I've been in Pasadena working to prepare for landing, working on Mars time. This means I tried to go to sleep at 6 pm last night, got up at 11 pm and went to work at midnight. I'll be the Long Term Planner (LTP) for the first few "sols" (martian days) on Mars, and we are doing tests on that schedule. One of my main jobs is to promote good science - how much better does it get than that? After working 10+ hours, I went back to my hotel and managed to sleep for a couple of hours, but not well. I've been dozing until now. 7 pm, and I'll get up for breakfast. I don't have to be at work again until midnight, so I'll probably go for a walk around Caltech until then. This time, it's only for 2 nights, I'll be on this schedule for the first four days of the real mission, but martian days are longer than Earth days, so our schedule will rotate with Mars time - and someone else will rotate in at LTP. At that point, my time will be more flexible, but I'll still be working hard with others following up on the science that needs to be done.
Many people have survived Mars time before (and being LTP!). I'm fairly good at changing time zones, so it will probably be interesting, but not too bad. It was really nice to eat dinner outside in the early light this morning.
Here are a couple of interesting links:
This looks like a really cool App for iPads and iPhones. I don't have either, but know people who do. If you are one of those, show it to me!
And here's an announcement for a press conference on July 16 at 10 a.m. PDT about the MSL mission:
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Added note: A photo from my dad of the iPad app at work:
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