Psuedo-astronauts are living in a dome on Hawaii for a yearlong mission to help determine what challenges a crew flying to Mars might face.
On the active volcano of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, six researchers are three months into a yearlong simulation of life on Mars. It is the fourth mission, and the longest so far, of its kind.
Funded by NASA, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation is conducting experiments that study the challenges people would expect to face living with a small group in an isolated dome in anticipation of future manned missions to Mars.
In order to complete the current mission, the six researchers must live in a 1,000-square-foot dome for a full year and can only leave the dome while wearing an elaborate mock spacesuit.
Hawaii's Mauna Loa — an active volcano that last erupted in 1984 — is considered ideal for the space mission because of its relative isolation and reddish-brown barren landscape, which is said to resemble Mars.
BuzzFeed News spoke with the mission's six researchers via email — they're not allowed to make phone calls or video chat — to find out more about what life on a long voyage to Mars is like.
Tristan Bassingthwaighte, an architecture PhD candidate at the University of Hawaii, said one of the things he missed the most about life outside of the dome was the simple ability to meander. All of the crew members seemed to deal with this feeling by exercising a lot.
Bassingthwaighte said there were some things he didn't expect to miss, like "the touristy parts of the island," but after only being with five other people over the last few months he thought a "few hundred strangers around would be really fun."
Carmel Johnston, a soil scientist from Montana, added that it surprised her that she missed the "ordinary day things," like randomly "running into someone you know" or "just being in the presence of the ones that you love."
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1IVLJhs
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