First, I put on an EVA suit. Then I close the inner airlock door, leaving the outer door (which the bedroom is attached to) open. This isolates the bedroom, with me in it, from the rest of the rover. Then I tell the airlock to depressurize. It thinks it’s just pumping the air out of a small area, but it’s actually deflating the whole bedroom.

Once the pressure is gone, I pull the canvas in and fold it. Then I detach it from the outer hatch and close the outer door. This is the most cramped part. I have to share the airlock with the entire folded-up bedroom while it repressurizes. Once I have pressure again, I open the inner door and more or less fall into the rover. Then I stow the bedroom and go back to the airlock for a normal egress to Mars.

It’s a complicated process, but it detaches the bedroom without having to depressurize the rover cabin. Remember, the rover has all my stuff that doesn’t play well with vacuum.

The next step is to gather up the solar cells I laid out the day before and stow them on the rover and trailer. Then I do a quick check on the trailer. I go in through its airlock and basically take a quick look at all the equipment. I don’t even take off my EVA suit. I just want to make sure nothing’s obviously wrong.

Then, back to the rover. Once inside, I take off the EVA suit and start driving. I drive for almost four hours, and then I’m out of power.

Once I park, it’s back into the EVA suit for me, and out to Mars again. I lay the solar panels out and get the batteries charging.

Then I set up the bedroom. Pretty much the reverse of the sequence I use to stow it. Ultimately, it’s the airlock that inflates it. In a way, the bedroom is just an extension of the airlock.

Even though it’s possible, I don’t rapid-inflate the bedroom. I did that to test it because I wanted to find where it’ll leak. But it’s not a good idea. Rapid inflation puts a lot of shock and pressure on it. It would eventually rupture. I didn’t enjoy that time the Hab launched me like a cannonball. I’m not eager to repeat it.

Once the bedroom is set up again, I can take off my EVA suit and relax. I mostly watch crappy seventies TV. I’m indistinguishable from an unemployed guy for most of the day.

I followed that process for four sols, and then it was time for an “Air Day.”

An Air Day turns out to be pretty much the same as any other day, but without the four-hour drive. Once I set up the solar panels, I fired up the oxygenator and let it work through the backlog of CO₂ that the regulator had stored up.

It converted all the CO₂ to oxygen and used up the day’s power generation to do it.