Day 119
Mood:  vegas lucky
Yup! Today's the day we officially become a multi-planet species. The launch of the MEM worked quite well. and after the three-hour flight from Phobos to the Martian surface, we finally did it. Taira Singh and I became the first humans to set foot on Mars. Kick ass!

My first words on the Red Planet: "I love this place!" And Taira loved it too. All our surface activies were done on time and on schedule. (Is that reduntant?) Planting the ICSA flag, collecting rock and soil smaples, all that good stuff was effectively accomplished. After three hours on Mars, we prepared to leave. Unforunately, a malfunction in the ignition system might end up keeping Taira and I on Mars longer than we planned.

Day 117
Mood:  energetic
The Phobos probe made it to Deimos right on time. While certain other crew members study the Deimos data, Taira and I are rapidly preparing for the Mars landing Wednesday.

Day 115
Mood:  a-ok
Another good news, bad news deal here. The good news is that we got the Phobos probe working. The bad news is that Leonid broke his arm while trying to dislodge the probe from Phobosian surface. But despite that letdown, Melody was able to set Leonid broken arm with little difficulty. Later on, the Phobos probe was launched to Deimos where it will enter orbit tomorrow. Meanwhile, I have to prepare for Wednesday when I take Leonid's place on the Mars landing part of the mission.

Day 113
Mood:  chillin'
Did I mention that Keith and Sumire found a piece of the Mars Observer on Phobos? Well, they did. Meanwhile, Leonid and Taira spent much of the day in one of the MEMs prepping for the Mars landing next week.

Day 111
Mood:  party time!

Fuel processing on Phobos was finished over the weekend - about a week ahead of schedule. The help I gave Keith and Sumire on the project did contribute to its completion. As such, we spent a good deal of time working on the long-nonfunctional Phobos probe. So far, the probe looks reparable. But despite that, certain components that we didn't have spare parts for needed replacing. But thanks to Keith's genius, he was able to McGuyver some spare parts we had on the ICSE for the Phobos probe repair. In addition to that, we fueled up one of the MEM's with the fuel processed from Phobos. We got more interesting images of the Martian surface from the probes we sent there. And we got transmissions from Earth from certain world leaders congratulating our continued success at exploring Mars.

Day 105
Mood:  bright
It was another very busy day for us in Mars orbit. The samples from the sample return craft were brought on board the ICSE and then stored to be studied later. We got more images from the Mars rovers and related craft on and just above the Martian surface. And Keith and Sumire found a way to speed up the fuel processing. If they can get that done sufficiently ahead of schedule, we might have time to repair the Phobos probe. Sure, a lot of folks would say that repairing the probe would be a long-shot. But to that I say they said the same thing about sending people to Mars.

Day 103
Mood:  energetic
The sample return craft came back with a small sample of Martian soil today. Keith and Sumire spent most of the day on Phobos studying the returned samples. And at the end of the day, they found no evidence of microbial life. Just as I and certain other experts predicted. Nevertheless, there might still be life on Mars (though I am pretty much skeptical of that). So unless we find that life via the rover probes that are currently using on Mars, we’ll have to wait until the human Mars landing at the end of the month.

Day 99
Mood:  energetic
Keith and Sumire found the Russian Phobos probe yesterday! It was partially-buried on the surface of Phobos not too far from the fuel processing site. So far, it looks as if it's repairble! Today, I steered one of the rover probes toward the so-called "Pyramids of Elysium." Of course we all know they're not really artificial structures, so what better way to prove it than to send a probe there? Yeah, baby!

Day 96
Mood:  happy
Morale among the ICSE crew is pretty good today, and it's been pretty good for the past week or so. Among today's duties included more fuel processing work for Keith an Sumire, and more data analysis from the Mars probes for the rest of us. All of our tasks for the day were completed on schedule. And after another hard day of work in Mars orbit, we got to see excepts of the Rosa Parks funeral.

Day 94
Mood:  happy
It's now official. Keith Myerson and Sumire Esaki became the first humans to set foot on the surface on another celestial object besides the Earth's moon. While on Phobos, the two set up the fuel processing equipment as the remainder of the crew oversaw the operation from the ship's command center. The whole thing took a better part of the day, but we were able to get everything we needed to get done on schedule.