Repelling or rapelling ?

Well finally after what seemed like days, but was probably only like one maybe two, we stopped the training "for now" they said. Were doing something that fun and will strengthen us at the same time. deep-space repelling! I don't know about you but it sounds awesome. launching yourself down cliffs then racing back up sounds like the best thing evar. Speaking of "evar" thats a fun word that all the teens up here seem to be using. Not only does it have a rebellious spelling but they say it how it looks so it sounds different too. I don't know if its supposed to mean something different but I like it in place of the regular "ever".
If you have any thoughts on repelling, rappelling, whatever you wanna call it let me know... lifeless... cold... piece of machinery... you know what never mind that. Just beep if you know what Im typing and bloop if you don't ... fail, if it doesn't know what Im typing how would it respond at all... sigh. I really must be going crazy, Im asking for a response from my logbook.
Teen out.

Continuing the process of going crazy

Oh man, training has been so tough. These last two days I haven't wanted to even touch my log book for fear I would die from the wasted calories.
Since JET is considered a military branch even the juniors like us have to undergo basic training. And for that reason only we are dying out in the middle of nowhere, being drilled to death by our previously kind and gentle teachers. Ive been luckier than some though, I brought my gel so I haven't gotten blisters while getting used to the space suit. We've worn them before but never for this long, we literally do drills every hour.
Its making me continue to go crazy, the drilling, the dead quiet in-between drills and the lack of people to talk to in our rooms makes it depressing. Why don't I have any friends, even in this barren land with nowhere to go and limited people to meet everyone seems to purposefully ignore me... Im done typing, my hands are starting to get cold.
Teen out

Take KAIR when using sarcasm

Setting it up wasn't much fun, it was very difficult seeing as only the instructor in each rover had actually done it before. so there was six of them to be set up and one person who knew how to do it... maybe next time they should do training about these things.
I like them though, once you learn they are super easy. First you have to dig a trench just large enough to fit the package- about six inches by a foot. This part is the hardest and its not that hard in the dry uncompacted lunar soil. once you have the trench place the KAIR in it and make sure its right side up... I forgot to, don't do that ever.
Once you have confirmed its polarity (that means which way is up genius) turn the safety knob clockwise until you feel it click and pull the lever on the front end. This will trigger the compressed air and inflate the room.
Next is the most important but easiest part because it doesn't need any muscles. Simply pull the hose from the buggy to the unit and press the auto lock into the receiver (put the hose into the only hole on the whole thing darn it... the measures I'll go to just to make sure I can understand myself). Once you see the gauge attached to the hose go green you have a solid connection and you can move in!
*insert tiny print here about dangerous stuff and oxygen levels*
Teen out

There's music in the air... kinda

I got picked up a couple hours ago by a creepy goverment dude. The trip is really exciting but also really scary. And not for the reasons you think. The guys that transport you are so scary man, no joke. I should be writing this from the moon but we've been delayed apparently and so were sitting here in a boring blank room. After the first about fifteen minutes almost everyone pulled out their logs, what else can you do? There's no books or magazines to read here, no music and not even a picture. Who would make such an ugly room? Maybe an ugly person...
I can't believe we aren't even in prelaunch training yet. We can't even learn how to use our suits and stuff yet? I wish they would at least let us download the log file for the suit manual so we would have something to read. And then we wouldn't have to do that later, who made the schedule for this darn trip. They aren't very good I can tell you that.
Wouldn't it be wierd if this whole thing was really a elaborate alien plan to get young earthling samples? Wouldn't it be wierd if my brain stopped coming up with wierd thoughts. And also wouldn't it be nice if we could get out of this room sooner or later and do something? ...Someone just farted and I don't see any air vents so I hope it's sooner rather than later.
Teen out.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This post was originally from 7/11/11 or close to it, I had to find it and repost it. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this has caused

Take KAIR

Were off! I don't know what of, vacation or our feet but we're successfully off it. We left the station shortly before this and I almost forgot my logbook... You know, me always thinking of and writing in my logbook seems a lot like a ship captain. That makes me feel kinda cool, wonder if JET students can get ranks.
Glad I learned how to drive a rover well because we split into four teams, five students and a teacher to each rover. And all students are taking a half hour turn at the wheel- it's nice to have such big controls to drive. I had my turn first so now I get to watch the other four sweating bullets the rest of the way. While I'm sitting here maybe I should take inventory. Let's see... fish goop, Kevlar inflatable airtight room (aka KAIR), flashlight (reenforced), emergency oxygen mask, portable generator (I'm carrying it for the group), freeze dried food (I know how you feel veggies), logbook (reporting for duty captain) and a second spacepack of textbooks, notebooks and spencils (space pencils hehe). I think that's all I need so I'll just save the list to JET: important: list
Teen out

Super slimeballs

Even after just one day the reactions are noticeable. The skin around the wound looks natural instead of red and swollen, the itch is gone and by tommorow it should be almost better. How all the above is possible I don't know but I think these little slimeballs deserve better names than numbers. Since I know I'm being monitored through what I write I want to know if you have any ideas for names. JET is talking about doing an actual mission in a few days and so I'm going to save as much gel (slime is kind of a rude word to use for such a miraculous substance) as I can before then
Teen out

Actually awsome

Wow, these guys are awsome! I started wondering why the sides of the tank started sliming up after only about 30 hours but after reading the manual I'm amazed. I followed everything in the manual correctly so at first I was worried and almost got the supervisor. But then I remembered they had sent along a rough draft of an FaQ paper. And question number three was, "The sides of the tank are all slimy and I've done everything right, what's wrong?"
The answer was, "It's completely normal, the fish secrete a slime that has medical properties. It is yet to be thouroughly experimented with but it can be used for any open wound or rash. Please scrape the slime off every two days no sooner and a maximum of a week. If you don't want to/can't use the solution yourself give it to the supervisor. If you experience any abnormal symptoms please report to the medical office as you could be experiencing an allergic reaction."
I am very excited to try it and I only have to wait till tomorrow morning to try it, I have an annoying pressure rash on my forearm. I don't really care to explain their living conditions in detail so I'll just keep a copy of the file under misc; fish project; manual.
Teen out

I have friends... Kinda

Hey remember that creepy girl that I talked about a long time ago? Well absolutely nothing happened so stop holding your breath. JET is about to announce a special project though and I'm very excited. I dont know what you think but secret moon training groups that deal with rovers and deep freezing are generally pretty exciting.
Speaking of exciting I got some little friends today. The supervisors picked a few students with extra time and gave them charge over a test experiment. Unfortunately it's nothing really cool like a hostile plant or dangerous rock specimens but I guess mutated goldfish are pretty cool. All students involved were given 7 subjects. Mine are numbers 236 through 243 because quite a few died before they figured out the conditions to keep them alive. I don't personally know myself but they gave me their habitat, some supplies and an instruction manual so I'll keep you (me) updated
Teen out

Pleasant pauses and touchy training

Man, that zero gravity training is intense. The water training was kind of easy because i liked swimming on earth, here it isn't any different. The zero gravity thing though... I dunno it's pretty crazy. If you make the slightest move you'll gain momentum and won't stop moving until you make another move to contradict it. It's like being weightless... Probably because you are. It's not very easy to describe because there's nothing anything like it, besides swimming. If there's nothing to compare to I don't know if it's possible to describe it.
Since I'm clueless on how to tell myself what I just did, (which sounded a lot better in my head)I'm going to tell you about the work we did instead of the conditions.
We were working on a satellite look-alike to simulate a real situation. We had to repair a solar panel and do a checkup on the rest of the parts. If we didn't do it right we had to do it again because you can't mess up satellites, it costs the government millions (good thing it was a fake satellite). I wonder when JET is going to do something again, it's been a long time since we did anything. That could be good because it means less work...but it could be bad and mean we have to get back on schedule the hard way. I just love periods in groups of three, they add such pleasant pauses...
Teen out

Tight spaces and learning places

Well I learned what we need to continue, well that is I know what we need. I didn't learn it yet. What we still need is tool training. We need to learn how to use tools properly and safely, otherwise the weightless training would be useless any more advanced than we're learning.
Not only do we need to learn how to use the tools though. We have to learn to do it in a space suit... Then do it underwater. Then after we do it in low gravity we have to go to a machine similar to the one on earth and do it "zero gravity".
That doesn't sound fun to me, at least if you drops screw in low gravity you know it will go down, in zero gravity it could go anywhere.
If it's part of training though we have to deal with it,
Teen out

I don't need logs

Well it's true, in space we don't need logs. we build out of metals and plastics.
Just kidding, what I really mean is I don't need my log book apparently because I haven't used it for days. They say you'll go crazy but I have too much to do to go crazy.
Today we went swimming, it was training for weightless situations though and not pleasure. We have to get used to low gravity or no gravity so we went swimming in our space suits. It was very close to what the moons gravity felt like so I thought it was a great training technique. I hear were going to further our training in this area later though because first we need to learn other things to get better, what other things are there? We learned everything we need for that situation I'm pretty sure...
Teen out.

Studying jetpacks with JET

Well now that I have something besides rolling widgets I want to talk to myself some more (and to whoevers monitoring this, I know they wouldn't just let us have these and not use them as monitoring tools).
Today we studied jet packs, I know we already did that but that was just basics. Now were learning more than just how to operate them in an emergency situation. I'm learning basic repairs, advanced functions and how to handle real life situations. Such as; what do you do if your out of jet fuel and slowly floating out into space, you have no tether and only 10 minutes of oxgen left.
The answer apparently is to radio for another jetpacker because as students it's too risky to use the emergency fuel, it's more potent and if you use too much at once it can leak into your suit or explode... And personally I'd rather use the radio than potentially explode
Teen out.

Darn those... Things

It went pretty well... The extra testing that is.
A couple of "simulated" rovers almost got tipped but no one failed epicly or got kicked out of JET. tommorow comes testing on the rovers. Is there really anything I can talk about not related to rovers?
Let's see, solar power... No the rovers are solar powered.
Today's activities? Naw, they were all rover based as well.
Well since I'm sick and tired of... "them" and there's nothing else to talk about I'll end it here
Teen out.

Big screen > tiny screen

Now I can see why they made these remotes so crazy big and stuff. We used them to hook out to a simulation machine and we drove a virtual rover from the main rear view camera. Basically we got to sit in front of a screen and play a video game today... The moon is way better than my school.
Also as part of the JET program tomorrow with the rest of the group I'll be doing extra rover work. Since JET is more advanced we will be controlling our rover from just the angle detectors and tiny screen on the remote.
We won't have the main camera on so while before we just used the remotes camera to see what we got stuck on, with JET we'll be using only the secondary camera.
Note to self, rest eyes before taking tommorows course, that screen is tiny
Teen out.

Rovers and schematics

Awsome! Today we started our moon rover training, we can't drive for real yet but we all have our own remote. Were supposed to get used to the controller, memorize what each of the buttons and levers does and customize the customizable ones to our preferences. The remote is almost a unit of it's own, it has a tiny screen to see the rover veiw and it also has a mini computer inside it to calculate the angle and speed of the the land rover. If it's getting dangerously close to tipping or is tipped it will tell which direction it's tipping and such. I can see why they gave us each our own because we couldn't study it without one, it's too complexe.
Note to self, diagram and schematics of remote is under Training: Land rover: remote, in the log files,
Teen out.

Student stalker

Well after a few days of being stalked and a few days of training I can finally tell whoever the heck is going to read this (probably just me) whats happened.
First, that creepy fake-named dude that asked me to meet him over lunch was a teacher testing me. At first I was suspicious but I asked around and about a dozen students said that that same teacher had the same meeting with them, the topic? Junior Explorer training. He had selected a handful of students that had better scores in classes and showed promise in training to take this course. I was honored of course but once again skeptical so I started asking questions. Such as, what is this training for? Why were you stalking me? And, do you know anything about a girl messaging me?
He explained what JET (junior explorer training) was about then told me what I really wanted to know.
It was part of a test! All the students picked had to go through even more screening. All of them were exposed to creepy/scary situations and monitored to see how they would react.
Some broke under the pressure and never got invited or never showed up to the meeting. Apparently I was one of the dozen or so that got past ok.
JET hasn't started yet but I'm hoping it will start soon since I'm excited.
Oh and also he said he didn't know anything about the girl so... still creepy...
Teen out.

Even worse

Well I got another creepy message today. This time from an obviously fake name and a guy.
But it was about meeting for lunch to talk about a business proposition... What business is there on the moon? And this guy is definitely on the moon base since he doesn't know where I am and he just "told" me to meet him. Not ask if we "could".
I'm going to go now, I need to make sure that my room is secure.
Teen out.

I'm locking my door tonight

Hmm I'm thinking of turning this log into a blog, it would be pretty fun.
I would get to show the whole world my wacky point of veiw and totally different lifestyle, who wouldn't wantto do that?
The only disadvantage would probably be that my facebook would get even more attention.
My nickname is lonely astronaut and that interests girls somehow? Because I got a message today asking if I was interested in a long distance relationship... I was like, that would be a "far out" relationship (hehe, get it?) and then added her to blocked contacts. I don't ever want to get a creepy message like that again.
You know what would be even creepier? If the girl was on this moon base and messages me because she recognized me... Eeew! Someone potentially on this moon base asked if I was interested in a relationship?
Im going to lock my door tonight, that is kind of disturbing that someone would be stalking me on Facebook and not ask me in person.
True "she" might not be on the base but why else would a girl ask a guy all the way on the moon if he was interested in a relationship...

Freezer burn?

Today we had a test on cryo-freeze.
It was all about what to do and not do, such as how to recognize "freeze fail" where the subject is very "out of it".
The way to recognize it is if the subject doesn't respond to questions, appears to have memory loss or is unable to stand even after 20 minutes out of freeze.
If you think someone has cryo-freeze you have to get them back into the cryo chamber and freeze them for about a day while observing them and giving medical attention if needed.
It's usually permanent if not fixed after refreezed.
Another thing we were tested about was what to do after we are released from cryogenic-freezing.
When you are released from cryo treatment you should begin rubbing yor wrists and ankles gently to circulate blood faster while your "thawing".
Also do not eat for at least 4 hours after freezing no matter how hungry you are, it can cause serious organ damage since they might not have thawed yet.
That's the two main subjects we were tested on, I'm not sure how much more we have to go through but I assume they have to test us more to weed out the unsuitable astronauts.

now I know how our food feels

Today the people that passed the test, which does in fact include me, went through cryogenic-freeze training. All I can say is, "it's cold". Now I know how our freeze-dried food feels.
I enjoyed watching people go into but not so much doing it (basically the same as everyone else). It was funny because nothing looks different except their chest stops rising and falling then after they got out they would shiver and sometimes fall on the floor.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go warm up, my fingers are having trouble typing.

Tests and pencils

Today we had a test, yay.
Oh speaking of which, I knew I was forgetting something. Writing all my notes in my log and telling you about them.
I'm so used to using a paper and pencil that I forgot I should use my log.
Anyway, we had a test today and I hope I did ok, the test can even send people back home so we have to get a good grade in the curve. It's rather nerve racking but I just had to remember that a regular test is similar, if you fail enough you get sent home eventually.
I've noticed I write less when it's been a stressful day so I'll write another peom, just to keep me busy longer.

Schoolwork so bland
In this foreign land
Is frustrating indeed
Especially when you need to speed
But even worse
Than a curse
Is a pop-quiz
-A peom by a tested student

The food stinks

I feel whiny today so I'm going to complain about the food.
The food stinks!
They freeze dry about 50% of everything we eat, it can be fun but wierd. The ice cream is probably my favorite if I had to choose a food. Its like compacted sawdust when you put it into your mouth but when you chew it for a few seconds it turns into kind of a pudding. I almost never had non-freeze-dried ice cream so I don't have much to compare to but I think it's almost as good.
It seems forever since I've had a piece of fresh fruit, I would even be happy for some fresh veggies.

I wish I had veggies
All moist and green
If they aren't freeze-dried they have a wonderful sheen
Oh how wonderful they are
I only wish they had them up on this desolate star.

-a short peom by an average astronaut

Moon facebooking

Haha, I didn't know you got facebook in space! Apparently the signal from earth is ok.
I got bored and when I started thinking about things to do I came up with Facebook. Too bad I don't have any friends or it might be fun and it's not like the government needs another way to get information about me. Maybe I should start a blog... Or try to find what happened to my parents... Although I'm not sure if I want to know of course. I found an awsome hiding spot behind the generator. It doesn't even get too hot, the cooling system works pretty well in this room.
It's not blank white like the waiting room and it's not quiet. I can't think of a better spot besides with friends. And since those don't exist I think I've got a winner.
Happy teen out.

teacher failed

Oh man, today was very enjoyable. It made for many giggles when the moon walk teacher was demonstrating the tether and then after about three steps he tripped over it.
One kid even yelled out,"oh no! Teach is floatin' off!".
It was most comical, the instructor of the class hanging upside down by a cord and the earth behind him.
No one else had trouble with the class though, not one person liked even the idea of floating off so they were quite cautious.
I personally think I did the best but I'm slightly biased.
Dunno what tomorrow is but I don't care too much.
P.S. I put a list of classmates under School: acquaintances: all
Teen out.

Short

Sorry about yesterday. I haven't died yet, I just lost my log. Got in big trouble for it and had to run like a million laps. Low gravity or not it's hard to run laps in a space suit!
Well im exhausted still from the running for just a quick post but I wanted tell you about the next training session, moon walking with no tether or anything! First with a test tether, if you use up a certain amount of tether you just "floated away". Sounds fun but hard, now I'm going to go take a nap, I'm pooped man!
Teen to Sleep

Why not go to the dark side?

No training yet today either, were getting lucky. Maybe they want us to explore the base? Because it's not just me wandering around.
Oh and sorry for drifting off to sleep mid-post last night, I was exhausted.
So today I found, A. The crews quarters, and B. The solar generator.
The solar generator isn't too interesting but the solar panels attached to them are. The moon base is located in a crater actually so the panels are way up on the ridge. The moon base is down here and the panels up there for a reason. The moon base is down in a crater because it's cooler and there's less sun radiation so that means it can be a lot more simplistic. The solar panels are up there because they need sunlight almost all the time, even if we were up there too they would be in the same spots, it's the best spot this side of the moon to get sunlight.
I always wondered though, why are we on the "light" side of the moon if we want to be away from the suns rays. We could easily run wires to the base from the panels... Is there a real reason? Hmm, that's brain food,
Teen out.

Sleeping near the fishes

I write this as I drift off to sleep.
It was fun today, I explored all the nooks and crannies I could untill I couldn't walk any farther and I really don't have time to explain it all to you! I guess as I encounter them in my training or daily life I'll write about them but I can tell you my favorite parts. Right behind the laboratory they have, believe it or not, an extremely large fish tank. A self sustaining fish tank. It is an almost perfect mini Eco system that produces just slightly more fish than needed, and guess where the fish go, yum. I don't know the names of all the fish and plants but I do know (from asking the caretaker) that's it's also the moon stations septic system. The plants in there are designed to absorb more nitrogen and methane than needed so we can pump our waste into there and it will be filtered, a multipurpose tank. Veiwing purposes, food, filtration and science.
My other favorite part is the..

We are finally going to the moon

Oh yeah! I'm writing this from the shuttle! I'm very excited as you can tell by my excessive exclamation marks!
We launched just a few minutes ago and I have a limited time to write this because we aren't allowed to use our logs when within a certain radius of the atmosphere. I think it messes with them.
It's a calm ride now but if I had tried to write this log about 2 minutes ago the tablet would have smashed into my face. I never knew how intense those G's would bec(for the non-astronaut, one G is equal to the weight of the earths atmospheric pressure. If there is 5 G's that is 5 times the earths pressure on your body).
The fellow astronauts that didn't pass the test for G's were put into a coma like sleep so they wouldn't freak out or vomit, the pilot said they should wake up shortly afterwe leave the atmosphere.
That might be fun too though because they're going to be all sleepy and stuff.
I have to go because I have to put the logger back in the special case while going into orbit but I'll try to post right after I get onto the moon.
How much do you want to bet those guys they knocked out start blabbing nonsense when they wake up?
Teen out.

Do read the do-not list

Today we got to finally go through pretraining and as long as nothing dumb happens we'll be on our way to the moon for real training soon.
Yesterday though after we had used up all the games we could think of with nothing to see and not much room to move we finally got released and since the "delays" weren't solved yet we were escorted to hotel rooms with room mates of the same gender, mine snored.
Nothing besides pretraining to talk about so I guess I'll go back to that. Since its only pretraining we didn't learn any complex stuff just the functions of our suit and all the Do's. We didn't learn the don'ts because literally everything not on the do list was a don't.
after learning about the space suit we went through an antigravity course. A couple of us at a time got locked in a large chamber and after a few seconds we started floating. When I jumped I banged my head since you don't stop, this was one of those "learn from your mistakes" courses so we were allowed a good amount of time and then they motioned for us to get near the ground and we slowly felt the gravity returning.
The girl in the chamber with me and two other guys fell over when they turned the gravity back on. Why are girls so different, it's annoying.
Teen out.

(Not) Enough time

The supervisors decided we had enough time to log everything we wanted too and set up some folders so they ordered us all to go home and while packing think of one last thing we wanted to write. I want to make a list of everything I'm bringing so I'm writing this for two reasons. Reason number one, I'm bored and I already finished packing. Number two, I put the list in a more obscure folder so I'm putting this note in my main folder so I can find that, just in case.

Listen future me that has potentially forgotten. A list of my junk to keep track of is in folder "miscellaneous" under "moon baggage" got it? You better because I want all my stuff!
Anyway, I guess this my last log for at least a couple hundred years from the orphanage. See you in a long long time if ever my house... You never really qualified as a home unfortunately.
Teen out.

Editors note: for some reason the post coming directly after this is missing... I don't know why or how to get it back into place, to read it go HERE 

A new space log

They gave us space logs and told us that we should write all our thoughts and memories in them incase we forget some things while in cryogenic freeze. I don't want to remember my memories so I'm going to only write my daily thoughts. I think another reason they gave these to us was because a lot of the time there's nothing else to do and they want us to stay sane.
I don't have many feelings about the trip to training except I'm glad I'm getting away from my feelings on earth. Maybe I should write about why I'm going and who's sending me so I can remember things like that. I don't think I'd like it if I didn't remember why I was in a lunar space base.
Well this "experiment" is being funded by the government and it's for previous astronauts and orphans only. The previously experienced astronauts are going straight to "the mission" which I'm unsure what it actually is. All I know is that the orphans are going to the moon to be trained.
The option to go was offered to all the orphans in certain states. The only requirements were that you were at least 15 and didn't plan on coming back within a few lifetimes. Yeah, I said lifetimes.
Well I can't really think of any more thoughts at the moment so I guess in going to end this log.
Teen out.