Say Malina,<br/><br/>Kudos on the amount of thought and effort you've put into all this, it's quite exciting and entertaining already.  :)<br/><br/>I have a broad question that I think might need to be addressed early on, which is, who exactly is behind this expedition?  Is it run by the government, the military, a private "NGO"-type agency, a commercial entity, or some combination of these?  I would have guessed the team members would have at least some idea of who was behind the mission, both in terms of planning and funding.  And wouldn't the organization behind all of it be making certain decisions, such as who's in charge, or what responsibilities each team member has?<br/><br/>I suppose it's conceivable the team members could be responding to mysterious summons from an unknown source, but that's a believability stretch, especially with military people involved, and with the team meeting at some US building first -- whose building is it, and who else is in the building?<br/><br/>These are big questions that any of us could answer in our posts, but they're so broadly significant to the story that I thought maybe you'd want to make those determinations.  But if I'm off-base, just let me know.  Thanks!<br/>