Monthly Archives: March 2024

March 11, 2024, 18:01
Greetings, Imagination 1 crew!

I’m eager to hear about your mission’s first full day … From here on Earth, only 2% of the Moon will appear illuminated this evening, producing a thin waxing crescent. That means that to you, the Earth appears mostly illuminated.

Overnight temperatures here will dip to 46F (7.7C), obviously significantly warmer than the -262F (-163C) highs of Shackleton Crater. I hope you are all warmer tonight.

Please let me know if I can assist you with anything this evening.

Looking up from Earth,
Mikayla Mace Kelley, CapCom

March 11, 2024, 18:07

Pressure: 1.5 inches of water
Lung height: 76 inches with blower at 25.5 Hz
CO2 Lung: holding steady at ~500 ppm
CO2 TM: 2305 ppm
CO2 Eng Bay: 2469 ppm
CO2 Crew Quarters: 2583
Water tank level: 53 gallons
Hydroponics: 6.4 pH, 2.0 EC

Note: Levels of CO2 dropped when we opened the [second] air vent baffle in the CQ. Consistently 2500, then dropping to ~2400, but I can see the increased activity in the areas—cooking, moving things, talking—is increasing the [CO2] gas. The mini-split running [appears to] lower the levels [TBD].

We have had a productive day. Ivy has sewn a pouch for use during the EVAs for us to place materials, such as Julie’s 3D printed aphorism stamp. Testing the 3D printer, Julie successfully made a carabiner for the pouch. Liz continues to spend time in the lung developing choreography, taking film and photos. Chris has been working on the opening section of his article and includes a passage or two below, along with experimenting with multiple exposures of plants and the MiG-29 helmet that Liz and Ivy will use on the EVA.

We have been house-keeping (dishes, vacuuming, etc.) and monitoring systems. As Kai at Mission Control knows, we had a misunderstanding regarding pressure gauge setting and lung height (see below). All working now. Kai provided a physics lesson on Boyle’s Law, which we appreciated. We suspect this is what The Clash had in mind with their song, “I Fought the Law and the Law Won.” Boyle for the gooooaaalllll!

Throughout the day, Chris tries to sprinkle in more Moon information in order to convey the alien wonder of that world as [we] work individually and take our meals collectively. Ivy set a high standard with yesterday’s dinner! We are aiming to make enough at dinner each night to have, as we did today, leftovers at lunch to save time and energy.

We plan on more imagery and video projection tonight when the desert hides in the darkness and we feel more lunar than not –Commander Christopher Cokinos

March 10, 2024, 18:11
Good evening, crew! This is CapCom checking in.

It was a delight to see you all off on your mission this morning. I hope your first eight hours in SAM have gone smoothly. The rest of the day was sunny and warm for all of us still here at Mission Control. This evening we’ll see a low of 48F (8.9C). It’s a new moon tonight, a fitting start to the mission, I’d say!

Ad lunam cum arte,
Mikayla Mace Kelley, CapCom

March 10, 2024, 18:40

Pressure: 1.3 inches
Lung height 21 inches with blower at 24 Hz and stable for 6+ hours
CO2 Lung: 774 ppm
CO2 TM: 2167 ppm
CO2 Eng Bay: 2046 ppm
CO2 Crew Quarters: 1726 ppm
Water tank level: ~60 gallons
Hydroponics: 6.3 ph, 2.1 EC

Imagination 1 entered Shackleton Base a few minutes after 10 following a lovely send-off. The base is named for Shackleton Crater in the lunar south pole region—and, of course, Shackleton Crater is named for the great Antarctic explorer. Following a team hug, we entered the Lung and spent a couple of hours perfecting the art of lung height, blower speed and maintaining internal pressure to spec. As we did, we worked up some instant poetry with the wall-mounted poetry kit. So art and air co-exist.

We were grateful for the bread (thank you) which we ate with reconstituted dehy eggs (the secret is to microwave the egg slurry for a few seconds, stir, repeat ’till it looks like scrambled eggs, not (as some did) like a strange foam weather-sealant. We [held] a mission meeting afterwards, discussing monitoring the lung (credit to Julie for taking the lead on trouble-shooting), reviewed house-keeping and safety and plans for the rest of the day.

First order of business was much-needed rest. The later afternoon has been a mixture of setting up equipment, figuring out our personal space, personal tech, where we want this or that on this or that shelf, and some creative work for us.

We are getting used to the whir and trickle of the hydroponics, which for a moment caused the crew commander to jump up to see if a leak had sprung in the TM. We are getting used to the water pump thumping—and we are paying attention to using very little water for dish clean up. –Commander Christopher Cokinos

The third crew to enter the Space Analog for the Moon and Mars sealed the outer airlock hatch today, March 10, 2024 at 10 AM. Friends, family, and colleagues were welcomed to tour the SAM facility as the crew prepared for their six days and five nights journey to the South Pole of the Moon. Christopher Cokinos, Liz George, Julie Swarstad Johnson, and Ivy Wahome entered SAM carrying their personal bins. They left their street shoes on the airlock landing and donned hab shoes provided by Astral Designs.

This professional and artistic, all-University of Arizona mission crew is comprised of non-fiction writer Christopher Cokinos and professor emeritus of English; dancer/choreographer Elizabeth George, associate professor at the School of Dance; poet Julie Swarstad Johnson, Poetry Center archivist and librarian; and textile artist Ivy Wahome, MFA candidate in costume design and production at the School of Theatre, Film & Television.

Learn more about Imagination I …

Crew members will engage in individual and collaborative projects ranging from choreography for a solo dancer in a pressure suit to poetic exploration of the outdoor surface as an imaginary lunar landscape. As they live and create at SAM, the crew of Imagination 1 aims to help establish the foundational value of the arts in space exploration as humans consider how to cultivate ethical, sustainable and flourishing communities beyond Earth.

The Mission Objectives for Imagination I are as follows:

Christopher Cokinos, “There are ethical questions we must raise about diversity and access to space, even as we celebrate human curiosity and endeavors. The artists on Imagination 1 have a range of viewpoints. We need those to inform everything from public interest to hard policy. It’s an amazing crew. I can’t wait to see what we accomplish.”

Elizabeth George, “I will explore exterior surface dance/body work while in a pressure suit aimed both at expressing body movement on a non-terrestrial surface with different gravity conditions and maximizing the ability to move with grace in a confined suit with limited consumables. This research and creative activity will be used as a pilot that could potentially benefit astronaut training for interior habitat dance exercise routines and for exterior movement on the moon, potentially using dance as a way to train for ease of lunar EVAs.”

Julie Swarstad Johnson, “Understanding place, from the local to the galactic, is vital for respectful relationships between humans and our Earth. This mission offers a unique opportunity to test out how we can engage with the moon as a place.”

Ivy Wahome, “My goal is to recycle, repurpose, reuse all the fabric scraps I have accumulated over the years. The message I want send home is for humanity to be mindful of our carbon footprint because sustainability and space travel are intertwined. I will attempt to capture scenes of our mission through the art of appliqué, embroidery, and patch work with this message in mind.”

Imagination I will be operating SAM in Mode 2 (pressurized, flow-through) for the duration of their mission while monitoring the carbon dioxide (CO2), relative humidity, temperature, and pressure. The crew will enjoy an all vegetarian diet of dehydrated and freeze-dried foods, with a variety of grains and legumes, pasta, and spices, and opportunity to make home made bread. Unique from the first two crews at SAM in April and May of 2023 respectively, this crew will enjoy the addition of dehydrated milk, dehydrated eggs, and brewer’s yeast.

Crew Imagination I was sent off by friends, family, the Director of Research for SAM Kai Staats and his staff, and an original Biospherian Linda Leigh (Mission I, 1991-93).