MDRS crew # 7 was commanded by Franco-American geologist Charles Frankel and included Hilary Bowden (United Kingdom, journalist and health & safety officer); Stacy Cusack (USA, executive officer, CapCom and geologist); Pierre- Emmanuel Paulis (Belgium, educational liaison); Derek Shannon (USA, geobiologist); and Alain Souchier (France, engineer and CRV operator).

In the course of their 14-day stint, the international crew brought the Desert Station up to speed, implementing a number of new systems added in the past few months by Frank Schubert, Jeff Zerr and co- workers.

Most notable is the "Living Machine" water recycling system, that routes waste water from the Hab to the H. T. Odum greenhouse, where it is purified by plants (mainly water lilies), pumped back to the Hab, filtered and sterilized by ultraviolet light for re-use in domestic chores.

Fine-tuning of the system was achieved by on-board engineer Alain Souchier, with the input of Jeff Zerr through Mission Support. Biologist Derek Shannon did frequent screening for coliform bacteria in the recycled water, that came up negative, showing that the UV-filter performed flawlessly.

Our Hab Cap Com and computer expert Stacy Cusack reorganized the Hab's computer and handled the important communication loop with Mission Support "back on Earth", which was manned several hours a day by CapComs Brian Enke and Tony Muscatello, backed up by engineers Paul Graham, Dennis Creamer, Pete Gray, Randall Severy, Jeff Zerr and Robert Zubrin, and scientist Julie Edwards.

Stacy found her experience as crewmember and CapCom particularly enlightening: "I truly enjoyed interfacing with Mission Support on a daily basis. As a flight controller working in Mission Control in Houston, I never have the chance to be on the other side of the communications as a member of the crew. This was a great learning experience for me.

"I now have a better understanding of some of the challenges the space station crewmembers must overcome to be able to successfully complete their mission objectives, and to still have fun doing it."

Life aboard the Hab was a cultural experience, characterized by its multi-national line-up. As crewmember Hilary Bowden remarked, "With half the crew speaking French, there was bound to be trouble!

In fact, there was none. We had a great time together, talking about our Mars dreams and how they could be achieved."

MDRS-7 had several scientific and engineering goals, including the deployment of a ground-penetrating radar, and the testing of a Cliff Reconnaissance Vehicle to image the layering on canyon walls.

An expedition to a nearby impact crater was planned, as well as a nocturnal EVA to watch the Leonid meteor shower. Geological and biological surveys were conducted in Lithe canyon, to the north of the Hab, and at a colorful mesa visited for the first time on Stacy's birthday.

"It will be a birthday I will never forget", says she, "I was especially honored when the crew came back from their EVA and told me they had named a beautiful mesa Stacy's Cake. Since that day I have had the opportunity to visit Stacy's Cake twice � I've collected many rock samples there and climbed to the top to deploy the Cliff Reconnaissance Vehicle."

The Cliff Reconnaissance Vehicle, or CRV, was designed and operated by Alain Souchier, who "wished to test the vehicle in real conditions, in a desertic landscape and with the restriction in mobility and dexterity imposed by a spacesuit.

"The CRV version that I brought had several improvements relative to the one tested here in February by Crew-2, including a larger width, four strengthened stabilization rods, and real time video transmission."

Eleven tests of the CRV were conducted during the MDRS-7 rotation. On 30-degree slopes the vehicle's behavior was improved, while numerous overturnings of the tethered robot were encountered on vertical cliffs. In every case, however, the video camera beamed back useful pictures of the cliff layers, that the crew geologists could easily interpret.

The crew's expedition to Upheaval Dome, believed to be the exhumed basement of an impact crater, was a high point of the mission. Alain Souchier was moved by the experience: "There was something magical about standing in a spacesuit on the rim of a meteoritic impact crater, just as it was magical to ride our Kawasaki ATVs in spacesuits, at sunset, in the desert around the Hab."

For Hilary Bowden, "there were lots of great moments. But watching the Leonid meteor shower in the middle of a cold desert night was one of the best." In spacesuits, with helmets on, the crew was able to count as many meteors as unimpeded observers elsewhere on Earth, with a maximum count of 6 meteors per minute around 4:00 AM MST.

But the most thorough scientific investigation was performed by geobiologist Derek Shannon, who "looked for simple fossil life and simple, hardy extant life, as scientists will one day on Mars.

Early in the mission, we found two stromatolites, simple fossil life that illuminates much of the early history of life on Earth, and could do the same on Mars.

On the extant life front, our search for endoliths, hypoliths, and other extreme organisms that could very well be found on Mars, met with success in the second week, when we found lichens out in the field. Back in the lab, controlled experiments examining flecks from the interior fractures of nearby sandstone showed that tiny spheres were likely to be endolithic microbes."

All in all, the MDRS-7 rotation was an enlightening experience that merged science, engineering, and a good deal of intuition and ingenuity. "With assistance from Mission Support, we were able to overcome every single problem we encountered", stressed Stacy Cusack.

"I don't think Charles, Alain, nor I will ever forget our late night greenhouse repair operations. This experience just proves how adaptive humans can be when necessary. It also further reiterates how important it is to send humans to Mars. Robotic explorers will be necessary to support and assist the crew, but human beings are needed to perform true exploration. It is our natural instinct and intuition that help us achieve amazing things."

Instructor and crewmember Pierre-Emmanuel Paulis recaps his experience by stressing how impressed he was "by the constant parallel between the history of our planet, that we were deciphering here in Utah - our origins - and the extraterrestrial future that we have the honor of preparing. The pioneering spirit, that runs through us all, is the bridge that connects past and future.

"We were blissed with the extraordinary beauty of the site, our shared passion for the exploration of space, and our scientific, technological, and educative spirit."

The changeover to crew # 8, to be commanded by John "Dusty" Samouce, will take place on the weekend of November 22.

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