AsclepiosCast #22 - Asclepios V: Mission Special part 1 - Astronaut Crew

[MUSIC] >> Hello, everyone, and welcome to a Sculapios cast. My name is Mateusz, and I'm one of the analog astronauts of the Sculapios 5 mission. And today, after maybe three or four weeks without any episode, we have what might be, I think, the most special episode of the entire mission and the most weighted episode, which is the episode where we're going to be talking about our mission that happened from the 20th of July until the 7th of August. The mission this year happened in Sassus and Gotardou in a bunker in the Italian part of Switzerland. The design of our mission this year was a 19-day mission where we had three expeditions doing crew rotation during these 19 days. And we had one expedition, Expedition 1 composed by me, Nathan and Ilina, that we stayed the 19 days in the base. We had Expedition 2 composed by Ella, Matthew and Joachim, who stayed in the mission for the first 10 days. And Expedition 3 with Pedro, Vic and Max, who stayed in the mission for the last 10 days. So the middle day of the mission, the 10th day, was the day where the 9 astronauts were in the base together. And in this mission, we have different roles. So for the role of commander, I was playing this role. We had science officers being Pedro, Ilina and Matthew. We had Bayes engineers, Joachim and Vic, health officers, Ella and Max, and communications officer, Nathan. So now that I already gave you a little bit of an overview of the mission of the Ascolpios 5. So for 2025, now I'd like to introduce all our participants of today. So it's again, as the Extreme Environment Training episode. The entire crew of Ascolpios 5. So I welcome here the other 8 astronauts, Ella, Ilina, Matthew, Pedro, Joachim, Nathan, Max, and Vic. How are you guys doing? - Good. - Hello. - Hello. - Hello. - I'm doing awesome. - It is. - I'm excited to be here. - Glad to see all your lovely faces again. - Yes, I've missed their Sunday meetings, so that's great. - Yeah, it's really nice to see all of you, even if it's like through Zoom. We don't see Max now because Max is in the middle of the ocean, but Max is also participating in this. So yeah, how can we start with this? So maybe we can start talking a little bit about everyone's opinions or everyone's overview on the mission. Did you guys like it? Did you guys didn't like it? Did you have fun? Tell me a little bit about it. I honestly keep thinking this is the hardest question when people ask me like, "Oh, how was the moon?" It was like, "How do I summarize in a quick small talk?" Question like, "What do you think about the entire mission?" Because I think it was crazy. It was great. I always start by saying, "I would do it again." I love my crew. These are my two main points. I would do it again. I love my crew. I think a lot of it was challenging. I think a lot of it was challenging in a very good way. And a lot of it was very fun. So it was amazing. And it's hard to summarize in just a few quick words. But that tends to be my reply when people ask me these days. How was your time on the moon? Also, I feel like the mission itself was a lot of fun. It was super crazy being there and it was a completely unique experience. Honestly, for me, the hardest part, despite the ways we were challenged in there, the hardest part is returning to society. I do not feel like a normal human being since getting back. And I feel like the mission itself was so much fun and I really enjoyed it. And like I said, I think we were all challenged in different ways. But dear God, trying to be a normal human being after being on the moon is very, very funny and interesting. Yeah. I would say it's very interesting how quickly you kind of adapt and maybe how slowly you adapt back. And maybe you adapt back slowly because no one else has to adapt back slowly. So no one else is adapting back. So it feels really slow because no one else is adapting at all. And they just expect you to be like, they're right away. Whereas going people expect an adjustment. Everyone else is adjusting with you. But like definitely going back, I missed a really, really important meeting on Friday, everyone's like, why can't you respond to my emails? And I was like, I got out one or two days ago. I've been on an international flight. I'm like mostly caught up. But it's like so many things is like, why do I have to keep track of my own time and handle and juggle my own responsibilities and commitments? Why can't I have an FAO make my flight plan for me and just tell me what to do? And then people are sad I can't do two things at once. No one's sad that I can't do two things at once. I have an FAO. I have my little time blocks and like same thing. Like, what do you mean I have to grocery shop and prepare food? Let me just have a little sheet and pour boiling water into things. What do you mean? This is weird. I'm the same. I feel like after the mission has been harder than the mission itself. I feel like everyone with choice and I have things to do. And I don't know how to structure my life anymore. And like, I was talking to my family in such things. Because I'm still on some holidays as well. So I've got to prepare for university. And it's just like a lot of work and there's no structure to it. And I was talking to my family about this. And I was like, guys, I have so much work to do, but I don't know what to do. And they like don't really understand that I've been living in the past two weeks with such structure and like, such sort of tight requirements to get everything done. And I've now just been plunged into like the exact opposite where I have no flight plan, no kind of timeline on what I have to get done. And it's just really weird trying to add that back to that. I feel like also the hardest part for me was the fact that people don't really relate to it. So you keep telling people about your amazing experiences. And they get you get like, oh, cool. That's what you get back. And yeah, it's just people don't relate to the experience of being isolated in that kind of environment and only having like the capcom as your like reference to the outside world. It's an extremely different way of living. Again, a lot of people being like, oh, but like I wouldn't do that. Why did you do that? And I'm like, it was the most fun I've ever had. You don't get it. And they truly do not get it. Because they think a lot of the stories I tell sound very uncomfortable. But I think it was a challenge that got way, you know? So I fully agree with you rocking. I feel like the weird thing is like when people are like, oh, how did it go? And you're like, good. But then you're like, they don't, they wouldn't think that this is good. Like being stuck in a bunker without like any contact with anyone. Like that's not the conventional definition of like being good. But for me, it's good. And then it's like just a small talk question. So you're like, yeah, it was good. But like I can't really elaborate in like two sentences. Why I think it was good because you're going to think that that's horrible. And it would suck. So it's just like, I think that's like my most dreaded question. It's like, what do you have? How do you enjoy it? And I'm like, I really liked it. There's like what you're insane. Yeah, I was a loss of when the people asked that. I try and be very general about it. Because it's impossible to sit there and explain just how like, for example, the funniest moment of my life is a freeway trade between soybeans, green beans and stinkpeaks. How do you explain that to a normal person? I don't know. Like you can't put that quite in context. Like how I gave myself a headache from laughing so hard through that trade. And it doesn't make any sense to anyone. And so when people ask me these questions, I just, I very much revert back to just saying, oh yeah, it was really fun and fantastic. And I would 100% do it again. And then they ask a bit deeper questions. Like, oh, what did you do? And I was like, uh, what did I do? And I don't know how to explain it. I keep having people ask me what science experiments I did. And I keep forgetting all of them. And being like, I filled out a lot of forms. And I wore this silly watch. There was a robot in the Netherlands. I don't know. And they're like, were you doing real science? What the heck were you? Is this fake? Did someone scam you? Yeah, I feel like every time I like tell people about an experience, there's just so much backstory that goes with it that I don't have time to tell. So I just sound like a crazy maniac. Like, oh, the beans, the, the EVAs, the, you know, it's just like, yeah, like I can't possibly tell them everything because there's just too much. And then it just sounds like it was a really boring experience when it wasn't. I had the exact same moment when I got back in like my local coffee shop. I went to like my usual baristas and I'm like, oh my god, Nathan's back. You know, they were like, how was it? And I was like, oh, like, you know, they were like, what's the funniest part of it? I was like, okay, so yeah, so there was this like this. We became obsessed with this guy, Andrew Les, and I was like, oh no, because then they finished my coffee and the next customer was there. I was like, I do not have enough time to explain the entirety of why I was calling Andrew Les, and drama to Les Minister in the next five, like in the next five seconds, I do not have the time to do that. So I was just like, oh, yeah, he was like a super cute guy and then ran away, then just ran, ran away. That's the funniest thing about this is maybe Andrew will listen to this. And I don't think he knows like what an icon he has been to us. Just based on him being on Capcom and just being Andrew Les indeed. What a guy. Also, it's very silly because I currently live with five other young people in their 20s who all study engineering or technology or science. And it's very silly because I'm like in this weird parallel universe where I went from living with five roommates who were all young people who did engineering and science and technology to a different five. And it's like, you are not Nathan shaped, though. Honey, nobody's Nathan shaped. Yeah, I think there was a lot of expectation from everybody. Like before the mission, like we were very excited, I think. And talking about the days before, since most of you were talking about the days after. Like I think we were all very motivated to go inside to like start with the mission. Like we had some work to do. And like some final science dreams that we had to do when we first arrived. And I think by the end of it, especially like on the last day when we had done, I think it was a very like full circle moment when we were all together. And yeah, I think by the end of it, it was quite emotional because throughout the year, we worked so much for that moment. And yeah, I think overall, it was a very good experience. And now coming out, I do agree with what everybody said that it's quite difficult to explain to people that don't understand exactly what we've done, how does it feel and why exactly did we do it. But it was a really great experience. Well, thank you everyone for sharing your experience. So I think a common thing that everyone thinks is how hard it is to make sense when you're talking to people on what we did. So maybe this is a good time since we have time here to explain what we did. So just to contextualize a little bit, we were simulating a moon mission. So we were in a base that was supposedly inside of the moon. And we had some tunnels around us that could allow us to go to the surface when we were doing our EVAs. And our EVAs were only done during the night. So during the entirety of the mission, we did not have any sunlight. And also some of the other challenges or restrictions that we had were in terms of isolation. So it was just the astronauts. We did not have communications through the outside world during the entire period. We could only communicate through the MCC, through a delay voice loop. So to also simulate the communication between Earth and the moon, we could not take showers. Like usually when I say the experiences to people, they say some people like hikers or people who are used to backpacking. They're like, yeah, I think I could do the food and this kind of stuff. But when you say no shower for 20 days, they're a bit like, oh, so yeah, we could only take one shower each of us during the entirety of the mission. A shower limited to 10 minutes. And it was up to us to select when we were going to shower. In terms of sleeping, we slept during the entire time. In some kind of sunbeds with sleeping bags on top of it, we had water containers and many times we had problems with our water. So I think this is also something that we're going to be talking. Food was liableized food, already hydrated food during the entire entirety of the mission. And of course, this is just some of the constraints. But also we had a very, as Vic mentioned, we had a flight plan for each of us. So our routine was very organized. So maybe I'll ask Ella to explain a little bit about the data life since Ella also talked about the data life when we did the Instagram life. So Ella, if you can explain to everyone a little bit how was our days in terms of scientific experiments. You don't need to go into details into all the experiments. But a little bit of what we did so people can understand what's the routine of an analog astronaut simulating a moon mission. Yes, so our daily life was very governed by the flight plan. Which I think some of us have already brought up and how it's weird to be outside of the base. I actually have to decide what to do today because the flight plan tells you exactly what you're supposed to do of what time and mission control sort of plans that for you. The FAO is the planning officer. So we have a briefing in the morning, usually right after waking up, we speak to mission control about anything that's coming up in the day. That's our morning briefing. We have breakfast of course and then we do medical checks. So as the medical officers, Max or me or both of us would check everyone with their daily life tools and all of that, talk to everybody about their health. So that is sort of the thing that we do in the morning. Also other things like brush your teeth. This is the morning routine and it includes breakfast, brushing teeth, but which are earth routines. But then also medical check and morning briefing. And then during the day, the things we do would sort of depend on your role. There is a lot of science that we do, but maybe the base engineer has more of a task to do with maintenance of something or taking inventory of something. Maybe there's something else that the medical officer needs to do. But the science officers definitely are more responsible for the experiments, but we do all do science experiments throughout the day. We had a bunch of different collaborators this year and we did different projects, including adrenaline and algae experiment, other fun stuff like that. And then if it was either you had two different types of days in the base to be honest. So you either had an EVA day or non EVA day. EVA days tend to be a bit busier just because there's more in the schedule. So on EVA days, it's a day where two of us or three of us are going to go outside on the moon surface, which then means that in the evening, we have EVA prep soothing up and then actually doing the EVA doing some experiments outside. But on non EVA days, maybe the schedule's a bit calmer. What I did not mention before is that we all do two hours of sports every day. So that is maybe something you also have in your schedule on a camera. Like you have that in your schedule every day. So we also do two hours of sports every day. And then in the evening, we have a dinner and a debriefing, of course. And then when you get to sleep and the whole cycle repeats, you basically just try to stick to the flight plan, try to stay on top of everything, coordinate with mission control. It's a lot of science work, but also some daily life tasks like breakfast lunch dinners, boards, medical checks, some maintenance of the base or whatever. But that's kind of daily life. We do have some free time as well, which we use for the first whole project. I did a bit of crochet. We had a switch, we played some video games. We played Bonanza, which I think we're going to talk about a lot, but also other board games and it ran a D&D campaign for us. So sometimes there is free time on the moon. I mean, I think we might produce a thought. Oh, thank you very much. Hello for explaining a little bit. So now I think we can dive with a bit more details into each of the things we were doing. So maybe we can start with a bit of science since this is one of the main purposes of another location. So as we mentioned in many of the episodes, we want to be useful as a testbed for space science that's being conduced on Earth. And also it's a good testbed for people who want to be trained as astronauts to face some of the challenges. But yeah, so this year we had 18 scientific experiments. A lot of them were more focused in the isolation parts or human factors and how factors like food or sleep or sports or all of these kind of things affect our daily life. But we also had some more technical experiments. So yeah, now I'd like to open for anyone who would like to talk a little bit about the experiments. What experiments did you guys like the most or what kind of things did you guys like doing at any point? Did you feel like, oh, I'm actually contributing for this for as a space mission, as an analog space mission. So what was your views in the scientific side of the mission? Yeah, I can talk a little bit about it. So yeah, the experiments, as you said, there was a wide range of them. I think, predominantly though, they focused around the psychology of isolation. So a lot of them were evaluating how like our psychological state evolved throughout the mission. Also using like our pre-mission measurements as one of a baseline. And a lot of the experiments sort of asked us question through question is how we were feeling during the day, how we sort of dealt with challenges during our day, how we dealt with stress, how we sort of felt throughout. I did feel some of the experiments did work on the assumption that every day was a really stressful day for us. When sometimes it just wasn't the case. Like sometimes we just had a good day together. And the experiments, the question is, we'll ask us like, how did you deal with your stressful day or what were your coping strategy? And I was like, I just had to chill day. But yeah, a lot of the other ones actually assessed like very specific parts of the space mission. For example, experiments like Kiron was a nice simple, a cool simulation of a stressful medical emergency during an EVA. And we got to sit down for a few hours and roleplay this sort of simulation with not only members of the base, but also members of the MCC, which I thought was a really cool and creative experiment. There were a few others like EVA risk, which had another simulated emergency, but there was others like no longer herfling, which allowed us to journal every day. And that checked how we sort of not only deal with psychological stress, but also how we perceive it as individuals over time. And I thought that was really interesting as well. Now, there was obviously a few other experiments which were more base-related. There was algae, which was run by Alvaro and Ella, big love Ella. I'm not sure how the analysis for algae is going, but in the base, it proved to be quite stressful. I know for Ella. I hope it went well. But yeah, it was a really cool experiment, which looked at how algae growth in isolated environments could be improved. Do you want to talk a bit about algae, actually, Ella? I can talk about it. Okay. Yeah, during the mission, I had some challenges, I haven't looked at the data yet, because I'm now in my exam phase. Algae, I think I mentioned in my podcast episode as well, is an experiment that looks at microalgae growth under the base conditions, because microalgae are super interesting for, like, fire, regenerative, life support systems. Classic one is, "Takes YouTube Make Oxygen Out of It Again." Could also be a protein source for astronauts. Basically, algae are fun. We want to look at them for space. So I wanted to look how they grow up in our base. So I had to evaluate them under the environmental conditions, specifically the problem that Matthew talked about was that in the room that I had it set up, the sensor failed. So over the time of the mission, I had this like extra thing to think about of what I'm going to do now that I don't have the CO2 values, and I think we came up with a good solution, put it in a different room. But that's what Matthew means. So he says, "Oh, it turned out to be a bit stressful." I think at the end, again, it's a challenge to be overcame together, but that's also stuff that happens in your daily life at the base. Yeah, did you end up getting like good enough data to go forward with your analysis? Ask me about that in like three weeks minimum, because right now I have a lot of university exams, right? And honestly, I feel like if I now look at the data and it looks bad, because of some other reason, I'm going to be so distracted trying to work that problem that I can't look at a chance to stay tuned for taxes. Understandable. Yeah, I'll give it over to some of the other science offices to talk about other experiments too. So, draft is another experiment that we did in the base. I know it was looking at different air filtration systems, and they had three different substrates that they were monitoring throughout the mission. So each day we would go and search the valves, just which substrate was actually filtering air. None of the data collection was on our side that's all handled by the PIs. So, we're just, I mean, it'll be interesting to see what kind of data they collected once they publish their research. Another project that we had was humanize, which is controlling a robot that is based in the Netherlands and we're controlling it remotely. This is actually something that I learned, like actually this week that some of the astronauts, like real astronauts also, like, gets trainings about and something that in the future will be important for astronauts, either like on space stations or on habitats to be able to, like, control rover that are directly on, like, space, like, ground and environment. And so it was quite interesting for us to be able to, like, control a rover that was, like, on another country. Like, we needed to find specific projects, and we needed, like, we did a amount of time. So it was a bit challenging because, like, the comments, of course, have, you can imagine, are not, like, have, have, like, some delay to it. So we need to, like, be able to understand exactly how it works before we go and try to perform the tasks with the robots. So I think that was kind of a challenging experiment for us also to perform. Apart from these experiments that we, they were mentioned that we were doing them at the base. Some experiments were also done outside when we were doing EVAs, which made, like, now it can be another topic that we can talk about. So there was Meeva and AstroGrip. So Max, do you want to talk a little bit about AstroGrip since you got to do an UVA with it? And I made Matthew and Joachim as well, since you guys also did it. Yeah, sure. So AstroGrip was also a really cool science experiment we did, which was based on a glove that had been specifically designed to test Luna Regolith. So what it had was different capsules where you could collect Luna dust, which is either Mara or Highland. And it also had a lot of different sensors. So it had a distance sensor, pressure sensor, temperature sensor, and a spectrometer, I believe, that tested the Luna samples. So we'd go out on EVAs. We'd go outside of the base and onto the simulated Luna surface. And we would collect Luna Regolith and test it with all of these parameters. And it's kind of as Glapios can really acted as a sort of test bed to see if this glove could be used for Luna missions and see if it could help provide information and data when astronauts one day do go to the moon and set up a base there and collect more Regolith. I almost said over, but I stopped myself. Yeah, the other experiment that we had that we grew from during EVAs was the Meeva experiment, which was then by everybody, all of students, from Oli Mee in Atlanta. So it was an experiment that we also had in the Stapios 4 and that the astronauts had some troubles with. So basically, Meeva is a system that performs cooling for the spaceshoots. So basically, we have our own spaceshoots to go on EVA. And sometimes it's like quite intense and we need to walk a lot and perform also like physical activities. So it gets really important how like a cooling system and real spaces also have a very developed and complex cooling system to maintain astronauts throughout long hours during and performing EVAs. So basically, Meeva was this kind of system that we needed to use so that we could keep our body in like a stable temperature and cools while we were performing EVAs. And initially in the first EVAs that we performed and used Meeva, we had some issues and like some leaks that we encountered. But for our last EVA, I wore Meeva with one of our orange shoots. And fortunately, like we told like the issue that was solved by I think it was Irina and Ella that like then did some troubleshooting with it and with the help of the PI's from putting me, they like soaked all the issues. And so I was able to use Meeva for the final EVA. And it worked quite quite well. So like it takes some, so we can use it in like auto mode or like manual mode. And it takes some time for like the water to go through the system and to like start cooling. But I think it was quite interesting to see how it worked and to feel it's cooling. So I think after two years it was quite a successful experiment. And it quite shows that in one year, it cannot work. But if like students continue to work on it and if the PI's like stick on it, like SVAPUs can be a good platform to test and improve the technical systems. And I'm sure they have more developments to make for Meeva if they want to test it for the next years. I just wanted to add, it's like one of the experiments that we had challenges with in the beginning. And that doesn't mean that the experiment is failed. That means that we're working the problem. And then we have the entirety of the mission to get it to work. And in the end, we did. So Lina and I had some problems with it in the beginning. We did a lot of work with them with the PI's as well and the science team. And we got something out of it. So this is like something where you actively in the field learn how to improve operate some figure stuff out, which is great. Like that is what we want to do in our analogue missions. And then as Pedro has said, between the mission last year and this mission has been improvements and then they can improve improve it even further, which is great. And it's just algae that had some problems that we figured out. Yeah, I just wanted to say this is one of the roles of astronauts, right? So in real space missions, but also in analogue missions. So a lot of the experiments as we were saying, like draft, the measurements were already being taken. So the astronauts are there to do a role more of maintenance or like seeing if everything's going well. But we need to ensure that the experiments are going in the right direction. So sometimes when we have problems with AstroGrip or Meeva or anything, we need to do some solutions inside the base because we want to have the results. So now I think Joachim can maybe talk a little bit about some of these other things that come with a scientific experiments or repairs in general, such as with the orange spacesuits that we had some problems. So yeah, if you want to jump on this, like problem solving solutions and how did you guys feel about it? Like I think some other people also worked on it. But Joachim has a base engineer for the first days had to deal with a lot of it. Just continuing on some of the Meeva experiments. Obviously we had a lot of trouble. I also worked on a fix on it with like an improvised O-ring as well, to make it not leaked. And yeah, so Meeva required us to use the orange suits, which are the all-disglep your suits that we've been using for previous missions. And they were not in the best of state to say, say mildly before the mission. So we spent a lot of time in the basement of the base trying to repair those suits, just make them wearable, at least. So they were never going to be comfy, but we just needed them to, like, not fall apart when we put them on. And just be able to make them able to have Meeva on the back as well. And I think in the end, we did succeed with that. And Petra went out in the orange suit with Meeva on the back. And it was a great success. So yeah, that was part of my responsibility as base engineer. Besides that, I also tried to make some stuff work for LS sensors for the algae experiment as well. Unfortunately, we had some issues with Arduino code and a lack of time to really investigate the problem in depth. So we came up with a solution to move the algae experiment instead of finishing up the new sensors. So yeah, and then I had some other tasks as well in the base, which were just very, maybe some basic tasks, but still very important, such as keeping the base in good shape and making sure we don't blow any fuses and keeping everything clean and keeping the inventory of the food and our equipment in place. So we don't lose anything. Yeah, another one that you guys did that I think took a lot of hands in different moments were also trying to fix and troubleshoot the display problems with faster grip, right? So a lot of people here did a bit of soldering or tried to go here and there with the cables. So also if you want to explain a little bit about this. Yeah, I mean, when I was testing it for the first EVA, it was in a pretty decent state actually. It was working reasonably well. I believe like after a couple of EVAs, it started, the cables started to degrade a bit and I think the connection started to come loose, which is why towards the end, I think you guys were actually like trying to solder it back together. But I never actually got to try any of that. But yeah, AstroGrip was a really cool. And yes, as Ella said, I got attacked by Moffs while wearing AstroGrip. I don't know if it was full, full wearing AstroGrip, but yeah, I mean, AstroGrip was a really cool experiment. It's a shame some of the sensors didn't get to work properly, but in the end, I think it was a really cool concept. And I think as they take it forward, it can be really, really good. Once they get those connections a little bit more sorted. Yeah, Alina, did you want to talk at all about the? With AstroGrip, we ended up having, like as it was being used and like a lot of things are going on. We had an emergency EVA with Pedro, who was wearing AstroGrip. So unfortunately, it did get a little bit manhandled. And after that, we found some issues with the display and some other connections. I was able to solder back like most of everything or at least what I could, but there are still some things that like got dislodged and we weren't exactly sure where it was able to go. So we got really good, like opposite of Meeva, we got really good data at the beginning of the mission and towards the end. Unfortunately, we spent a lot of time repairing it, but weren't able to get it back to fully functioning. So AstroGrip is now back in Germany and it will return to the Berlin student team there's. So it's one of the, like just like Meeva, they started working on it last year and then this year we could have, like it was at a state where it was mission ready and could go on the specules five mission. And I trust that now that they've gotten this data from the beginning of the mission and as soon as they are the clubs are back with them, they'll be able to fix them up as well and learn from that and also know that maybe the cable connections they had so far are not as stable for like actual interior operations. So maybe, maybe it was for more of AstroGrip. I'd be happy excited for that personally. In the Matthew and some other people mentioned some of the EVA experiences. So as Matthew mentioned the most, but we also said that some of the experiments were used while doing the EVAs. And I think for the majority of us, the EVAs were quite a break in the routine because it's the only moment where we can go outside of the base. So I think now it can be a nice moment for us to jump a little bit into the EVA experiences and some of the, yeah, how did you guys like the EVAs? What kind of things were we doing in the EVAs and your personal experiences on it? I think all of us had three EVAs minimum or all of us had three EVAs. So my first two EVAs were both inside of the tunnel structure so not actually going outside. There might be various reasons why we do that. We might stay inside of the tunnel structure of Sassasangadardo because it's raining or because the experiments were fired or whatever. So my first three EVAs were inside, including experiments inside of the tunnels. So for the third one I actually got to go out and that was a super exciting day for me. That was also the like the last big thing that we did on the mission because my crew, so Joachim Matthew and I, we accident roughly like slightly after the halfway point of the whole mission because we were there for the first time. So it was the last big thing we got to do together. I got to go outside which I hadn't been able to do on the previous EVAs. We walked across the moon surface. We saw the stories through our helmets, our space helmets. So that was super amazing. It was also a very interesting challenge that we had to complete in that day. The task was to retrieve a like unmanned cargo ship from a crash site. So we had to navigate the rocky terrain in our space suits, find a blinking and beeping object and then take that back up the stairs inside of Sassasangadardo, the icon, the infinite pain and suffering staircase because it is very long and you're in a space suit and you're carrying stuff. So we got to try out the ergonomics of the suits on these suits. So we had to go up them with the cargo that we retrieved on that EVA and then fix the antenna and return safely to the base. So I think out of the three EVAs I got to do that was my absolute favorite seeing the night sky was absolutely amazing. It was super nice to do it together as an last thing as crew two together. So three astronauts in that situation. Yeah, so for me that was my very favorite EVA out of the mission I think. The others were cool as well. They involved different science experiments. One of them was for Lunilex which looked at what I'd be like to retrieve like an alien specimen or an EVA sample on the moon and also mental laugh for example which is an experiment we did on the EVA. So lots of different tasks to do on an EVA and it's always very fun and you get to go out and see something else than your little base in the inside of the suits. What about for you, Vic? My experiences on the EVA, I would say generally I had pretty good EVAs. I had the emergency EVA with Pedro. I had the antenna EVA that we all had that was like kind of a little frustrating for me Max and Pedro just because it didn't seem like there was like a full solution and then we talked to Ilias afterwards and it turns out that there was a way to solve it but you needed internet connection but like I tried to I went to like the back end of the software and saw that it was saying there was an issue with connection and I told Ilias about that issue but then over the radio it was like just keep working on it fix it the solution's really intuitive and so I think that one of the things a lot of the EVAs showed us and then the one you me Alina and Pedro did was like the communication and like the importance in like really detailed specific communication on both our side and the MCC side and I think that like different trainings and strategies on that could be implemented in future analog missions and be really really important because things like oh this thing we're carrying Pedro in is heavy and then being like well do you think it's possible and us being like well maybe it's possible theoretically maybe is it realistic would it take us hours and hours and we'd have to stop every five minutes so it's like what do they mean by possible what do we mean by heavy or other things like what is MCC mean when they mean oh it's really intuitive and then to us it's not intuitive and theoretically it would be intuitive but there's not a connection but am I not communicating that or do they want to not give us that like full feedback and just have us proceed I think some things could be at least on my end on the EVAs very interesting and sometimes hard to tell of like is this there's not detailed enough communication flowing from either ends like I'm not giving them enough detailed communication they're not giving me detailed enough communication or is this they're not giving me all the information specifically to see how I solve it and figure it out and I think it was a mix of both but it can sometimes be hard to be like am I over or under communicating am I communicating right is this an unknown that should stay an unknown or an unknown which we should have detailed communication to solve it out so that was really interesting with the EVAs so you mentioned the EVA of the emergency maybe Pedro can explain a little bit about this one because Pedro is a big actor and yeah I'll let it for you yeah I will think about it like when when you were talking about it like it seemed like I did something wrong but yeah so basically what happens so before EVAs so just for people to be aware we receive always this EVA package where basically all the information regarding our EVA is written and documented for us to read before and so that we are able to prepare so all the equipment that we are going to use the experiments that we are going to perform and which Astra is going to be to be doing what so that we can organize it and basically on that day before the EVA I was called in for a private BME talk so basically the BME which is our biomedical engineering in the MCC can like ask to talk with us privately in one of the loops or we can also request to have that meeting and so I was requested to have this meeting and I was asked that during the EVA I simulated that that I had broken my ankle and that I should try to act it out and then also role play according to the symptoms that I would have but which were presented to me and then basically according to that we would see how mainly the rest of the crew would respond so basically I was in that EVA with Vic so we always went two of us at least and we went to two of us I was also performing a AstroGrip so we went to the working side after the tunnel we performed AstroGrip and then we communicated with the astronauts that were inside of the base so it was at the time Nathan Max, Matthews and Elina that I had broken my ankle and at the time initially we received some advice that we should like stop of this that we should like evaluate the situation and then I believe that Matthews and Elina were instructed by the MCC to go get me because I was not according to the role play able to get back to the base without help of other astronauts and so then Matthews and Elina needed to like try to dock their suits as fast as it could go get a stretcher which was apparently quite heavy and was in point echo of the base which was of the of the lunar surface which was like up some stairs and quite far away so they were quite already tired when he got to me and Vic and then we didn't take that much time to realize that it was going to be very complicated for the three of them to take me in the stretcher which was already heavy to the base because we were very far away and we were like we were taking at least one minute to walk like 20, 20, 30 meters so it was like a very long and hard intense process and then we like needed to figure out different ways for them to like try to take me to the base without first damaging further the the ankle and taking all the equipment that we had we does already and what Vic was saying about communication is that sometimes we felt that there was not the least communication but it was difficult to explain to Nathan and to Max exactly what were the conditions that we were in why EVNM and those in Vic were not able to take me in the stretcher and exactly what were the conditions that we we were presented with because first we were in a emergency to get me inside of the base so that they could treat my ankle and secondly because we the we the suits it's quite difficult to communicate via the radio and also between each other because we almost need to like shout to hear to hear each other talk so I think by the end of that EVA we were all quite exhausted especially them physically because I was basically been like taken by by them so it was like I think a four hour long EVA I think it was the longest EVA and EVA it was quite exhausting and but I think overall we were quite able to manage the situation has a team I think all of you were like very caring with me and you all like try to make sure that like I was always okay and that my ankle was always okay and I think overall it was quite a success and it showed the importance of having a good crew with like huge communication with like urgency understanding of what what needs to be done and how so I think that's that's when training shows its importance and I think that that that EVA was quite important for for us to to perform yeah just one thing that you mentioned that I think it's really nice to say because this was an EVA that probably involved the most astronauts so there were seven astronauts involved so there was Vic and Pedro who went then Idina and I got called for emergency then we had Nathan and Max Nathan doing the communications and we had Max doing the entire magical procedures that all the instructions that were forward to us and we had Yoakim in the MCC so was seven out of the nine astronauts involved in one EVA that took four hours so I will also ask to Idina to tell a little bit about this side of like going from not knowing what's going to be your EVA to being called to do an emergency and probably the most physically demanding EVA and also like after to ask Max to explain also all these communication things but also like how was for you as a medicine student and health officer having to deal with a magical emergency in this EVA for our EVA there was a slight like slight plan mix up towards the end of our mission so mine amate is this EVA ended up getting cut out of the flight plan so we kept like every day like every every shift we're asking like so we do have an EVA right like everyone else gets three EVAs we do have an EVA and they're like yeah yeah we just like can't tell you when it is we're like okay um and then it was like the second to last day of our mission and um Pedro and Vic had gone to EVA and with this and I were getting ready for sports and Nathan comes up to us and he's like Pedro Spain is an ankle and I think from like and he's like this is not a drill Pedro Spain's ankle and and at this point I was like I can't tell if this is real or not so I'm just going to act as if it is real and we need to go get Pedro so what this and I were like okay uh we suited up and um left the base and we were they're like okay you need to go get a structure at the top of the stairs and these some stairs that Pedro was talking about was the same stairs that Ella was talking about which are five like five hundred steps in like pitch black and it looks never ending and it is so steep so we went all the way up that and then turned down a hallway which was an extremely ominous hallway where it was like there was one light like in the far distance but you can't tell like what's between you and that light and the structure was like tied down to a cart and you're like okay this shouldn't be too bad and then we picked it up and it was like quite heavy and we had to go all the way back down those five hundred stairs with it and then we were picking up thick and Pedro and it kind of like going through all the medical procedures outlined by Maxery is like you need to stabilize the ankle we need to make sure that Pedro is warm and like secure on the stretcher and um need to make sure that we yeah make sure he's stabilized while we're carrying him um which I think one of the things that Victor talked about earlier was like this heaviest stretcher with Pedro on it was overall just a really heavy system that like we could have carried like back to the base but it took like 20 minutes to get down between like two checkpoints that normally take maybe like three minutes to cross or not even and yeah we tried to convey this to the MCC and what we thought was very clear terms and obviously there were a lot of communication issues or I rather communication struggles that we didn't even realize were struggles until they were like just carry him and we're like that's really hard and and then MC was like but it if it's hard that means you can still carry him right but we never told them like this is how heavy it is this is how much we're struggling and all of that so we eventually came to the conclusion that we could ditch the uh stretcher and then we started taking turns carrying Pedro where it was like two people um and and he was like between two people and like hopping on a leg or there was two people supporting him and then one person front with um uh like carrying his like holding his legs up um so that his ankle is at least more stabilized but yeah it was it was really hard um I think it's important to like know where our limits lie and know where like yes it's important to stabilize his leg but we also need to get Pedro back to the base as fast as possible so that he can be treated so what is the best way to get him there with minimizing further damage and stuff so it was a really interesting uh EVA it was definitely the hardest one that I was a part of but yeah so I'd say generally about that EVA that was a really really great EVA um as Matea said it involved everyone so I think we were really tested as a team and at the end of it when we had our debriefing we kind of felt closer than ever especially in such a sort of extreme situation um not just socially but we'd kind of practically got come together to help Pedro who is a very good actor it turns out um medically though yeah it was also really cool for me as the medical officer in the base at that point in time because it kind of felt like a really real situation that I had to deal with so while Nathan was on the comms communicating on the information to the astronauts who were out there and helping Pedro I was setting up the medical room I was kind of reviewing the procedures that I have to do when Pedro got back I was also like uh communicating to Nathan the information to give to you guys and and telling you what to prioritize and how to stabilize the ankle so it really kind of tested my skills as a medical officer and I guess just a medical student more generally like my medical knowledge and being able to think under pressure and work in stressful situations which is like one of the main reasons I'm interested in this and so I thought that was a really great V.A. for me like being able to do what I really love doing um and thinking on my feet and then when they got back to the base and they'd rescue Pedro it was also great because I got to use the medical equipment um make sure that Pedro was okay and then Pedro had a heart attack which nobody's mentioned yet but Pedro simulated having a heart attack which was really funny I mean it's not funny uh please don't revoke my medical license but um the way I don't know I think it was it just it kept me on my feet the whole way throughout and it was a really really cool V.A. both kind of as a team and also for me uh given like my background and kind of testing my medical knowledge I have an insight into this and you said that it sort of made you be closer together as a team and like challenged you all and there were so many astronauts involved I was in the MCC at the time so my crew had already left the base and I was doing a capcom shift before um and it we had felt an MCC that the mood was kind of like it was towards the end of the mission everybody was kind of quite tired and the mood was a bit lower than in the beginning of the mission and I was like thinking about this as like um oh um it's gonna be another like stressful thing in the evening that's gonna take a lot of energy out of them like what is the state of the astronaut that I'm gonna come to by my next shift um but then when I came there I was like oh everybody's in a good mood because everybody did an interesting and fun thing and I think for us a lot of it ended up being that way we're from the MCC side uh on a very surface level we would be like for the people in MCC would be like oh this will be stressful this will exhaust them or this will decrease their mood when actually it turned out to make everybody smooth a lot better so even so from my perspective I first saw uh you all being tired and stressed and then doing a hard thing and then coming back and actually being in a in a better mood which was very interesting from what I said yeah I just had like an interesting comment on that whereas I feel like for both myself and I think MCC there is like this disconnect a little bit of like what do you think a good day and a bad day in the basis and I think like a little bit for MCC and the outside it can kind of feel like oh my gosh they had a really busy day things didn't go according to plan something broke it was such a bad day but I think like for us who I mean we signed up for this to get those difficult experiences to overcome challenges to feel like we're contributing to something important a lot of times we were like something broke yay I can fix it I can do something exciting oh my gosh I was so busy I was working on so many sides experiments yes we had a really hard EVA oh my gosh I got to challenge myself mentally and physically and I think there's a little bit of like going into it you think the days where you have like lots of free time and can just sit around or maybe the nice and good days but those days were sometimes the hardest because we don't have media we don't have tons of downloads we don't have like internet it's like oh I signed up to this to do this thing because I want to contribute and like instead I'm just sitting around in the outside world is going on beyond me while I'm just sitting around whereas those days where you are busy where you are stressed where things go wrong where you problem solver like those are the good days and I think that's very interesting to me and I think also MCC because I think MCC is like oh my gosh especially when I was Capcom on that side was like they have a full flight plan they're gonna kill us this thing broke they're gonna kill us whereas like kind of in the base as base engineer a few times it was like the cameras broke oh my gosh I can like go and try and solve this and feel like I'm like doing something that will help MCC do their job better cool so just about what's big saying like so far the problems we had we had one more EVA where we had a problem which was an EVA between Nathan and I where we had a communications problem so I know the Nathan as a big RPG player he really loved this one so I would like him to discuss a little bit what was this emergency scenario and how was this EVA for you so super interesting from a scenario based point of view because immediately from the get go I because the whole the whole time we will we were talking about so the the capcom were telling us oh yeah there's a solar activity and I was like oh solar activity this is great for the role play and I'm like oh yeah yeah don't worry we'll get behind we'll take cover near a big rock or whatever and then they were like the the solar activity has passed and if you talk to Mateus you'll both die and I was like okay how do I then immediately tell Mateus no talking so we immediately like I was immediately like I know this is a podcast so you can't see what I'm mining with my hands here but you know we mind I'm mind to him like no talking not talking and then I somehow went I forget how but I somehow want to communicate to him for the you know me and you no talking for this EVA and then yes it really immersed us it was a new challenge because it was the last EVA of the mission and it was a brand new challenge that nobody had faced before and simultaneously that easy the focus of that EVA was a geology EVA so we were just walking around the moon looking for new structures to to look at and I had to communicate to Mateus that the the MCC wanted certain things like they wanted a photograph of certain things we'd found or whatever because Mateus had the GoPro I had the prompt from MCC yeah so it was super interesting I think Alina was on comms so it was it was there was a chain from mission control to me so mission control to Alina to me to Mateus and then that last link was there was a lot of comms it was very fascinating a lot of fun good role playing and then when we got back into the base when we got back into the airlock and we took off our helmets me Mateus like whoa we can talk that was but absolutely surreal experience but a lot of fun especially good good EVA to end on especially over yeah now just to finish with the trip up the EVA subject I would like to ask also Joachim and Matthew about their EVA experiences and also they have a very funny story to tell about them off but I'll leave it to you guys yeah sure so funny enough this was my first EVA so it was like my first experience in the suits and going out of the base I believe it was even my first day in the base right Joachim I believe it was our first day in the base so we had a really like really busy day as well so we were at this point going out we were already quite tired and our we were scheduled to do mental maths and astrogrip so this was the first astrogrip EVA and so I was wearing astrogrip and Joachim was on comms and we were both wearing the the nice razor suits and going for I believe this was also the first EVA where we got to leave the base sorry leave the tunnels as well and go outside what's the EVA before us also going out to the tunnels I think Elina Nathan went out of the tunnels as well yeah okay never mind then but yeah we got to go outside the tunnels which was amazing the sky was clear we got to see the Milky Way across the sky it was lovely it's beautiful and as we got to the site where we were supposed to perform the the astrogrip experiment we noticed when we shine we shine our lights around there was moths everywhere like like covering the grass and flying around everywhere now initially we were like this is this is not a concern we're in spacesuits we're protected from these moon moths they're not going to get to us little did I know these moths are very tenacious they one managed to wiggle its way underneath the the chest straps like up through the helmet ring and into my helmet and it was sort of stuck there for about a good hour and just interfering with everything I was doing it was like on the visor in front of me and I've believed there's like a couple frames in Joachim's footage from the GoPro where you can see the moth like crawling across my visor and me in a very panicked voice go I don't know if I can do this with my mouth closed um like a ventriloquist and it was really really panicky because I think that you can hear me in the in the footage saying like if this thing goes in my ear I don't know if I'm going to keep my helmet on which is the the simulation equivalence of saying I'm going to kill myself if this moth goes in my ear um and Joachim just goes copy that uh very very hot to capcom which was I for really really funny keeps his level head as usual um but yeah it was quite a weird experience feeling that moth like literally like flying around on my face and trying to stay composed to do the experiment and not like and there is also footage of me like looking like I'm having a seizure on the floor because the moth is like banging against my face I'm trying to shake it off yeah it was quite a quite an experience I was just sitting there telling myself like this is going to be a cool story this is going to be a cool story if I just put up with it and yeah I thankfully by the time I got back to the base I'm often worked its way out well yeah that was rather unpleasant for the time it was in my helmet um I think Joachim probably has a funnier perspective actually by having watched this occur so you want to talk a bit about that yeah sure um so obviously I was um I was only calm but I was also like documenting uh the use of astro grip and like the EVA in general so I was I had like um a couple of gopro's with me and I was um like shining a light from the astro grip glove a lot of this time and probably shining the light on you but I see you probably extract the moth yeah maybe maybe in effect this was maybe maybe the the light also like drifts it up towards your face of it some yeah I take no responsibility by the way um yeah it was it was really funny and tried to by um reocating with you at the same time as like communicating with Nathan in the base and like trying to tell like the status of you all the time and seeing you twitching on the ground um yeah something I I don't think I I don't imagine um it was really eventful um to say the least um yeah I think if you look at the event logs as well from that EVA on on yams uh on the software we were using to log all the events in our timeline it was hilarious what they were logging in there it was because from mcc's perspective it's being passed through like three people of communication it's gone from me to yorken to uh I think it was Nathan on on base comms and then two capcom and then the mcc so you you got like people in the mcc saying somehow a moth got in the helmet and then somehow moths a multiplying and then somehow there are many moths attacking Matthew um yeah it was rated as like a critical uh if it's the breadball point yeah it was much multiplying inside yeah to be fair in the moment it felt pretty critical but in hindsight probably wasn't that bad to be fair Matthew in the video you you appear very brave at least like I showed it to my family and they agree that like you are very calm for the fact that like a moth is actively trying to crawl into your nose and mouth and yorken did not film the bit where I was literally having a seizure on the floor because the moth was like going against my head and so I was like shaking my helmet like this and dropping on the floor so it looked horrendous from his perspective um I did that did any of that go on camera i'm not sure anything any of it like of the twitching got on camera but like the reason why you were on the floor or the reference was you were taking the sample of the astrogrip samples at the same time um so you were basically at work trying to get valuable data for the astrogrip people with moths flying around in your helmet and at one point it obviously got in your face or something and you just went like like shape and like a lot well it's really bad to get a sample um and see that dedication from uh us astrogrip and I was a successful EVA yes yes they managed to have a successful EVA they logged it initially as unsuccessful and I was so annoyed that I personally contacted Capcom I didn't even go through Nathan I personally contacted Capcom can be like this was a successful EVA I got through that I completed the SOP and I think this is one of like the fun stories that we had in the base the EVA moth situation but we had a lot of other fun stories in all as Ella mentioned like we had some free time but even during duty times sometimes we have some fun things uh so yeah now I think we can move to a little bit more chilled side of the experience so I'm like how was it for you guys in terms of yeah what did you guys think it was easy or it was fun or it was hard in terms of living in a confined environment with people you never lived before for 10 days or for 19 days like what were the cool things we did so as Ella mentioned bonanza or all the other games all the crazy jokes that started running and in an infinite loop and all this uh yeah all the kind of life experiences you had in the base I feel like as the person who brought the bonanza I've played bonanza a lot in my life in fact it's probably one of my already most played games but it developed such a new personality to it almost you know when it was like time to play bonanza like there were times when we were so invested in a game that we'd leave it like at the table we'd be like oh no we need to go all go do chores now let's leave the game of bonanza occupying the whole dinner table or whatever um and I feel like we became so invested in like and we came up with our own terms and and and Matthias was talking about how we like you know if we then showed bonanza to our friends and stuff like oh you know like uh he's he's investing in the in the fire being industry or whatever you know he's uh always you know get out of my business get out get out of my stick bean business you know and if you like it develops such a new meaning to me as an already fantastic game yeah I was gonna say how nice I realized and especially going back like meal times together were and how that would cause a lot of those nice moments because it was a time where we all had to be together because some of the free time that was like a lone free time because all the other people are scheduled for something but you were like I think some of the worst moments but like the meal times together and sometimes the times after where we were all still together were definitely the best moments and like I wish I could just have like three meals a day with five friends in my normal life like I know some of you live with your like families and stuff but I don't so I don't often have like group meal times and like just like two three days ago I went downstairs to before like my first class of the semester and four of my other roommates were sitting down there and one of my roommates had made like a fresh pot of chai on the stove and then it was like all five of us eating like drinking chai together before our like first day of classes and I was like I miss sitting down every morning with friends and getting to like just talk and have breakfast with each other even if it's liofood like I miss those group meal times and I think there's just a few things that are like I like that I like honestly I enjoyed having like consistent sports today that we're fully blocked off and like in my normal life I'm like am I gonna work out today or is it more important I do this homework um and like that prioritization of like physical exercise was nice but I don't know hey I miss our group meal time that's all yeah I just want to comment something on this like we all have the same time for meals in the pipeline but it doesn't mean that we all need to eat together and I think this is something that was very very nice accomplishment of our crew that were very united and during the entirety of the mission there was not a single meal being breakfast lunch or dinner that we did not sit either six or nine us or not together so as Vic said it was a very nice bonding time where we would be sometimes singing while eating or like doing jokes and stuff for people who were seen us over a camera and we had like a very good presentation by Nathan and Max singing some pitch perfect so all the meals were always a very nice time for bonding and I think that we mentioned bonding through all the trainings uh in the EET and also dress rehearsal and all that but I think that like as Vic is mentioning I agree 100% this moments where you sit together to eat being that a food that you think it's good in the first days or a food that you hate after six days you're just doing it together so like it's such a nice bonding time so I really felt like this sitting down and having meals together was just amazing another thing I'd say I'm gonna sound like such a boomer saying this but nobody was able to use their phones and that was the best thing in the world like I've realized it's not about you not using your phone it's about the people around you not using your phone because when nobody is able to use their phone and whenever anyone's kind of slightly bored they have to actually engage in conversation or like everyone sort of dedicates time to play a game with one another and those were the moments when we all had some free time and we all went really short to do that we'd sit down and we played games together or we'd have a chat and those were the moments that you really kind of bonded as a crew um and I think that's also something I've really missed being outside the base like having a group of people near you as Vic has said like obviously you kind of forced into being near these people and living in really close quarters with these people but the fact that the entertainment you have is each other and that that is really what bonds you is what was one of the highlights of the mission for me and I think even though it was tough living in so close to each other mostly because Pedro kept stealing my pillow um I loved it and I miss it so so much I think on that note of your only entertainment being each other is is one of the best and worst things of the whole mission is that for three weeks we all entertained each other invented the most obscure inside jokes and things that take a good half an hour to explain why they're funny to anybody else and nobody else is it ever going to say half these things and then that we have to go back to our respective countries and not be able to make these these fantastic really funny hilarious inside jokes with the people around you and you just they're like what are we what are we supposed to do with this you know over Pedro do you want to defend yourself from stealing pills? I mean it's I think it's a fair um it's a fair thing to say because I don't know how it happened but it actually happened like right sometimes um but yes we're basically like we slept by crew so we had like two like borders for uh sleeping uh we were sleeping together when you take a max that not was in the middle and my pillow like I think Max's pillow was the best then mine was really small and big didn't have a pillow at all so like that was like a kind of a line of different pillows and I gravitated towards uh Max's pillow sometimes and yeah I do remember one night where uh Max like was poking me like waking me up saying okay we're gonna get out of the pillow and I was literally like uh sleeping with half of his pillow um yeah I think it was nice I also like the the end of day like ritual where like we had dinner and sometimes when we were not super tired from EVAs like we played the game and then we went to our room like had like a small talk and then we all like all went to sleep and like one thing that happened to me I don't know if this happened to you but like I I drenched a lot I think more than usual inside of the base like I don't know why but like uh I was yeah I I had really really weird dreams uh I know that Nathan like dog string during his deep so that's like a step above but um but like yeah I had really weird dreams about like people and I better know like different people and like the things and I don't know if that's something that astronauts also have when I went when they are in their missions but then there was something that I personally experienced um but yeah you know who also trumped a lot snathen talking to sleep about capcom and and Peter breaking his ankle and then I would wake up and I'm like Nathan what are you talking about he's like this is not a drill Peter broke his ankle over oh and there there was also one time I think it was the night that like uh the day that like uh food tour was leaving and Ella had like in the morning like a humanized thing like really early in the morning and so capcom was like talking really loud in the main room and we heard it in our room and Vic woke me up at like 6 a.m saying oh yeah they are they are going like science or like science professor that I woke up at like 6 a.m. I went to the room and it was just like Bella doing something with science and so then I came back to to bed because like no one was like like like big woke me up in the middle of the night. I heard I heard Ella being like I need to talk to the science officer I need to talk to the science officer and I was like dad you know I need you. I'd like to highlight that this was when Andrew Les was on capcom so and and crew two had just woke it was like state of lace so that they well I'll let Ella explain this because it was all from their point of view. Yes so basically it was the last it was basically already the day that we were going to enter the rocker room and fly back to earth so it was very much the last science experiment and they specifically asked me do you still want to do this or should we like reschedule it to somebody else because you're going to like it's going to be early in the morning and I thought oh no it's fine like I want to do the experiment and also if I'm tired in the rocker room that's going to be nice I don't have it on to do there I can see I set myself in alarm I like specifically thought about when I would have to wake up and everything like that however MCC pushed my wake up good time I had like earlier by one hour while I was sleeping which was technically I think they came from a good place because they thought oh give me a bit more time to prepare I'll have an easier time doing the experiment. Fair enough I had not calculated with this so when I woke up I heard Andrew Lesion Capcom and we already mentioned who love Andrew Lesion he's a great Capcom and he has a very like booming voice and in the night we would put this the voice comes system on a big speaker so we would wake up and hear it but he has like this TV presenter presence where he was like base for Capcom do you copy and I was like deep asleep I was like in the base you Pedro you mentioned you had a lot of themes I usually dream a lot in the base I did not dream because I slept so deep later I just didn't have any dreams so I was like in my diary from no longer I'll think if I write that I was astral projected back into my bones because that isn't exactly what it feels like to be like in such a deep sleep and then be called upon by the booming voice of Andrew Lesion I was like so disoriented it was like very early in the morning it was stumbled to the voice slip system like answered them and then I got to I got to do the final experiment which was fun but that was a big moment of disorientation I think when you're already kind of like temporarily like the time zones were already kind of weird so I was like did I set my alarm wrong what time is it did I forget like did I over sleep what's going on like at what point of the time I know we it's just a hard thing to grapple but if you just woke up to a booming voice all throughout the base and I'm sorry all of you guys also had to make up because I had to do an experiment but that was that was really an iconic moment for me and I think it's one of my favorite parts in my journal as well because it was quite a visceral experience and I got to describe it and Mike from the no longer earthlings experiences will have fun from the experiment will have fun meeting it Matthew or Joaquin this is regarding the things that Nathan had prepared for us in the base and it was set in like a magical world and we were supposed to find a magical object for the King and my role was I was Torbjörn who was a mad raging biting inspired by Barry and I ended up getting like a huge amount of strength and like I was I was a big guy and we had a lot of fun moments with Torbjörn the we what of it was that we met a magic genius and we wanted to get some information out of it and he he had like a wine feel so he was making wine and he had this magical wine that got one drunk like really quickly and I was like no I'm big and strong I can I can drink anything it I'll be fine so I had one drop of this wine and I just drop dead because I roll like a one I think so you roll a 20 sided dice every time you like make big decisions and for some reason I only roll like either really low like one or two or three or like really high so like 18 to 19 to 20 and so when taking a sip of this really strong wine I obviously rolled up one and ended up just baffing all over the place because rolling on the ground is just being so drunk and then at another time we were in like a ball or something and like we had a lot of bad fairies around and this time I rolled a 20 and I was just swinging my huge two handed apps around just like going to serve because of some weird winds around us and I rolled a 20 and like it did one of these mud fairies which are like outraged from the rate of remaining mud fairies that we had like six mud fairies left and I ended up killing five of them just going on a complete range and yeah the other tried to help but I don't know Tobi managed it all on his own basically I might state that one of the mud fairies survived and this is important for the story later one of the mud fairies was captured by myself I can't even remember what my my squirrel was called but it was Tom and Jerry wasn't it yeah it was Jerry we captured anyway we captured one of the mud fairies and we used it as a sort of a prisoner of war that we used for information around the island and it was carried around for the most part like Tobi on mostly by the neck and every so often we would ask if information and if we were refused do we would just squeeze a little bit tighter yeah after we had I think we had to read the child by them the the mud fairy that Tobi was carrying around like um was trying to like be confronted with it I think like maybe I was almost trying to humanize the mud fairy and you were having all right all right all the information we need now so we don't need you anymore he didn't consult the team at all he just said just after I had already saved the mud fairy from a different like thing from hitting him killing it and you're like no I'm just gonna the mud fairy by the way it was played by Jo Kim's water bottle which he ultimately took the cap off to signify the end of the mud fairy's life did we did we give the mud fairy a name yes it was TomTom or something like that it was drumm drumm the close mud fairy yeah rest of the piece if you you guys didn't continue the game right so that that story ended with the death of drumm so there's one other thing that I think it's it's nice like apart from all these games and all these kind of things again coming back to the meal which was a very fun part of our time also stressful in some situations but I think like there were so many things that came with the meal so like Nathan crying when having his first basketball is a or how we ate so much Tabasco in the mission like for the first half of the mission we had one bottle of Tabasco and then three bottles of Tabasco were resupplied with expedition three and for the second half we had the three bottles so yeah I think also like the food is something that's really interesting to say like I don't know if a people who are listening to us had this experience of eating dehydrated food especially for this long so yeah how was for you eating this was good was bad how did you guys feel like were you missing textures smells how was all the situation of being deprived of food and water as well I think the Tabasco was a sorely needed addition to the I personally when crew three brought the soy sauce I was a soy fanatic soy fanatico and it was it was very much needed to give a bit of oomph because there was no kick to the and plus when you've had the same thing for six days it kind of starts getting a bit stale yeah and I think like what Max was like saying earlier that because we didn't have our front that at some point like we needed to like entertain ourselves and so what like I think the food especially like it could make or break like a good day for us inside of the base at some point because like if we looked at the meal plan and if we saw that like for that day we had like good meals it would make us more excited like I remember that when we had like mac and cheese days it was also like a good day and when we had like the nettle kind of eat like the best day ever and people didn't like the nettle curry that much I think thick was the only fan but even at the end of it thick was pretty pretty sick of nettle curry as well the thing is I enjoy the nettle curry the issue is they started putting it in my meal plan nearly every single day and me and Alina's meal plan together both of us like at minimum every other day yeah I think it's quite hard because like the in our normal lives are usually to like be able to control what's not not just what we do with especially like what we eat and sometimes like if if we are feeling like that we want to eat something like like past it today we can't just go and cook it in our normalize but inside of the base it was not like that we put what we were assigned and so yeah it's it's kind of a difference from from our normal lives and they yeah yeah I think like going into the mission or even during the restaurant first we had that period of time where we were like taste testing different dehydramews or we're super excited we're like yeah we can eat this every single day that sounds great and then like at the beginning of the mission it was kind of like that and then a couple days in we were like but like what if we didn't eat this again what if we had something else and then by the end of like oh man I guess we're just eating this meal again and we just have to deal with it and it definitely like definitely hit me a lot more like in the second half of the mission I was like I've had nettle curry like six times already in the past 10 days I I would appreciate something different so yeah it's just yeah it was really interesting and I have realized that I'm very food motivated and food driven and my food will always impact my well-being of the rest of the day yes I think that was also a shift like we had a delivery of food come a bit late and as soon as that arrived like we had such a good day that day because there was different options there was new flavors there was new meals to try so I think like the the days on the meal plan following after the arrival of the food we're super exciting Nathan you can talk about the belladays in a bit if you want but for me before that I had a lot a lot of freeze-dried scrambled eggs which is definitely something I never want to eat again not even because it was super bad in the beginning but because one third of my entire calories for like three days was scrambled egg and I started to feel like I was just made out of a yellow group so that had a definite influence on me in the first few days I don't want to eat freeze-dried scrambled eggs again but then some of the meals after the delivery arrived were super super good and I think I got like the better end of the stick here because for me my mission was shorter so some of the meals I didn't have to eat seven times and so I can still remember them from the including the passable and either that Nathan cry I agree with this I don't know how many people would agree with me but there are some meals that I miss like having taken a couple of weeks break from them I would fuck up some salmon pasta right now or some spicy pasta arabiata like I think the issue with the food wasn't the quality of it it was how it all had like a similar under-taste and how repetitive the meal plans got so by the end of the sort of 10-11 days where I was in the mission I was very sick of the food and I was really like looking forward to getting out and trying some some different food but the actual food in there was pretty good like it's very impressive how tasty some of the life-authorized food can be it's just a repetition that makes it hard and if I could have some pasta arabiata like just packed with me for lunch every day I think I would not every day the issue is the repetition like once a week or every other week in our arabiata I would eat the taco musli every morning if I could and maybe and maybe the scrambled eggs there's one thing that Edina mentioned I don't know like on how the food impact the day I don't know if you guys are familiar with the sociology concept of Maslow pyramid it's the concept that like basically you have a pyramid of your needs and at the very bottom of it is things like having good quality water having good food and having a safe place and then we were in a safe place quality water questionable sometimes and food we had the food for the entire of the mission but as you mentioned Edina like when the food gets repetitive or the food is not enough or it's just based on calorie but you're hungry at the end of the days it's very interesting to see also let's not forget that we were not taking showers like these things that we take it for granted in our day-to-day lives once a small change like eating natto curry for the seventh time can ruin your day and it's something that probably wouldn't happen outside so I think also this is something very interesting for the duration of the mission that like things that we think that wouldn't bother us start bothering us and things that we thought that maybe will be like hard problems like the convivial or like talking or being under stress were not that big as things that are sometimes very basic at the very bottom of our needs such as the water I think I like and talk a little bit about the water we had a few days of problem with water so we had these big big containers for our water and in the beginning the problem was that from the previous year or like the containers in the current state they had some sediment at the bottom that like nobody spotted in the beginning so when they first filled them and like put them in the base we opened them we looked at that and we were like oh there's like a contaminant in them so we reported that back to MCC they took the containers outside again they cleaned them and then unfortunately the water that they brought back that a soapy taste to it because these containers are super big so just like it's very hard to like clean everything out and such the specific cleaners that they use they were very like persistent so we went from having dirty water to having clean water but that tasted of soap and you have to consider that this is not only a drinking water where you taste it the most but also are water that we use to prepare our food so both our food and our drinking water had this aftertaste of soap which from a medical perspective wasn't like super bad for us immediately because it's not very like thin amount of soap like a very little amount of soap but medically it had an influence in our crew members for me as a medical officer I could see that everybody's blood pressure was quite low because everybody like was sort of dehydrated because you just have like a psychological conversion to drinking soapy water the MCC tried to work on this a lot they like cleaned the container and gave it back to us and throughout the vision the water was less it less soapy but I think I never had a class of water in the face that didn't kind of taste like bubble gum cleaner funny conclusion to this story was actually discovering that this was Amber's hand soap because I I realized this when because we got crew to go out the base first and about a couple days before the end of the mission I was washing my hands in the bunker and I asked to use hamburgers soap hamburgers hands soap and I used it and I smelled it and I was like I had flashbacks like flashbacks of war in my in my mind because I I smelled it I was like I knew exactly what this smell was and it was the smell of the the water that you've been drinking inside and then I went to Amber and I was like did you clean the barrels with this and she said yeah I was like this is the soap we've been we've all been inhaling but the entirety we've been in the mission and it was it was really funny I guess a conclusion to the story to know that it was it was ultimately just Amber's hand soapy been drinking this whole time yes she showed it to me first of all the stuff's called winter queen and it is scented candy floss so that's why we were all like why it's like a supposed to like smell of strawberry raspberry and vanilla which sounds delicious but however it's not however it's not quite 18 and one is it I was quite shocked and like confused a few times when I was in there because I was like yes this taste like soap but this taste like soapy sweet raspberry juice almost and I'm confused so this makes a lot of sense yeah and I think like one of the problems we had also like with this trash of water and food was that we didn't want to do this thing that we call break of simulation so like every time we have context with the outside world it's it can be considered a break of simulation depending on the level so we didn't want it to get the water to be clean all the time or to have contact with the MCC so this was one of the stressful things that we had as I mentioned so when it comes to break of simulation and also I think on the other hand we have immersion in the simulation so I like to ask you guys now how immersed did you guys feel during these days that you were there so for expeditions true and true during the 10 days and for expedition one during the 19 days yeah so not only how immersed you feel but did you feel that you were on earth did you feel you weren't the moon did you feel you were somewhere else not in not on earth not on moon how was for you all the feeling of immersion in the mission for me it was a secret third thing like for me it obviously wasn't the moon because you still have gravity blah blah blah like for so for a lot of reasons you don't actually feel like you're in the moon but somehow you also don't really feel like you're on earth and I think especially coming out of the mission I've noticed that a lot of it actually say like a lot of us actually say oh while I was like I've been two weeks back from the moon or my time on the moon which is very funny because um yeah like definitely we if we call it that we have a language difference there we we don't say Switzerland or we don't say the bunker Switzerland or something so in that sense I do think there's like a psychological shift between outside and inside um I think to Eurotus I said that I felt like it was like a parallel dimension or like a pocket dimension a little bit and that um we we're sort of living in our own little world I had its own rules that wasn't exactly the moon but also not exactly earth which psychologically is very interesting and what a lot of the science experiments are also looking at so that was super fun and it's interesting to experience inside of your brain yeah I think I agree with what we brought Ella said and I think that's exactly what's and our mission is it's like it's not exactly earth it's not exactly the moon is like a space in between and I feel that we were able to live in that like we didn't it's not a long duration mission uh even the 19 days is it's not that long comparing to what real space missions usually look like and nowadays like usually like it's a six-man's mission that astronauts go to the ISS so uh it's it's really small compared to what's um usually done but I think we we are still able to get uh some sense of isolations and some sense of uh being in in a different environment of course like I wouldn't say we feel we are like in the moon exactly but has other said but we do feel that we have some distance between us and the MCC that we cannot get everything that's um that we want that there are limited resources, limited conditions and I think that is is very clear to us I think also that the fact that this year we had GVA is only during the night uh uh also help and I think those were the moments that uh also helped to feel that we were either on the moon or at least in a different planet because when we went outside uh especially with uh spacesuits so we couldn't hear anything that was happening outside we could only hear our own reading and then walking on the rocky pavement and the fact that it was at night and the surroundings it it was like you could see the mountains but you couldn't see like any cars or not that many official lights so it kind of made you feel that you are on this strange environment that you don't know and that you are discovering and that it's it can be risky that it can be dangerous so I think all of those all of those conditions both the one that we have created has a sleff use and both the one that are already presented to us by sassu and just this environment really helps us to understand that we are on this different place and then of course like the fact that daily we have this flight schedule where we are doing tasks that we have not used to also helps us uh get into this mindset uh psychologically that we are here to perform tasks that we are here to um to perform and to be tested has analog astronauts and so all of that together makes us being to this kind of psychological state where fighting of it has we all said in the beginning like when we get out it's it feels weird to get out and not to have all of those constraints anymore. I was going to say it definitely to me did feel like I was on earth but not on earth as I know it like in a earth isolation or earth extreme environment and kind of in some of my like flying and scuba diving experiences kind of analogous to that or what I would imagine if you were working on like a semi-remote mountain or semi-remote island or in Antarctica of like if something goes really wrong I can get airlifted out of here I can leave we can stop but no we have a job to do similar like when I'm flying planes like if something is really really bad we can always land but we have something to get done or same thing with scuba diving like if someone's dying you know go back up to the surface but like it is a big thing to call that off whereas I think that's kind of how I perceived it but like if we were an actual space there would be zero calling it off if we were an actual space there would be zero just replenish the soapy water now if we were an actual space there would be an advanced e-clist system not a student run analog so there wouldn't be some of those things in the first place but it felt like I think definitely like to me I was on earth but on a place on earth where it would take hours for someone to get to me or that sort of assistance if that makes sense not like I was in sass so with visitors and guests and stuff and like it would be easy to interact with earth as I know it I think what was interesting is that this was the first year that the rocket room was implemented um so that kind of gave us some time before the mission to prepare like our minds and everything to go in and then after the mission to decompress and like no like think about everything that happened and um like come to terms with it rather than just getting thrown out into the real world and the fact that we were in there from some bus for 24 hours or even 48 hours kind of put distance between like the real world and where we were even though like the MCC was only down the hallway but because of that it felt like they were way more far away like it took us so long to get quote-unquote get to the space that like it it did feel like I was on earth but it didn't yeah it didn't feel like um it felt like everything was very far away and yeah I thought that was interesting I think the for me the more simulation was focused on the isolation part itself rather than simulating like oh I feel like I'm in a lunar base I think that part of the simulation was more enforced like what the EVA is and stuff going the tunnels now said but when I was in the base it was just like this mission is focusing on um it's testing me on how I can deal with isolation and stuff like that yeah I mean I probably are quite similar to Vic actually in the sense that I didn't really feel like I was on the moon at all but I definitely felt like the I felt the effects of isolation just being isolated here on earth in a in a in a way I do think the nighttime EVA is definitely contributed to the the isolation factor in making it more lunar like similar but again like yeah there's there's so many aspects of it which make it very of like which is which makes it hard to ignore yeah and I felt like my reintegration um once I was out of the base was definitely helped by the fact that we were the earliest ones out of the base um which meant that I felt like when I went back to not necessarily Capcom but where I went back home like two society and and my work I felt like I was much more integrated than maybe you guys have been describing um because I had had a lot of more time to sort of adjust in that sense which meant I can sort of just get right back into it um yeah maybe that's just an aspect of being in crew two I suppose. I feel like I did to say uh what you guys have described I didn't feel like I was on the moon but generally I felt like I was still on earth but like just in a very weird isolated environment on earth I do want to say however that during one of our EVAs when we had to recover the last payload I felt like when we were walking around on top of that hill uh searching for the last payload I I feel like I might as well like I could have been on a different planet because it was so like the environment was so alien it was so dark and like so just like there was just nothing around us and yeah that was um an experience I looked back on thinking that this is like probably the most accurate accurate thing you can get while still on earth of being on another planet for example all of you know something but yeah generally I would say I I didn't feel like I was on the moon but I was somewhere in between especially like psychologically I spent some of my free time like looking at pictures uh going through all of the pictures at my on my phone and I never felt further away from like my family and my friends and you know it's not that I would have contacted like necessarily have contacted them anyways but it was just the fact that you couldn't which had an impact on me psychologically um and and the feeling that made me uh probably appreciate like my childhood a bit more and like the people I grew up with my family and stuff um so yeah it's I think it's mostly the psychological environment that really tests you like whether like the feeling of being on earth or not and I think uh someone mentioned the training part at some point and I think this is something that we were being trained for right so like the isolation side also with all these other challenges as we mentioned so the food situation the water the sleep or not being able to shower which is something that's very impacting our life or not communicating to the outside world all of these things I think they tested us in a very high level and I think all of us coped with it very well because like we had some moments of breakdown but in general as a crew we all managed to together go through it so I think that like in the same way that this question that I just asked was a bit like of a common question that everyone asks once we're out there's also two other questions that I want to ask but just for a short answer just because everyone wants to know this so for each of you what was the hardest part or the worst part and what was the best part of being in the mission and from all the experiences you had inside the base that's another one of the questions I found very hard when they like asked us in the interviews of the post mission for the documentary for example because like there's some aspects that really like sucks for example having water that isn't clean or something but like it's we've been so tuned to like managing them so I think for me like the things that were genuinely hard are like a bit more spongy and hard to grasp so I for example in the end I got a bit like some of the aspects I found hard was that I got frustrated at things that were difficult and then I knew that because I was frustrated or tired or something I wasn't doing good work or like being as like respectful with my crewmates as I would like to be um so it was more it wasn't the thing itself it was more the symptom of it and being like oh I know myself I know that I can be very communicative empathetic or like very like more skilled in this but I'm like not putting in my best effort because I'm frustrated about something else so I think it's like this like like it's not one thing for me it's like a combination of different aspects so you're tired you kind of hungry um I think specifically the hunger had an influence on me in the in the first few days but uh after they they we had a new meal plan that like resolved a little bit and then maybe the tiredness was more of an aspect so it's this combination of like different factors that end up being kind of challenging in their own in their own ways um so I know that they were looking like for the specific story where this thing happened and I know I hate all of my crewmates or something but I couldn't deliver any of that I was just like it's it's hard to describe it's hard to describe to somebody who hasn't been there who will like if you just hear about an I don't know permission as you're like oh the hardest part for me would be not having a shower or something because it's like something you think about from the outside but being on the inside this is stuff you expect it uh and you signed up for and that's not the difficult part the difficult part is the combination of other things maybe I don't know that's not a very distinct answer but that is what it is for me I think the best part is just the family I got from this like all of you guys have just been so amazing and and I feel like literally we are like a family now and spending so much time together and getting so close and living together has been really special and the worst part is the fact that we're so far apart now um yeah which is just really sad because I want to spend so much time with you guys um yeah I think that's probably the best in the worst part of it getting these amazing relations to people from all of the world they told us we would be sick of each other but we've proved them wrong I'm so happy to be in the skull okay so if no one has anything else to say then I think like uh next week we're gonna have another special episode about the mission where we're gonna be talking through the MCC guys and they're gonna be describing their roles and their experiences but we also have here now five because Max had to leave but we have five astronauts who also had the chance of participating in the MCC side as Capcom's so I would like also for you guys to share a little bit about this experience so as I mentioned before for expedition three you guys started as Capcom then you became astronauts uh in the middle of the mission and for expedition two the other way around so started as astronauts and ended as MCC so how was for you guys like this change in the in the world you're playing and being in a place that you're confined and now you're free you're being free and now being confined how's the MCC experience for you all I really ended up liking it it's like like for me specifically getting to do it after the mission had so many benefits so basically the last day of the mission is very sad because we're like now this project that I've been working towards for one year is over but then getting to still stay in the mission control for a few days sort of like getting the software adjustment to outside life was quite good and then also I thought specifically Capcom needs to be very like able to communicate between the astronauts and the mission control and like be this point of contact and having been there gave me so many insights into what like the astronauts and the best mean when they say something specific like we already talked about that there might be some like communication difficulties but if you have been there you know there is a reason they got upset with you if you accidentally contact them while they're having a sit down meal or if they complain about something there's probably a reason for it and there's like this deeper understanding and I had Katie as much like director for some of my shifts and she actually would like ask me so what do you like what do you like what's your perspective from having been there and I think that was a super helpful thing to have done before being in Capcom and I'm interested in what what you guys think about where Capcom before and that went into the beta that influence your your mission experience because for me it was such a thing that I was like oh I know what it's like there and then not the other people names to see might not quite get it in the same way that I do and sort of like having that at the end of my my mission was very nice and seeing the other side and so thinking about the cool and how you guys are doing without us without us there was like sort of the easy way out I think. Yeah for me like I did like the other way around and obviously like last year I also had done for it that was for Capcom so I think the interesting thing was to understand that even though like the MCT new like all of us or at least most of us like it's always quite different like quite difficult how to set Ella to be able just through voice explain exactly how how we are feeling or a specific problem sometimes even like we call the training and all the protocols and sometimes I think that from the MCC side sometimes the astronauts seem that they are more upset about something that happened or about the particular issue than we actually were so I think during the other way around it's it it's just quite nice to understand that first that the MCC is always trying to do their like the best job that they can with the conditions and with the time and with the resources that they have available to them and when they are taking time it's because they are discussing between them what's the best way to move forward and also to understand that communication is really really important and we need to be as clear as we can and as efficient as we can to make sure that from inside of the base we can explain a particular issue or how we are feeling so that the MCC can also have a good grasp on how how to move forward or what what to ask us to to perform because sometimes there can be, we can call them miscommunications but there can be some some slight aspects that make a better better of the science feel that the other one is better met or upset about something when that isn't not not what's happening. I was just going to say how interesting I felt like it was like how easy it was to only maybe understand one side when you're on that side especially coming from the other side where I was Capcom first and then went in the base. I had a lot of moments when I was Capcom where it was like why are they doing that? Why is this upsetting them and why isn't this this other thing upsetting them? And it was I didn't understand because I hadn't gone through it and a lot of times in MCC it was like well Vic you know them you should understand and it felt despite the fact that I'm much more closely bonded with you guys and I think understand you and your emotions intuitively way more than I understand to MCC because I haven't bonded with them as much. As soon as you guys were in the base and I had never been in the base I felt so much closer to MCC than you guys because I just hadn't stepped in your shoes and that was very odd and it wasn't until I got back I went into the base that I was able to be like oh that's why this makes so much more sense even though I had in theory gotten close to you guys I wasn't able to understand you really until I had gone through your shoes. Which is interesting and I wonder if there's been any studies or talks on astronauts and them being Capcom's pre-mission versus post-mission? Yeah I'll add on to that so I was on crew two which meant that I was in the base first and then I was on Capcom in the second half of the mission and I have to say I think it was a really unique experience and one day I've really enjoyed because I felt like having been in the base I had quite a unique perspective into the problems that were going on immediately like not just a connection to the people but also understanding specifically some of the issues that were going on and I do actually remember on my first shift a problem that arose was a continuing issue with the the meal plan and I was talking to you Matisse about and I was asking about your preferences and I already knew basically what your answers were going to be based on our discussions we've had in the base about like whether some of us would have half meals or some of us would have four meals and but be more repetitive and whatnot and I already was able before I even went on Capcom to tell BME and Flight that some of the suggestions they were making are just not going to be accepted by the astronauts because I knew from in the base my experience and they're that these are things that we would prefer not to have given the experience I had in that which I think was a really nice experience to have so yeah I sort of agree with Victor having a Capcom that has not actually been in the base yet but is an astronaut I don't think is the same thing as having a Capcom who is an astronaut but has been in the base and experienced the problems I think that's a much more efficient position to have not to say that the people who were Capcom before were bad at it it just means that they didn't have direct insight into our problems sometimes but yeah I think it's a really good thing to have and I think it's something they should we should definitely continue in future missions for sure. Something I'd like to add to that was that the interesting thing is that we had people for example on flights who have been astronauts and other missions and even though they do know us quite well because we're in the same team and especially the project leads and everything have gotten to know us as well there was a difference between like how they understood what we were saying and what the astronauts and Capcom understood what we were saying even if they hadn't been in the base before so I think there's quite a few aspects so we had people who are very good at communicating with who were Capcom but were neither previous astronauts or astronauts in this crew or had been in the base and sometimes I would feel this difference where they didn't quite get what we were saying and then we had people who were in flight who had been in the base before but didn't exactly know our crew dynamics and then we had people who were on Capcom before they went into the base and there was all of these little things which are super interesting because all of these sort of like set you up for how you understand what is going on and having this context and having all of these clues as to why we understand and why we don't understand is like interesting to think about in an environment where you really want this like effective communication and having this MCC team with so many different perspectives but for example with Katie on flight who has been in the base or EDS who has been in the base last year and then when I was doing Capcom me knowing you and knowing what the base feels like this year it was very interesting to like talk together think about what options we would even propose to you guys and what like might not even work before we gave these options to you or sometimes I would be like hey let's make this decision for them because it's just going to be overwhelming to have them have all of these options if we know that one of the options is going to be better from our side so for scheduling stuff or something like that sometimes we could talk between us and already make this decision because of our different experiences. What about you Joaquin? I also have a presentation to which meant that I wasn't the MCC for the last part of the mission and most of my shifts were morning shifts so I didn't actually get to talk that much to you guys on the base which was in the beginning it was a bit as a bit frustrated because I wanted to like stay involved with you guys and I wanted to just talk to you but I also appreciated like getting to talk to you guys first thing in the morning and hearing how you guys slept and how you you were feeling for the day and I could I could kind of get like an idea of how the mood was going to be for like how the mood was for the rest of the day just from talking to you guys in the morning which was really interesting and yeah then I then I was lucky enough that Matthew had to go somewhere else to figure some stuff out for the next year and I had to take his night shift and so my night shift on that night was the the EVA like the the recovery EVA of Pedro after when he broke his foot and that was such a fun experience as well going through all the emotions of having to call the base and tell them that there's been an emergency and like prepping new materials and the leaner and also keeping it a secret for you guys until the last second was challenging because you kept asking for for that last EVA as well but the EVA was so like there was so much going on on the like on the EVA itself and then also on the outside from the MCC perspective because we had to get everything sorted for you guys to go through the tunnels without turning on alarms and stuff inside the the fortress and with you guys moving slower than we expected and so there was a lot of like stress from our side as well and I'm going to let the MCC guys talk more about like the stress of being in MCC and stuff but that was really a really fun experience of someone who's been on an EV as well and like to feel that from the other side the communication going from the MCC into what's actually being done on the EVA was really interesting and then finally I got the the honor of telling you guys that you could exit the rock room on the final day of mission and we got the name of like having you actually in the rock in room and I could just hear you guys going more and more and say it's inside the rock in room like it's singing and making all sorts of noises on the radio it was it was so fun and I was expecting you guys to come out and be like completely crazy but yeah you were just having fun and like you were taking it like absolute champs like with the delays and stuff so yeah yeah so as I mentioned the expedition one we did not have the chance to be in the MCC but I think now you just mentioned something that was very funny that was like the rock in room experience so how we were going insane or how difficult it was and since Elena you mentioned the rock in room before so the rock in room was the next experience that we were doing on trying to adapt between going from earth to the moon so you're not instantly on the moon so 24 hours to go and 24 hours to come back minimum and for expeditions two and three they did a journey of 48 hours in some point but yeah so Elena can you tell us a little bit about the experience in the rock in room and I think especially for our expedition the return to earth and how we felt like the compression we talked about this a little bit but if you can tell a bit to the audience on yeah the things that Joachim is reporting from the MCC side that look like we were going insane and how we were looking at food pictures and all this the time what like when we were coming back to earth through the rock in room it was just like oh it's only 24 hours we've done this once you can do it again and it was pretty okay we tried to do like several different things where we were like okay we need to go back to the normal time zone let's eat lunch at this time dinner at this time and we had this entire plan and I think around like 6 p.m like outside time we just fell asleep we were like we can take a nap it's fine and from there until like two hours or three hours before we left the mission we were just sleeping on and off and like wake up in the middle of the night and just like people were just saying random things in the middle of the night and we'd wake up and then stay up for like an hour or two and then go back to sleep and it definitely felt a lot longer we were like oh we've been here forever and it's only been we check the time it's only been three hours like oh man we have a lot more time to go but it was nice to like just be there and chat with each other about everything that we experienced in the mission and be able to share like these I guess precious last moments together before we're in the actual like real world and stuff but on the day that we were like supposed to exit the rocket room we were getting already it was like 30 minutes or yeah like 30 minutes before we're leaving we're getting up ready and we're like okay we're ready to go like just let us know when and you know it's like um so the people coming from Aerolo from the bunker they're going to be another like 40 45 minutes you guys just have to hold on and we're like what do you mean we have to hold on like we we're ready to we're ready to go we're ready to leave at 12 um it's like no you guys just need to hold on and I think like from there we started we're like oh the end is so close but we can't achieve it so that's when we really started going insane we had already spent like Mateus and I an hour before scrolling through our phone and sharing food pictures together of like really good meals we've had in the past and essentially torturing ourselves um so I think that also increased the anticipation of leaving the base um I think before them like before the rocket room I was like oh I can do I can do this mission for several more days but like within that hour before we left I think all of us were like we need to leave it right now and then um finally when Jochem was like this is like probably like 1 p.m. or something Jochem was like okay guys you guys can kind of the base now uh Nathan like was drinking water and then like spit it up all over the floor of the room and we're like no we can't leave right now we need to clean this up which I think yeah so they're like oh my god they're just going insane and don't know what's happening but yeah I think that lasts just just the waiting of the last hour of like okay waiting for the okay to like leave the base was really gone into all of our heads yeah he felt that like as you said like when we were in the base we could go for longer but the closer we were of getting out of the base it seemed that the more we had an urge to be out like let me leave I'm already like it's only one hour what are you talking about I'm here for two hours you said one hour and it's two hours let us leave and it was like yeah like we did feel like the effects of it like also I think for expedition tree they were all trying to sleep the more but did the most time if they could well we tried sleeping but it didn't really work that well because then we couldn't sleep during the night but yeah so I think now we're coming to the end of our episode we're almost three hour alone so I just would like to ask all of you if you guys have anything else you would like to add anything we didn't mention or any notes or if you want to recommend people to do this experience if you want to send some kind of a upbeat message for us clap your six who's coming after us or anything that you guys would like to say since usually we have a recommendation today I'm gonna leave it a bit more open any kind of final comment each of you would like to to have I was eating a canola the other day I was like wow this tastes really good like I wonder who invented the canola John canola and I realized that no one around me would understand the like deeply understand where that joke came from um but yeah I just had to tell you guys that you've heard uh for sharing I think what those were looking for something more inspirational than a phrase starting with was eating a canola I'm open for everything it doesn't be a recommendation it doesn't be inspirational in a canola I think food is a great recommendation all the time I think on the hike down that we all did so we did a hike after the like after the last crew came out of the base we hike down the mountain together just like us astronauts and um we have like a picnic and at some point we had like a piece of mozzarella that made that like ripped with his hands and like handed me a chunk of it and I wrapped it in like a piece of like smoked ham and I ate that and I was like damn this is like surprising the good for the fact that I've been outside of the base and eaten normal food and I've had a few of these moments I think do this experience recommend or yes um and then enjoy the little random moments afterwards we were like was this always this good there was a thunder storm and I had my windows open after the base I was like did rain always I did I always experience like this I definitely did not um so I recommend doing another mission and then appreciating the little moments it's great thanks Ella Pedro this is how you go from food to something meaningful yeah food is also meaningful don't say that about John canola is not meaningful I would say just in general a lot of the ways I've been like reflecting on things because my life has been like so up and down and transitioning as like enjoy the moments enjoy the present enjoy the here and now don't freak out about the to-do list don't freak out about like external obligations like right now I'm on the call with you and that's wonderful when I was in the mission with you I was in the mission with you and that was wonderful um I think I did too much in the past of light I'm in my PhD program what is after my PhD program and how is this setting me up for my future or I'm interning at now so what is my entire professional career look like and it's like enjoy the internship enjoy the project you're currently on and make the most of it enjoy the training you're doing don't be like how does this training set me up to be an analog astronaut it set me up for my future and set me up to maybe be an astronaut one day it's like enjoy the training take the most out of it like you're never gonna get that moment again you don't have to like think about how everything or when I get back I have to do this it's just like enjoy that current moment that you're never gonna get back whether whether it's bigger small because like I know a lot of our listeners are not as sculpiest people or people who may ever do an analog but like and enjoy that moment because anyway yeah just that's my thing of the day be more present as I've been going from earth to the moon in America to Europe and NASA to PhD and with you guys away from you guys is like with my friends and loved ones to away from them had internships and stuff is like be be present in the people the food the nature what you have um and that will get you where you want to be that's all thanks Vic that was very nice Pedro Matthew Joachim who wants to go first better you can just say about like a canola as well if you want um yeah I don't know exactly what I can say after what what what big set I think it was quite nice but um yeah I think for everybody that's like interested or like curious about analog missions I think a step is really this offer like a great opportunity for students especially that don't have that much experience uh and but do have like this motivation to learn and uh and want to like contribute more and and and be part of this international team and cooperate I think yeah as that is really this offer this incredible opportunity for students to both learn and contribute meaning meaningfully um to to an anual mission uh both has astronauts has part of MCC has part of any of the other teams that we have available throughout years so um yeah I think we we learned a lot we have lots of lessons learning there were a lot of things that went great lots of things that we know that we want to improve for the future and we bring that not just for our personal lives and I think we all get out of this experience like better people and understanding better what are the challenges of our personalities and our ourselves but also has better professionals and I think we can bring that for for our lives for the future especially has has young young professionals or uh now that we are uh finishing our our studies most of us so I think that's that's that's that's quite I would message to take from from status five thanks bidr all yeah I can go next um yeah I think my experience with the analog mission particularly a scrupulous five has been that it's a very self-reflective um process in that you're kind of the whole process forces you to look at yourself quite deeply like from all aspects and it's really a lot of it is about self improvement not just from a like a private and personal perspective but also how you interact with people and how you you sort of merge yourself not as what to quote the the the documentary not just is the nine nine separate astronauts but into one one crew that works hum like harmoniously together and I think it's a really good process if you want to learn more about yourself and how you how you work together in a team and how you can improve yourself in all those aspects in life which can only be a good thing later in life as well because these are all positive aspects which you can translate to other aspects of your life if your career is not ultimately uh as a national tour or even the analog astronauts in the future but I think a scrupulous five really taught me a lot about myself and how I can how I can improve for the future and I all I have to say for a scrupulous six is that it's just going to be that much better because every single astronaut from a scrupulous five will be staying on to do place some sort of role for a scrupulous six so it's going to be quite the right and it's going to be even better than last year so I highly recommend that people get involved. They'll never be rid of us. Thanks Matthew. I'll just sum up all of you guys' recommendations up into get involved with a special six year you're all regretting it. Based on all of the recommendations you've just heard it's an amazing experience you'll learn about yourself, about other people, about like you'll develop your social skills so much, your professional skills and yeah it's a great experience so don't hesitate to get involved. Yeah and if you I mean we already selected the astronauts for a scrupulous six but if you want to get involved soon we're going to be opening positions for a scrupulous six right Matthew? Absolutely that is coming very soon. Different roles across all of the sub teams of a scrupulous with the only exclusion being the astronaut team will be open so if you want to get involved in the science aspects, ethics, design team, I see people who are heads of these different teams wagging in their fingers. We've got a number of different teams and positions open the anything from finance to ethics to science to design to engineering. You can get involved in a scrupulous no matter what discipline you're in so yeah absolutely I highly recommend applying. It does agree with the point Matthew that he said that the astronaut team is not looking for people we don't look we're not looking for crew members not for a scrupulous six but we would love to have you as an astronaut trainer. If you want to work on us with getting the mission ready that is also a position we will be able to apply to. There we go you heard it here first from our head of astronaut crew and our head of astronaut training Petra that they will be recruiting for astronaut traders and just a sign note on this so if you want to know more about the positions that are going to be open or how we're going to be ending is Clapius 5 and how as Clapius 6 we'll go for the next year. You can of course follow us on LinkedIn or on Instagram we'll have the links here so yeah stay up and like follow us so you can understand what's going on and if you want to join us or support or if you have a science project from your university or from your institution that you would like to use as Clapius as a test bad for it and as Clapius 6 don't hesitate to get in touch with us we have a very nice communications team that will answer to all your emails and we'll try to get the best out of it so yeah I think that's it I think we're coming to the end of our episode I would like to thank all of you very much for this time for this three hours on a Sunday it's usually hard to put all the astronauts together now we don't have Max and Nathan anymore but it was really nice seeing all of you after this almost three missions or three missions three weeks already since we left Switzerland so yeah thank you very much for all of you for coming and thank all the audience for listening to us once again and stay up for the next week episode as well with the MCC other roles that how they display how was the MCC experience and yeah I think thank you all for the attention for listening to us and we see you next week for the next episode of us Clapius guess bye bye bye bye [Music]