Terrestrial Analogs for Conditions on Mars
Europeans psych themselves up for a trip to Mars, Astrobiology Magazine
“Guillaume Dargaud is an engineer who participated in the first winter-over at Concordia in 2004. In his own words, he experienced “one year away from friends and family, four months of total darkness, minus 79C [minus 110F] winter temperature and ten months of total isolation.” He didn’t find the isolation particularly difficult to deal with, but said “it depends on the people. One needs to be solitary without being antisocial. The people who break down early are not necessarily those without anything to do, they are those who don’t know how to fill their time.” Asked if he thought he could survive a long-duration space mission after surviving Antarctica, his simple answer was, “Where do I sign up?”
2nd Winterover at Concordia Station (2006) blog by Eric Aristidi, LUAN (Laboratoire Universitaire d’Astrophysique de Nice)
17 – 23 Avril: “During this time, I sleep heavily. Bedtime for me is around 4 am and I wake up just before noon. I then vaguely come downstairs to the coffee machine. People I cross tempt to communicate with me : the answer is generally a happy smile with some inquiring grunt. Speaking facility has not rebooted at this early time.”
