(no subject)

Today we began drilling tests... also got a repeater up so we have net coverage in the crater, and a magazine wants an article in their next week's issue. We worked until 9:30pm, but I'm pretty happy with the day.
( Four photos from today )

live, from the drill site in the crater...

We've got communications working to here... currently sitting in the orange dome tent, listening to the drill grind and Alessandro talk to his advisor back at Georgia Tech over the IP phone that dangerpudding configured and gave me this morning. Meanwhile, this morning a helicopter stopped here and asked me for direction to base camp...

1m mark

Passed one meter in depth... now at 108cm. Alessandro is making, er, frequent use of both the IP phone and Vonage from his laptop. The better part of the past hour... granted, it's pretty dull here, just drilling and drilling. HC is literally dozed-off in his chair... but, hey, the automation is actually running the drill anyway ;).

Making hole, making progress

We drilled 46 cm today, and now are at 1.27m depth. This is as deep as the 2013 flight drill in the Mars Scout proposal was supposed to go, for reference. We had a couple of software glitches, a couple of parameters or limits that needed to be reset, and one recovery procedure needed a change to keep the drill turning when going into safe-mode. There's a bit of hole collapse/ice melt subsidience whenever we pull out the drill... we'll probably start tomorrow fresh at 1.22m. Still, we continue ahead of schedule, today was nominally supposed to be the first day of drilling. Good weather has helped, although showers are forecast for the next few days (possibly snow on my birthday :). And the IP phone works fine, as long as the satellite link stays up (CRC was apparently hit by lightning, sop our ground station on the other end was flaky today). I got the webcam in the drilling tent up, but it is only visible on the Devon-side network. For now...

Minor issues... team is getting tired after three successive 14-hour days, and time spent while drilling can be dull... leading to pent-up behaviors. Like ATV wheelies or doughnuts... not that I'm not sympathetic to some extent, but I need to have a talk with the guys tomorrow.

Meanwhile... ( 3 photos from the drillsite )