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Starvation.  It is right around the corner.  If I was on Mars with no re-supply I'd be in big trouble.  Several days ago I picked my last cabbage, though there is still half of it left.  Last night I picked my last beet, and although I'm hoping I can root around and find another onion or two, I may not.  Carrots: almost gone.  Spinach: just a few leaves left.  Turnips: not a lot.  Wheat: all gone except that reserved for seed.  Potatoes...they are the key,   since 94% of my calories comes from them.  I have 6 plants left.  I usually harvest 2 plants per day, though on some days I've only eaten one--and on one day I had to pick 4 plants.  So I am entering my last few days...

During the last week I began experincing some health problems.  I had been talking with someone about my extremely low sodium intake, so my first though was I was getting too low on sodium.  So I started using some salt.  I seemed to get better for a day, but then declined again.  My second guess was solanine poisoning:

Potatoes are members of the nightshade family, which uses the poison solanine to protect themselves from herbivory.  This is why you should never eat potato leaves.  Or green potatoes.  A little research and I discovered that all potatoes contain a certain amount of solanine in the skin and eyes, which I had been eating since I wasn't peeling my potatoes.  At a consumption of 3.5 pounds per day I was probably getting too much solanine.  So I started eating more boiled potatoes (which helps remove the poison) and peeling all my potatoes.  This seems to have cured the problem.

I have had intermittent problems with the furnace for a couple of weeks now.  But the problem got significantly worse late in the week.  To the point where I was having to push the reset button 4-10 times before it would catch and keep going.  Since it locks itself out after three times and you have to "unlock" it, this was getting pretty aggrivating.  Also it was at the point where it wouldn't run at night unless I wanted to get up every hour to restart it (which I didn't!)  On Thursday it was getting to be a real pain, so I tried disconnecting the fuel line from the fuel filter and just having it get the fuel from a small tank, since I was thinking the problem was a clogged fuel line.  I had some unpleasant adventures doing this; the "tank" broke and fuel went everywhere.  But I didn't manage to make the furnace run any better.  So Thursday night I let it go out and then worked on it the next morning.  I pretty well overhauled all the furnace except the burner, thinking perhaps it was a clogged baffle or chimney.  It ran better, but by Friday night it wasn't up to running all night so I had a second night without heat.  This night was more of a problem, because it was snowing lightly and I had to get up in the middle of the night to start the furnace to melt the snow that was accumulating on the plastic.  So Saturday morning I tackled the furnace again (I like to do it in the morning because then the furnace is cold.)  This time I took the burner itself all apart.  I found the points were burned, so I bent them a little closer together, and it has been running fine ever since.

I have been logging all the data I can think of.  I log the amount of each plant put on the compost pile, the amount I eat, who planted it, how long it was alive, when it was harvested, etc.  For an example see: Potato 1 at https://isecco.org/projects/celss/marsbase/2004/plant_data/potato_1.html (note: I wrote a program that takes the data, which was logged into an Excel program, and generates this data in html format).  I also log the water I use (except for that used to water plants).  Waste production (human waste; garden waste; waste water) is also closely tracked.  On 7 of the days that I've been inside I logged 100% of my time, writing down every little thing from when I pee to when I sleep.  Everything I track gets written in a log, and then every few days I'll transfer it into the computer.  Then I can do with it whatever I want, such as email it to people, crunch numbers with it or convert it to html to put on the web.  The food I eat also gets logged into a diet program, so I can track my nutrition.

This last summer my wife, 2 year old son and I sailed to Hawaii. So I am used to being very conservative with my water.  I think I may have gone overboard this time though: I wanted to see just how low I could get it, without limiting drinking water.  In the first month I used 16 gallons of water--which includes everything from 3 baths, washing dishes, drinking water, cooking, ect.  The only thing it doesn't include is water for washing vegetables in (I usually used the drum than holds water for watering the garden for this; it is handy and easy to access) or the water used for watering the garden (about 50 gallons a week!).  On all the water tracked I wrote down when and on what I used it for.  This also includes drinking water, so it no doubt sounds low, but you need to keep in mind 2 facts: first it is cool in there (ie no loss due to sweat) and second is I get a LOT of mosture from the food I eat.  Indeed, I drank an average of 5 cups of water a day--but I produced an average of 8 cups of urine a day!  All the excess comes from my food.

As I mentioned above the snow has been causing some problems.  I have an unsupported piece of visqueen (plastic sheeting) that runs 36 feet across the south half of the greenhouse.  This is nailed at the top and bottom, but the nails are not up to holding a lot of weight (for the curious they are 16 penny ring-shank nails).  When it snows and the visqueen is cold (ie the bottom 1/3, or the whole thing when the furnace is off) the snow tends to stick.  The plastic spans about 16 feet top to bottom, and it doesn't take very much snow to add up to a lot of weight (snow equivalent to 1/8" of rain will add up to 384 pounds!!!  Divide that by the 36 foot length and you have ~10 pounds per foot, or about 5 pounds for each and every nail).  So it is pretty critical to keep the snow off.  When it is snowing hard I set up a fan to blow the air around a little, which helps keep the bottom 1/3 thawed (the top 2/3 is usually pretty hot--except when the furnace isn't running).  Note: when I move out we'll be shutting off the furnace and draining it.  We will also disconnect the bottom of the visqueen and let it drape straight down, so it won't be able to collect much, if any, snow.

With time getting short I'm going to be busy these last few days, tackling some of those projects I wanted to accomplish while in here.  I've done a lot (nearly four dozen items), but there still some left to do.  Probably more than I can hope to finish, but I'll get close.  I have been plowing the squares; square B & D are done; square C is half done and square E I don't think I'll get to.  If I have time I'd like to plant wheat in square D, so that it will sprout as soon as it warms up in the spring.  Square C has holes dug, ready for potatoes so it'll be quick and simple to get them planted.  I also want to clean up square F; clean out some of the pots and stuff so we can shovel the snow out next spring (if we don't it'll be full of water after the snow melts).  There are still a few things that will need to be harvested and hauled away: sunflower; cauliflower; lettuce; tomatoes and perhaps turnips will be left over.  I also hope to build a platform over square A to put the insulation and lights on it.  This is unused space, and the platform shouldn't block the light for any plants, so I'd like to put it to use.  The insulation in the kitchen is likely to get wet if we have a heavy snow year (which--ug--drains into the kitchen occasionally), so it would be nice to get it out of the way and someplace secure.

There are quite a few things on the shut-down list.  I've already mentioned disconnecting the bottom of the visqueen and draining the furnace.  I'll also have to remove the chimney (there is no stove pipe cap, so if I don't it'll drain right into the furnace); clean the kitchen including the floor (we have a nasty problem with tracking dirt from the greenhouse area into the kitchen.  Usually I take off my shoes and leave them in the greenhouse area, but when I got water on the 19th I was too busy, so now I've got dirt tracked in again); clean up the loft and get it ready for the next inhabitant (next fall?); clean up all the computer files and get the web site in order.  No idea what things I'll drop, but I'm sure a few won't get done.

I have updated a few files; here are the links:
Foods eaten: fifth week
Mars Base Zero Diary
Questions (lots more from week five--keep them coming!!)

And of course Update Week Five, which is this information!

As usual you can access all this information throught the links page.

Through the dirt, to the Stars!
Ray C.
Mars Base Zero inhabitant  :( out of onions :(
 


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