weeks and they wanted her in there for observation and to see if they could help her. Laura (bless her) babysat Richie overnight. I did a lot of stewing, and not much else other than reading in my MBotC book…making great progress through it. In the evening I cleaned out the chest of drawers and cleaned it up, something I’ve been meaning to do for quite awhile…

Dermot Cole of the Fairbanks Daily Newsminer called and we spent some time reviewing the article he is writing about me. Turned out pretty good, I think.

10/2/04 Day 15
I woke up around 9 and spent the morning in bed reading. Frankie got out of the hospital and stopped by to pick up Richie. Most unfortunately they didn’t find anything they could do to help her, so she is still either hungry or vomiting. Sure hope it doesn’t lead to a situation where I have to exit early.

Oh, happy happy day!! Two strawberries are almost ripe, and there are 4 more flowers. Going to be able to have strawberries for desert here soon. Can’t wait!!

I spent the afternoon compiling the questions that have been asked over the last week, and writing more complete answers to them. I also wrote a Closure Update and got it emailed out. I spent the evening reading.

10/3/04 Day 16
I woke up at 3 am, and couldn’t get back to sleep. So at 4 I got up and read until 8, before I could finally go back to sleep. Then the phone started ringing at 10, and I had to get up.

It was sunny out today, and the temperature went up and up in the loft. Peaked out at 92°! Downstairs only got into the low 70’s so it was nice down there.

I felt pretty lousy. Slightly dizzy, fuzzy but not (surprisingly) tired. Hungry though, so I made a nice pan full of fried potatoes and cabbage. I didn’t feel much better throughout the day, so I didn’t do much but read. Got a lot read in my Molecular Biology of the Cell, as well as a couple journal magazines I’ve been trying to get to. But other than that I didn’t accomplish much other than the minimum eating and sterilizing.

10/4/04 Day 17
The phone rang at 7 am, so I got up and spent the next 4 hours reading. Frankie came over and delivered a battery for my camera (poking it through the “missing deadbolt” hole). Then I spent an hour on the phone talking with Matt before getting hungry and making lunch. Turnip, which didn’t go very far in spite of the fact it weighed 3/4 of a pound. So I dug up a potato plant and made fried potatoes. In between all that I took a bunch of photos, and answered a lot of phone calls (mostly people looking for an apartment).

In the afternoon it got quite hot; nearly 100° in the loft area and 70° downstairs. So I decided this would be a good time for a bath. I heated some of the old rain water, which I’d been saving for this occasion, and took a sponge bath in the kitchen. I also washed my hair, which was getting pretty nasty. I managed to keep the water use down to about a gallon and a half, so I should have enough rain water left for two or three more baths. I really like the rain water because it is very ‘soft’ and is really pleasant to wash with. The well water here is real hard (lots of minerals, mostly calcium) and not so nice to wash with.

Of course I got some water on the floor, so I used this to mop some of the dirt off the floor. Tracking dirt in from the greenhouse is a major problem that we haven’t figured out how to handle…perhaps we need to get some slippers for wearing when out in the greenhouse, and take them off when exiting into the kitchen?

I spent the afternoon playing on the computer and the evening reading.

10/5/04 Day 18
Hard to believe I’ve been living in here for nearly 3 weeks now. The adventure has worn off and it is now just a place to live, albeit with some odd characteristics.

For some reason my weight is crashing this week. I started at 194.5 and yesterday morning it was down to 191.5, and up a tiny bit to 192 this morning. Guess maybe I’m not eating enough potatoes?

I spent the morning doing business (arranging to have one of my apartment buildings hooked up to city sewer and fighting with Ocwen bank because their records show my account as being past due when the escrow agency that is handling the collections show no problem).

Another nice sunny day. The temperature in the loft didn’t get quite as hot as it did yesterday, but it still got up into the mid 90’s.

I spent the afternoon reading my Molecular Biology of the Cell book. I’m getting very close to the end, so I should be able to finish it in a few days.

Frankie is still having a lot of trouble keeping any food down. Pretty serious case of morning sickness. Too bad they didn’t figure anything out the night she spent in the hospital.

10/6/04 Day 19
I think I have a bit of cabin fever. I hardly stirred from bed today. I was pretty useful the majority of the day, reading scientific journals and Molecular Biology of the Cell stuff—but I just didn’t feel up to getting up. It was evening before I even got up to get something to eat. By then, of course, I was pretty hungry so I really stuffed myself. Fried potatoes, of course.

Frankie is worse today. She has another appointment with the doctor. Sure hope they can figure out what is wrong. Being 6 months pregnant is hard enough without throwing up all the time. It has been a couple of weeks since she really managed to eat very much. Today she didn’t keep anything down at all. *sigh* Sure hope she gets better soon or I will probably have to come out early.

10/7/04 Day 20
I spent the morning finishing Molecular Biology of the Cell book. Finally; I’ve been working on it for 6+ months now…

Frankie went to the doctor again today and they gave her an iv to get a little water and food into her. They did a bunch of blood tests too, to try to find out what was wrong. Hope they manage to; unfortunately they are also talking about putting her in the hospital for a few days too…bad news for me, because if they do I’ll have to exit to watch Richie.

I spent the afternoon promoting ISECCo on the internet, and catching up with old email…in the evening I dug up a potato plant and made a frying pan full of potatoes. I celebrated finishing the first week of October by eating the 6 ripe strawberries. Yum!!!

The rest of the evening I spent working on writing a poster about Mars Base Zero, working until nearly midnight.

10/8/04 Day 21
Three weeks! Wow. Though not really 100% 3 weeks until tomorrow at 2 pm, I did spent that Friday night here, so I’ve been residing here for that long. Hard to believe; the time has gone by real fast.

I haven’t exercised in far too long, nearly a week I think. I started to today, but the phone rang, and I never got back to it. Only got in less than 10 minutes. I think that is contributing to my lack of motivation.

Though I am being pretty productive. Mostly working on getting a bunch of textbooks and journals read. But my list of chores to do in here hasn’t shrunk much this week. I’ve going to have to get motivated if I’m going to get through the list by the time I come out. The end is approaching, for I’m working on the last square of potatoes. Still have at least 10 days though, and perhaps 15 or more if I’m lucky.

Today I spent the morning working on a poster, and the afternoon reading journals and science web pages. Doing too much reading: my eyes are getting tired. Have to avoid it tomorrow! Spending all evening reading didn’t help the matter any.

I gave up on sterilizing solid human waste today. The air quality is not good enough to subject myself to the odor (I think it is contributing to my cough). I have started using a bucket, which I will sterilize after it is composted. I have a bucket like this left over from 2 years ago: I should try to sterilize it and see how it goes.

I at a fair amount today, but I find I am hungry this evening. Not really up to digging potatoes by flashlight (the garden area currently has no lights) and besides I am not keen on potatoes tonight. By tomorrow though I should be hungry enough to like them again! This won’t help the weight loss I’ve suffered this week though…

10/9/04 Day 22
Water. It has been almost 2 weeks since I’ve gotten any new water for the garden, and I’m pretty much out. I’ve been really stretching it, because Frankie hasn’t been feeling very well, and I didn’t want to trouble anyone else. But today I had to: things were starting to get dry. So I called Kraig, and he said ‘no problem’. (He lives in the house next door anyhow, so…) He came over and I poked the hose out the hole in the door and took it over, hooked it up and turned it on. I watered everything real well, filled my garden jugs (2 x 30 gallons), and filled the dish pan even. Then I re-watered everything before calling Kraig and telling him I was done. He unhooked the hose and I pulled it back in, coiling it in the corner of the arctic entry.

Other than water I was pretty useless all day: spent the day reading.

10/10/04 Day 23
I spent the morning and early afternoon reading journals. In the mid afternoon Frankie brought my Uncle David and Aunt Monica by for a visit. Frankie also brought drinking water (first refill since I’ve moved in: only used 10 gallons of water!) After they left I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening working on the ISECCo web site, answering questions and getting the week 3 update emailed to our members.

10/11/04 Day 24
I spent the morning and most of the afternoon studying, and the evening reading. Ie I did very little on the greenhouse or anything else, other than to pick a few potatoes and other things to eat.

10/12/04 Day 25
I spent most of the morning studying. It was sunny in the early afternoon, so I exercised for half an hour and then took a bath. I used the left over bath water to mop the floor. I am going to try not wearing shoes downstairs, just wear them out in the greenhouse. See if I can keep the dirt out.

I had yet to do the dishes, relying on rinsing them out with a bit of water. But this technique leaves a bit to be desired, and so my dishes had gradually become dirty. So I used another 7 cups of water and completely washed all the dishes.

I made a very nice stew for dinner:
Potato: 1 kg (2 pounds)
Tomato: 80 grams (3 oz)
Carrot: 75 grams (3 oz)
Onion: 42 grams (2 oz)
Beet: 54 grams (2 oz)
Parsley: 3 grams (tablespoon)

Slice everything up (you’ll note that the amounts do not need to be exact, so I’ve done some liberal rounding in my translation from metric to English units) and simmer for half an hour or until the potatoes are soft. Turn off and let cool for half an hour and then eat. Yummy! Though if I weren’t on a calorie restricted diet I might not thing so…

I spent the evening doing ISECCo projects on the computer: email, data entry and analysis. I stayed up until 1 am working on this, and then I had a midnight snack, finishing my stew. It was nearly 1:30 by the time I made it to bed…shouldn’t get so involved in the computer!

10/13/04 Day 26
I got up at 8:30 and spent the morning getting caught up on this diary, answering email, taking phone calls and reading Aging Cell. In the afternoon I was pretty lazy and spent most of my time reading, though I did get in a little studying.

For dinner I decided to try some experiments. First I attempted to make coleslaw by shredding some cabbage and some carrots together. I also attempted to make hash browns. The hash browns stuck immediately to the frying pan and wound up kind of a mush. Since it stuck so hard I couldn’t get it up, I wound up with mush on top and burnt on the bottom. Needless to say I wasn’t impressed with the result. Nor did I really care much for the “coleslaw”—I would have liked it better if I’d eaten the cabbage and carrots separately. So dinner was pretty much of a disappointment. But if you don’t experiment, you don’t figure things out.

10/14/04 Day 27
I spent the morning making phone calls, checking on the truck to see when it would be done (not much progress); the septic hookup at the College Road apartment building (done), and tenant calls. In the late morning I spent 10 minutes “plowing” (actually digging it with a shovel) about 1/3 of square C. That third is now all ready to be planted next spring.

I also picked a couple of potato (plants) and baked them in the microwave. Looking for new things to do with them I also tried slicing them and cooking them until they were completely dried out in the microwave; essentially potato chips without any fat. This actually worked pretty well; have to do it again!

I have been procrastinating on several larger projects, and time is starting to get short. So I spent a good bit of time this afternoon working on the structure, specifically getting set up so I could get up to the southern edge of the roof and stapling plastic along it. This will not only keep heat from escaping out that way, but it will keep the blown insulation from falling in the crop area, something it has had a tendency to do all year.

I completely ran out of energy late in the afternoon: I was up on the ladder working when it was like I hit a wall. I started feeling odd, had the shakes and suddenly felt famished. I’d been cooking some potatoes in the microwave, so when they were done I ate them and lay down to read for an hour. Within a couple of hours I felt fine again, though still hungry.

I spent the early evening doing data entry, working on the ISECCo web site, catching up on this, etc. Sure is getting dark these days: it is pretty dim by 7 and completely dark well before 8.

10/15/04 Day 28
I am still having energy problems and not feeling quite right. So I didn’t do very much today. In the afternoon I analyzed the possible problems: 1. Not enough proteins 2. Not enough salt (sodium is very low). 2. Not enough protein (even though I’m meeting RDA for the minimum intake for the various kinds of amino acids, my total intake for protein is about like my calorie intake: only half of normal). 3. Not enough food in general. Of the possibilities I think it is probably just not enough calories; I know I am low since my weight has been crashing the last 2 weeks (down by 8 pounds).

To combat this I upped my food intake rather considerably, eating more today than any other day since I’ve been closed in. This will attack any of the three possible problems by increasing my daily intake of everything. I felt better in the evening, though still somewhat out of sorts.

10/16/04 Day 29
I am still declining health-wise. I limited my activities during and spent most of the day just reading. By late afternoon I decided I had better either terminate the run or tackle the problem head-on. After some deliberation I decided to import salt, since I suspected sodium deficiency. So I called Kraig and asked him to bring me some. He brought it over and poked it through the missing dead-bolt hole. I mixed up a glass of salt-water (1 gram salt to 6 oz water and drank it right off. Then I used another 3 grams of salt in my food, which really helped the taste among other things! I didn’t do very much the rest of the day (more reading), but it within a couple of hours I was feeling quite a bit better.

10/17/04 Day 30
Wow! One month. This was my minimum goal; I have now made it.

My health continues to improve; I guess it was probably the sodium. I thought it might be a good idea to remain fairly sedentary though, so I pretty much stayed in bed most of the day reading and studying, other than getting up for eating and such. In the evening I did get up and spend a couple of hours working on the Week 4 update…

Foods are starting to run low. Not sure if I’ll have enough to last into the 6^th week—or even finish the 5^th week. I’m down under 20 potato plants now, and I want to save a couple for seed. So my time is now short. Hopefully I’ll be feeling up to getting some work done tomorrow…

10/18/04 Day 31
Looking around the internet I came up with some web sites that talk about solanine poisoning, since I still don’t seem to be doing as well as I think I should. I found one that says that most (if not all) solanine is found in the skin, so I decided to start peeling all my potatoes. In a lot of ways this isn’t good, since a lot of the nutrition in the potatoes is found in the skin, but I am eating so many that even tiny amounts of solanine in the skin could be building up enough to be causing me problems. So I’m going to try peeling my potatoes for awhile, and see if that helps. I’m not going to stop the salt regimen though, since I’m not sure which is the real problem.

10/19/04 Day 32
Banks can be such a pain. Ocwen bank called me this morning; then I spent an hour trying to get through to someone to tell them that yes, my payment was made on time and no, there is no reason for them to be calling me. Grrr.

It was snowing pretty hard, and the snow was accumulating on the lower end of the plastic. I was afraid it might pull it loose from the top, so I put a fan to blow down it, which helped keep the snow melted.

I spent the morning reading, and the afternoon pushing ISECCo/Mars Base Zero on the internet by joining various forums and posting messages about Mars Base Zero and my being closed inside.

In the late afternoon I spent half an hour plowing the eastern half of square D. I’ve only got a few potato plants left now, so time is getting pretty short. I’ve continued to peel my potatoes, and it (or something) seems to be greatly improving my health. Felt pretty ambitious all day…

After dinner I spent the early evening getting caught up on the data entry (mostly entering the lab notes on the harvest data).

10/20/04 Day 33
I spend the morning working on the computer, answering email and data entry. It was a good thing I stayed in the loft, for there were a ton of phone calls on the apartment I had advertised in the paper.

In the early afternoon I answered a few more emails (last night I sent out emails to about 2/3 of our members, begging for money—and got a great response).

Unlike the previous day, it was nice and sunny out. The sun wasn’t quite strong enough to make it heat up in here like it did last month—or even a few weeks ago. Getting pretty low on the horizon! Of course it is also about 5-10 degrees colder outside, which doesn’t help much.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the computer. I had gotten into one of the projects I wanted to accomplish while in here: getting my logbook entered and caught up for the trip to Hawaii. I managed to get it all done, but it was 1 am by the time I had finished.

I might have finished it earlier but by 4 pm the furnace was refusing to stay lit. I had to restart it every 45 minutes for hours. I dinked with it quite a bit, and finally think I may have found the problem: the fuel filter was loose. I tightened it pretty hard, and we’ll see if it stays going. Since I did this at midnight, it may be the middle of the night before I know if I was successful.

10/21/04 Day 34
Yikes! It didn’t. I dinked with it until 3 am, and then gave up and just let it get cold. By 8:30 it was down to 45°. Since it was snowing, and the snow wasn’t melting, I got up and worked on the furnace, managing to get it to run long enough to get it warmed up into the 60’s. But I had to keep working with it all day, which was most annoying. Basically push the reset button, bleed it, and repeat about 5-8 times before it would run long enough to heat the water back up. Of course there is a lock-out every third time it fails, so I had to reset the lockout at least once before I’d got it to run. So I took to running the furnace once an hour (as opposed to the every 20 minutes it was calling for heat). This meant a slightly cooler temperature inside (low 60’s), but at least I wasn’t spending ALL my time working on it—just half. The odd thing is the system is lower than the tank, so it has slight positive pressure. I sure don’t like these new burners they’ve come out with; I have a few of them in my apartment buildings and they are nothing but trouble.

In the early afternoon I was running out of places to put the fuel oil I was draining out of the furnace, so I cleaned out a small (2 gallon), all glass fish tank and put it in that. When it was full I disconnected the fuel line to the furnace and put it in the tank, hoping the furnace would run better without having to pull the fuel all the way from the tank. No such luck. Seemed to run a little bit better, but it still wouldn’t stay lit. Just before bed I decided to try to putting the fish tank up on a chair, and see if a little extra pressure helped it. I filled it by draining fuel from the tank (which is a very tiny bit higher than the furnace room). Then I picked it up—and dropped it. Of course it broke. What a mess. Fuel everywhere. So I left the furnace off and called it a day (I didn’t want to run the furnace with all that fuel everywhere!)

In the early afternoon Elizabeth from the Anchorage Daily News stopped by and interviewed me. She hopes to have the article published on Sunday.

I had asked Kraig to stop by, so he came by in the evening and I had him run the hose over to the house so I could get water. I filled up everything, and then watered everything for the last time with the hose.

10/22/04 Day 35
Of course the furnace room is open to the bedroom, and the smell of the fuel prompted me to wear the breathing mask, which took all the fuel out of the air I was breathing. Unfortunately it was uncomfortable enough so I didn’t sleep much more than 4 hours.

The temperature was down to 41° when I got up at 10. The first item on the agenda was to overhaul the furnace. So I took the stovepipe off and cleaned the fins (not that they were very dirty: I had cleaned them just before moving in). Then I swung the furnace door and cleaned the end of the burner nozzle and all that area. This seemed to help quite a bit, and for the first half of the day the furnace ran pretty well. By evening it was acting up again though, so I got it fairly warm before I went to bed and just let it go out.

The fumes from the spilled fuel were bothering me, so I put plastic on the floor where it had spilled, and also put up plastic between the furnace room and the loft. This helped a lot, and I don’t have to wear the mask in the loft any more.

The other major project I did today was I harvested all the remaining potatoes. There is about 12 pounds of potatoes; enough to last me until Tuesday. So I called Frankie and told her; she was hoping that I would be out on Monday, but I really want to stay in as long as possible. Channel 2 news also wanted to know, as well as Dermot C. who had written the article about us in the newspaper. So I let them know, as well as Elisabeth.

10/23/04 Day 36
I sure didn’t feel like getting out of bed in the morning. It wasn’t quite as cold as yesterday, but very close: 41°. So it was 10 by the time I worked up enough ambition. The first order of the day was tackling the furnace while it was cold and easy to work on. I took the entire burner apart, and found a likely cause: the points were burned. I bent them closer together and put the furnace back together. Lo! It works! Heat, without having to start the furnace every hour.

I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon putting up pulleys and getting the plastic across the top finished. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on the computer (except for food breaks) working on the web site, answering email, etc.

10/24/04 Day 37
Since the end is rapidly approaching I spent the day doing little projects that I’d been wanting to finish while in here. I made great progress, getting the plywood up in the loft; getting some shelves made and the workbench cleared off. I also harvested the last of the turnips (though I didn’t eat all of them) and finished plowing square C and dug holes in it so it is now completely ready to be planted in potatoes in May.

I may have cut it a little too fine with the food supply. I didn’t seem to get quite enough to eat today, but I don’t dare eat more or there won’t be any left by Tuesday, and then I’ll really get hungry since I’m determined not to exit until 2 pm Tuesday! So, although I filled up on things like turnips, I was left feeling hungry at bedtime…

I worked until late evening, and then stayed up until 1 am working on the internet, and getting caught up with this.

10/25/04 Day 38
I spent a good bit of the morning lazying about in bed. Then I got real productive—or at least, I tried. I attempted to put up a sheet of plywood on the NW ceiling/wall. With very little success. I must have struggled with it for 3 or 4 hours before I finally gave up. Ug…

I cut it a little short in the food department. So I’ve had to tighten my belt some today—at least if I want any breakfast tomorrow. At least it feels like I’ve had to, though in terms of calories eaten it is not too far below what I’ve been averaging (1147 kcal eaten for the day). But it felt like it was way below normal, and I really burned up all my energy working on the plywood, and as a consequence didn’t have much energy in the afternoon. So I spent quite a bit of time reading. I did get a few other minor chores done: I finished plowing B; I finished sorting the mail I’d brought in with me; I harvested the last of the carrots and beets and I washed the dishes.

I went to bed hungry. Although I had budgeted roughly the same food as I’d been eating all along, it turned out to be quite a bit less than I craved. Oh, well, only a few more hours and I’ll be out.

10/26/04 Day 39
I was up fairly early, and tackled getting the place cleaned up. I hauled all the stuff that was in the kitchen (plywood, lights, insulation) and stored it out in the greenhouse (mostly square A). I took a bath and then used my bath water (plus some other water) to mop the kitchen floor. I cleaned up the loft, and bagged up most of the stuff to go home. By 2 pm I was all ready, and Frankie cut the ribbon and let in a crowd. The newspaper, the TV and the neighbor were all there, and soon Mars Base Zero was the scene of lots of activity.

Epilog
Eli stayed in Mars Base Zero that night, for we were worried about the furnace going out with it snowing. If that happened the plastic would probably cave in. The furnace did die late in the night, but it had quit snowing so it wasn’t a problem.

Eli also gave me a hand on a couple of days, getting the plywood on the north wall (amazing how much easier it is with two people; thanks Eli!) and getting the ecosystem cleaned up (harvesting the rest of the crops, cleaning some of the pots out of square F, getting most of the compost hauled to the compost pile, dumping the water, etc) and closed the facility down (disconnected the plastic from the end and bottom so it will drape straight down [otherwise it would catch snow and pull down], drained the furnace, etc).

[end]