FMARS Journalist Report for July 25, 2001

Mission Support Crew for today:

Mission Support Director: Tony Muscatello
Engineering Officer: Keith Savage
CapCom: Katya Muscat
Liaison: Judith Lapierre
Journalist: Jim Oliver

Today we had additional communication difficulties. For a time we were unable to communicate with our POP3 email server, which prevented us from receiving emails. Unfortunately for us, we didn't realize that we weren't getting any until FMARS went silent for a while. After connecting with our backup account we started receiving on the primary again.

On a brighter note, we surveyed a series of Un-Inspirational quotes from despair.com, a company spoofing the motivational slogans found on posters, calendars, mugs and other office products. We debated sending some to the crew with recent FMARS photos, but decided the low bandwidth to the hab would make for very long downloads. Perhaps later in the simulation when we have better connectivity....

Other good news is that the Flashline crew finally received some of the Incinolet liners and waxed paper that we shipped to them over a week and a half ago. The simulation is too good in how difficult it is to get items to Devon Island. Seems FedEx, DHL, etc. can't find Resolute Bay. As they say there, "Resolute Bay is not the end of the earth, but you can see it from there." This must mean the Devon Island is beyond the end of the earth.

Because the crew could not reply directly to the KSC questions, we answered them instead. We had to call directly over the telephone, but it worked.

We also received the OK from Dr. Zubrin to purchase two new generators. They will be sent by First Air Cargo. If sent by any other carrier they wouldn't get to Devon until Christmas.

Every day we look forward to the audio status reports from the FMARS station, which I hope that there are many people who listen to the files on a daily basis.

-Jim Oliver