The Importance of Being There
Astronauts-in-Training Spend a Year in a “Box”, KTRH
“Editor Keith Cowing of NASAWatch.com says similar exercises have been done in the past, but you always knew at the end of the day you were going to get in your car and go home. It’s different now. “You know that, in the back of your mind,” Cowing says, “but if you’re in the middle of a polar desert, you’re being stressed by that environment, and how you react is going to show how you might react to a similar situation on Mars.” A trip to Mars would take two years, possibly as many as three. It’s important for scientists to find out whether a man or woman can deal with the stress of isolation for that long. They also have to be able to fix things. “How do you select people who are one part Captain Kirk, one part Spock and one part Scotty? I mean,” he says, “that’s what you’re really looking for.”
New Arrivals at ESA’s Concordia Base in Antarctica
Keith’s note: in my interview the “similar exercises” that I was referring to are things done onsite at NASA JSC or at IBMP in Moscow(500 day simulated Mars missions) i.e. facilities where the real world was just outside a door. You can never totally remove that knowledge from the mind of an experimental participant. Speaking from personal experience during month-long stays on Devon Island and at Everest Base Camp, when you are actually in a place where you are profoundly aware of just how utterly isolated – and at risk – you are, you do things differently. And you are forced by that isolation/risk to be creative in how you solve problems – especially those you did not anticipate. There’s no 911 to dial (easily) and no Home Depot nearby. Its in these expeditionary or so-called “planetary analog” environments that the human – and technological – factor are truly tested.
NASA needs to be doing much more of the planetary analog work that ESA is so supportive of in Antarctica if it wants the whole #JourneyToMars thing to actually happen.
An even better Mars analogue that would allow us to not have to commit to two years of non-contact would be the Moon. Talk about the perfect near term stepping stone that could engage the public in a shorter period instead of 20+ years from now. I wonder why no one has thought of that before. #JourneyToTheMoon
“How do you select people who are one part Captain Kirk, one part Spock and one part Scotty? I mean,” he says, “that’s what you’re really looking for.”
Excellent observation. You hit that ball right out of the park.
Agreed. Early on in the space program we selected mostly test pilots. Long duration missions are different, so you need a very different sort of person to fulfill the requirements.
That’s not a bad analogue. Communications with the rest of the world are possible all the time, but there isn’t any physical contact or available emergency support during polar winter. The number of people there is a little large for a Mars mission analogue (10-15 people, according to a quick check on Wikipedia), but Amundsen-Scott has a larger staff and Vostok is comparable. Some early Antarctic expeditions may have wintered over in isolation and with a smaller number of people, but they didn’t do any sort of medical research on the subject.
Just out curiosity, how isolated is Devon Island in the winter? The inland, Antarctic stations aren’t all that accessible even in emergencies. The one attempt to help with a medical emergency (that I can think of) was big news.
These may be the best that can be done on the surface of the Earth, but I think they will be insufficient because of two factors.
One is that the physiological impact of watching the blue Earth go from a planet, to a bright star over the weeks and months is probably unknowable, since nobody has yet experienced this. The second impact is growing communications delay (round trip light time) that goes from a fraction of a second (because of TDRSS), to seconds, to minutes, to finally several tens of minutes. How will people react?
I’m pretty sure they simulate the comm lag on these planetary analog missions. It’s way easy to do.
And everyone should read Nicholas Johnson’s ‘Big Dead Place’.