MARS INMATES LEAVE THEIR DOME
Mission to the Red Planet is viable, as technical and psychological issues can be resolved, says one of six teammates
After a year in isolation, six volunteers are glad to be out of confinement and each other’s pockets,
LOS ANGELES // Six people who were isolated on a remote site in Hawaii for a year to help Nasa plan for a mission to Mars emerged from their dome on Sunday, happy to breathe fresh air and meet new people. The team was based on the barren northern slope of the Mauna Loa volcano, and spent their time in a dome 11 metres in diameter and 6m tall. The experiment showed that “a mission to Mars in the close future is realistic”, said French astrobiologist Cyprien Verseux.
“The technical and psychologi- cal problems can be overcome,” he said. Video footage of the team as they emerged shows the three men and three women looking a bit bewildered as they met and posed for photographs with visitors and well-wishers.
Organisers gave them fresh fruit and vegetables.
The most challenging aspect of the experiment was the monotony. “We were always in the same place, always with the same people,” Mr Verseux said.
“Bring books,” he advised new volunteers for a similar isolation experiment.
Tristan Bassingthwaighte, an American fellow mission member, agreed. “Lots of books,” he said. Mr Bassingthwaighte said team members engaged in hobbies such as salsa dancing and playing the ukelele to stave off boredom.
“If you can work on something that is self developmental ... you will not go crazy,” he said. Team members could venture outside only in spacesuits, and Mr Bassingthwaighte said the “astronauts” removed a vast amount of rubbish from the flanks of the volcano in their excursions.
Christiane Heinicke, a German team member, said her main experiment was extracting water from the ground. The volcanic soil on Mauna Loa is very similar in mineral composition to the Martian soil.
“You can actually get water from a ground that is seemingly dry,” she said. “The implication is that you could get water from Mars.”
The crew included a pilot, a soil scientist, and a doctor who is also a journalist. The dome was located in an abandoned quarry far from animals and vegetation. The team locked themselves in on August 28 last year. The men and women had their own small rooms, with space for a sleeping cot and desk, and spent their days eating food such as powdered cheese and canned tuna. The dome had composting toilets and showers, and was powered by solar energy. Team members had limited internet access.
Nasa can send a robot to Mars in eight months, but astronauts travelling to Mars face a trip lasting between one and three years.
Before exploring Mars, which the US space agency hopes to reach some time in the 2030s, Nasa is studying how these longterm isolation scenarios play out on Earth in a programme called Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HiSeas).
The first Hi-Seas experiment involved studies about cooking on Mars and was followed by a four-month and an eight-month cohabitation mission. Two more Hi- Seas missions are planned starting in January 2017 and 2018. Each is scheduled to last eight months, and organisers are looking for volunteers.
If you can work on something that is self developmental ... you will not go crazy Tristan Bassingthwaighte An American member of the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation programme