PLANET OF HAWAII

Six NASA-funded researchers on Thursday entered an isolated geodesic dome on a remote Hawaii volcano to study human behavior in long-term space exploration, including a planned voyage to Mars. They will have no physical contact with people in the outside world during their eight-month stay and will work with a 20-minute delay in communications, the time it would take for an e-mail to reach Earth from Mars. The study will assess psychological difficulties associated with living in isolated, confined conditions for a long time. The project is designed to help the US space agency send humans on long voyages, including to Mars by the 2030s.