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 :(
Copyright
©
2004