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Speaker 1: Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from has

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, and this is the true story,

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Speaker 1: true story of six strangers picked to live in a

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Speaker 1: dome on a simulated Martian environment to find out what

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Speaker 1: happens when people stop being polite and start getting real

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Speaker 1: the real world simulated Mars. All right, guys, So first

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Speaker 1: of all, anyone who doesn't recognize what that intro is,

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Speaker 1: you are among my younger listeners. That was a reference

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Speaker 1: to MTVS the real world. Today we're doing an episode

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Speaker 1: that is from a listener request. Listener Jeremiah Wright sent

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Speaker 1: me a message on Twitter and asked that I cover

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Speaker 1: a recent experiment aimed at testing what it might be

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Speaker 1: like to send human explorers to Mars. I was a

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Speaker 1: pretty project conducted by the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and

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Speaker 1: Simulation and the acronym is high seas H I DASH

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Speaker 1: S E A S. So expect lots of pirate voices,

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Speaker 1: yar as we talk about going to the Martian landscape.

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Speaker 1: I'll try and limit that as much as possible. I

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Speaker 1: know a lot of you find that cringe worthy, rightly,

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Speaker 1: so but hey, we should be in September now, and

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Speaker 1: that's talk like a pirate days in September, so we

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Speaker 1: have that to look forward to. But yeah, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: concentrate on that. Talk about the project, what went into it,

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Speaker 1: some of the tech that was involved, why it was

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Speaker 1: happening in the first place, what they were expecting to

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Speaker 1: get out of it, and how it all turned out.

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Speaker 1: So let's uh set the ground first by talking about

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Speaker 1: what Mars is like and why it's important for us

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Speaker 1: to simulate as many different scenarios as we possibly can

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Speaker 1: before going to Mars. If you've seen or read The Martian,

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Speaker 1: you probably have some ideas of what Mars must be like.

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Speaker 1: And uh, for those who have not seen the movie

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Speaker 1: or read the book, I highly recommend it. It is

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Speaker 1: not a scientifically accurate There are some major liberties taken

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Speaker 1: in both the novel and the movie. I'd say more

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Speaker 1: so in the movie than the novel, but both of

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Speaker 1: them have major liberties. But it is very entertaining and

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Speaker 1: the science in it in general is pretty good. So

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Speaker 1: if you have not seen the movie or read the book,

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Speaker 1: check it out. It's my recommendation. Anyway, you know that

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Speaker 1: Mars does not have a breathable atmosphere, has very low

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Speaker 1: air pressure, has very extreme temperatures. But here are some

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Speaker 1: of the liberties that both the film and the novel

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Speaker 1: talk and these are not spoilers really. One is that, uh,

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Speaker 1: there are some major wind storms dust storms that play

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Speaker 1: an important role in both versions of the story, and

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Speaker 1: the density of the Martian atmosphere is way too low

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Speaker 1: to have that devastating dust storm happen. The air is

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Speaker 1: literally too thin to hold larger particulates. So you could

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Speaker 1: have dust blowing around, but it wouldn't be blowing around

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Speaker 1: in huge amounts and not at such enormous force because

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Speaker 1: there's just not enough air there. That's it's not dense enough.

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Speaker 1: And uh so that is problematic, but hey, there had

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Speaker 1: to be an emergency in the story in order to

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Speaker 1: get to the the um, the plot point of a

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Speaker 1: stranded astronaut left behind on Mars. You had to have

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Speaker 1: something happen so that you could have the central uh

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Speaker 1: conflict set up, And so I give it a pass.

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Speaker 1: It's not a huge deal breaker, but it wouldn't actually

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Speaker 1: happen that way on Mars. Also, the gravity on Mars

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Speaker 1: is just thirty eight percent that of Earth's gravity. Mars

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Speaker 1: is less massive than Earth, and so it's gravitational pull

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Speaker 1: is less than that of Earth. It's greater than the Moon's.

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Speaker 1: The Moon is about one six and Mars is a

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Speaker 1: little more than one third. But that means it would

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Speaker 1: also be easier to pick up heavier stuff. So if

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Speaker 1: you're an astronaut and you have to pick up something

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Speaker 1: that weighs more than you typically could carry, you would

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Speaker 1: probably be able to lift it without too much trouble.

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Speaker 1: It might still be very bulky and cumbersome, but you

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Speaker 1: could lift it, lift it. But it also means as

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Speaker 1: you move around, you'd be a lot more bouncy. You

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Speaker 1: wouldn't just walk across. Uh. The other big, big issue

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Speaker 1: is that the service of Mars receives way more radiation

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Speaker 1: than the surface of Earth. Now, this is due to

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Speaker 1: a couple of things. One of those is that it

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Speaker 1: has that thin atmosphere, which does not allow much protection.

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Speaker 1: Earth's atmosphere is one of the reasons we are so

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Speaker 1: uh so able to survive. Is trying to find a

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Speaker 1: better word for it, but really, the atmosphere provides a

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Speaker 1: great deal of protection for us, not just the fact

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Speaker 1: that we breathe the oxygen in the atmosphere, but it

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Speaker 1: slows down a lot of radiation or blocks radiation from

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Speaker 1: getting to us. Another is that Mars does not have

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Speaker 1: a strong magnetic field like Earth does. Our magnetic field

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Speaker 1: also protects us from other types of radiation, and Mars

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Speaker 1: lacks that. So if you were on the surface of Mars,

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Speaker 1: you would be subjected to way more radiation than you

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Speaker 1: would encounter here on Earth. And uh, we humans don't

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Speaker 1: deal with that too well. All right, So a little

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Speaker 1: bit more about Mars. Besides those issues I had with

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Speaker 1: the Martian, UH, Mars's atmosphere being so thin means that

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Speaker 1: liquid water doesn't tend to exist on its surface for

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Speaker 1: very long. There may be liquid water underneath the surface

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Speaker 1: of the soil, especially since it mixes with some other

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Speaker 1: stuff that lowers the freezing point of water, but most

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Speaker 1: water is going to end up freezing. Um, it's not

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Speaker 1: going to stay in liquid form for very long. The

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Speaker 1: atmosphere is primarily carbon dioxide and bike primarily I'm talking

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Speaker 1: of the atmosphere is c O two, which is not

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Speaker 1: great for us. Uh. Nitrogen makes less than two percent

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Speaker 1: of the atmosphere on Mars. Here on Earth. Nitrogen is

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Speaker 1: the most plentiful element in our atmosphere, accounts for seventy

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Speaker 1: of our atmosphere, and oxygen, which on Earth is like

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Speaker 1: of our atmosphere, is only found in trace amounts in

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Speaker 1: the Martian atmosphere, so you would not be able to breathe.

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Speaker 1: Even if the atmosphere were more thick than it is,

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to breathe there because there's not

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Speaker 1: enough oxygen to support life from Earth on Mars, at

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Speaker 1: least not life like us. There's some life forms that

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Speaker 1: would do all right in that environment if you ignored

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Speaker 1: other factors like the radiation. Now not not everyone says

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Speaker 1: that carbon carbon dioxide rich atmosphere is necessarily a bad thing.

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Speaker 1: Some scientists have actually suggested we might use the CEO

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Speaker 1: two in the atmosphere to help generate rocket fuel for

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Speaker 1: a return trip to Earth, which would be an enormous

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Speaker 1: help because that means we would only have to carry

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Speaker 1: half as much fuel as we would need for a

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Speaker 1: round trip. Right, we would just take the fuel we

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Speaker 1: need to get to Mars and then create the fuel

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Speaker 1: we need to get back to Earth while we're on Mars,

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Speaker 1: and weight in space launches is a deal breaker. If

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Speaker 1: you get too much weight, it becomes too difficult and

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Speaker 1: too expensive. So you want to limit the amount of

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Speaker 1: weight as much as you can when you're sending stuff

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Speaker 1: out into space so that you don't hit that critical

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Speaker 1: point where it's just too difficult and too expensive to do. So.

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Speaker 1: If we were able to make our fuel on Mars

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Speaker 1: for the return turn trip home, that would be enormous.

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Speaker 1: Of course, you could also plan a trip to Mars

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Speaker 1: where there is no return trip home. It's a one

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Speaker 1: way ticket, and in fact, there are some uh some

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Speaker 1: projects that have been proposed that essentially would be that

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Speaker 1: it would be a one way trip to Mars and

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Speaker 1: that's where you would live out the rest of your life,

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Speaker 1: which possibly would not be that much longer because Mars

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Speaker 1: is a very hostile environment. But assuming you want to

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Speaker 1: get back, being able to make rocket fuel on the

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Speaker 1: surface of Mars is a pretty good deal. Now, I

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Speaker 1: said that temperatures on Mars have a pretty wide range,

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Speaker 1: and it is incredibly wide. It goes from about seventy

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Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit, which is twenty degrees celsius, down to negative

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Speaker 1: two hundred twenty five degrees fahrenheit or negative one fifty

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Speaker 1: three degrees celsius, so a Martian winter at night gets

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Speaker 1: awful chilly. Obviously, we would want to locate any habitats

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Speaker 1: that we would put on Mars in and a probably

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Speaker 1: a belt closest to the most stable temperature on the

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Speaker 1: planet um and if we were to go there, we'd

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Speaker 1: have to be there for a really long time. I

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Speaker 1: didn't really put this in my notes, but I can

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Speaker 1: talk about it. The orbits of Earth and Mars are

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Speaker 1: such that at certain points they are fairly close together,

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Speaker 1: or at least as close as they get, and then

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Speaker 1: as they continue their orbits they start to spread apart.

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Speaker 1: So if you think of Earth as a circle, you

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Speaker 1: know that is the orbit of Earth. That's one circle,

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Speaker 1: and then a slightly larger circle on the outside is Mars.

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Speaker 1: And then you just imagine how they're both traveling at

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Speaker 1: different speeds, so they start to spread apart. Eventually you

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Speaker 1: get to a point where Earth and Mars are on

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Speaker 1: opposite sides of the Sun from each other, and then

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Speaker 1: if you go long enough, they line up again. Well,

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Speaker 1: when you are launching stuff to get from Earth to Mars,

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Speaker 1: you want to travel the least amount of distance possible.

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Speaker 1: It's just like I was talking about with the weight.

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Speaker 1: The weight is going to be an issue and the

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Speaker 1: distance is an issue. So you want to fire your

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Speaker 1: rockets so that the pathway that the rocket takes is

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Speaker 1: the least amount of distance. And that doesn't mean waiting

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Speaker 1: until Earth and Mars are closest, because it's an eight

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Speaker 1: month journey to get from around eight months to get

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Speaker 1: from Earth to two Mars, so you actually have to

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Speaker 1: shoot ahead of time. It's it's that idea. You're not

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Speaker 1: shooting where Mars is, You're shooting where Mars is going

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Speaker 1: to be. And this involves a lot of complicated math,

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Speaker 1: knowing about the planetary orbits and just the geometry involved,

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Speaker 1: and making sure that you are conserving as much fuel

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Speaker 1: as possible. Same thing on the return trip. So if

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Speaker 1: you were to land on Mars, by the time you

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Speaker 1: landed on Mars, Earth and Mars would no longer be

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Speaker 1: ideally situated. You would have to wait for them to

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Speaker 1: line up again, and that can take a long time,

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Speaker 1: like about two years, essentially more than a year and

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Speaker 1: um and that means that if you're gonna land on Mars,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna be there for a while. Assuming that you

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Speaker 1: are being very careful with your fuel. If somehow fuel

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Speaker 1: is no longer an issue, like we've magically created cold

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Speaker 1: fusion or something, uh, then that would not be You

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Speaker 1: wouldn't have to worry about it as much. You would

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Speaker 1: have more time in space itself, because you would still

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Speaker 1: have to travel a long distance from Mars back to Earth,

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Speaker 1: but you wouldn't have to worry about waiting for the

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Speaker 1: opportune time, that window when the distance is going to

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Speaker 1: be at the smallest amount. All right, getting back to Mars,

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Speaker 1: the regulars on Mars, which is the soil on Mars,

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Speaker 1: could be very problematic to the Phoenix Lander discovered traces

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Speaker 1: of perchlorate in the regulars. Uh. This is a salt

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Speaker 1: derived from perchloric acid. On the plus side, that stuff

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Speaker 1: can be used as a propellant like an oxidizing agent

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Speaker 1: within rocket fuel, So again, you could use this stuff

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Speaker 1: to help create rocket fuel on the surface of Mars

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Speaker 1: along with the carbon dioxide that you're taking from the atmosphere.

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Speaker 1: So that's kind of cool. But on the downside, perchlorate

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Speaker 1: can have a toxic effect on humans, particularly when it

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Speaker 1: comes to the thyroid gland, so you'd have to be careful,

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Speaker 1: like if you if you've been keeping count, the radiation

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Speaker 1: will kill you, the atmosphere will kill you, the uh

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Speaker 1: temperatures could kill you, and the soil will kill you

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Speaker 1: on Mars. Mars is trying to kill you really hard.

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Speaker 1: So it's another and you have to take into account

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Speaker 1: if you're going to send human beings there. However, all

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Speaker 1: that being said, the Martian soil also seems to contain

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Speaker 1: nutrients that are necessary to grow plants, and in fact,

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Speaker 1: NASA has conducted several experiments using simulated Martian soil because

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Speaker 1: we've never we've never taken a sample from Mars and

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Speaker 1: brought it back to Earth, right, so we've simulated Martian

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Speaker 1: soil using soil primarily from places like Hawaii around volcanic planes,

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Speaker 1: which is again that's gonna go back to the simulated

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Speaker 1: habitat we're going to talk about in just a minute.

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Speaker 1: So they've taken that soil and they tried to grow

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Speaker 1: stuff in it, and they've been successful with those experiments.

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Speaker 1: Both NASA and other facilities have grown crops and so

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Speaker 1: it looks like we would be able to do the

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Speaker 1: same on Mars. Now if we were to do that,

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Speaker 1: we would have to have the plants inside a habitat

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Speaker 1: because you would have to have the air pressure there

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Speaker 1: to allow liquid water to exist, and we would need

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Speaker 1: to leach the purchlor at out of the soil in

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Speaker 1: order to make sure that it's not going to affect

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Speaker 1: the plants. But that's something we could do. It's not

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Speaker 1: it's not impossible. It's not even really that difficult. We

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Speaker 1: could do it. It would take some effort, but we

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Speaker 1: could do it. And you would probably have to add

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Speaker 1: some fertilizer to the soil to make sure it has

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Speaker 1: plentiful nutrients for plant life, because Mars has not had

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Speaker 1: any life on it. If it ever has had life

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Speaker 1: on it, it's been a really really long time, so

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Speaker 1: you would have to you know, you don't have that cycle,

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Speaker 1: that nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle, all that stuff that

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Speaker 1: allows for plant life to flourish here on Earth. That

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Speaker 1: hasn't been going on on Mars in a very long time,

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Speaker 1: if in fact, it ever has happened. So we would

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Speaker 1: have to add fertilizer to the soil, but it would

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Speaker 1: probably work. So that's super cool. All right, let's get

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Speaker 1: into the experiment simulating life on Mars. Here on Earth

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Speaker 1: is problematic, very tricky, right, because for one thing, all

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Speaker 1: the elements I just mentioned we cannot really replicate here

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Speaker 1: on Earth, nor would we want to. It would actually

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Speaker 1: put people in serious danger. We would want to engineer

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Speaker 1: as many solutions to problems as we possibly could here

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Speaker 1: on Earth without actually subjecting people to really dangerous conditions

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Speaker 1: until we got to a point where we were really

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Speaker 1: confident that the solutions we had created would protect people

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Speaker 1: from those conditions. You know, once you get to that rate,

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Speaker 1: that that level, you will find people willing to take

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Speaker 1: on that risk. I mean, if we didn't have people

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Speaker 1: like that, then test flight engineers would never happen, right,

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Speaker 1: We would never get test pilots, who are some of

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Speaker 1: the craziest people on the planet. And I say that

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Speaker 1: with respect the the You know, they take enormous risks

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Speaker 1: in experimental aircraft and push it to the limit in

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Speaker 1: order to advance our engineering and scientific knowledge, which is

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Speaker 1: amazing to me. The same thing is true for astronauts,

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Speaker 1: same thing is true for people who are testing the

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Speaker 1: equipment that are ventrally. Astronauts will rely upon to keep

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Speaker 1: them alive. But we don't have to worry about radiation.

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Speaker 1: The way we would on Mars. Uh. The atmosphere is

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Speaker 1: perfectly fine here on Earth. It's not like we've got

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Speaker 1: to some place. There's not like a region on the

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Speaker 1: planet where the atmosphere is really dangerous or we don't

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Speaker 1: have the potentially toxic soil. I mean, in some extreme environments,

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Speaker 1: you could have toxic soil and dangerous atmospheric conditions, especially

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Speaker 1: around really polluted areas. But typically on Earth we're we're

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Speaker 1: pretty okay in those realms. Uh. And it would be

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Speaker 1: pretty unethical to subject anyone to staying in a really

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Speaker 1: dangerous zone just for the sake of experimentation. But the

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Speaker 1: goal of high seas isn't to create a perfect representation

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Speaker 1: of what it would be like to live on Mars.

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Speaker 1: It's not meant to subject people to the extremes of

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Speaker 1: the environment. It's really to discover the best ways to

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Speaker 1: keep a crew healthy and happy as they live in isolation. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: the crew had to be shave as if they were

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Speaker 1: on Mars. You know, they had to behave as if

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Speaker 1: all of those conditions were in play. But more importantly,

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Speaker 1: they had to figure out how to design a habitat

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Speaker 1: and a series of missions to make sure the crew

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Speaker 1: could coexist and cooperate throughout the duration of the mission,

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Speaker 1: over months and months of time. So how do you

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Speaker 1: keep people from succumbing to loneliness or irritability? How do

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Speaker 1: you make sure they get the nutrition they need to

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Speaker 1: stay healthy and active. That was the real experiment, not

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Speaker 1: so much the technology side, but the psychology side. And

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Speaker 1: it all began as a collaboration between a whole bunch

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Speaker 1: of different companies and research organizations and colleges. So here's

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Speaker 1: the full list, and it's pretty long. You got the

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Speaker 1: University of Hawaii, You've got Cornell, You've got Michigan State University,

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Speaker 1: Arizona State University, the University of South Florida, the University

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Speaker 1: of Maryland, the Institutes for Behavior Resources, Smart Information Flow Technologies,

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Speaker 1: Blue Planet Foundation, Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems,

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Speaker 1: and NASA. And the result was that high seas organization,

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Speaker 1: and they had plotted out exactly where they wanted to

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Speaker 1: put this experimental habitat in a place that would closely

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Speaker 1: resemble the surface of Mars and essentially abandoned people for

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Speaker 1: months at a time, not really abandoned people, I'll get

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Speaker 1: more into that, but really limit the interaction people could

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Speaker 1: have with anyone outside of the habitat itself. So the

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Speaker 1: experiment site is on the volcano of mounta Loa on

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Speaker 1: the Big Island of Hawaii. And I'm being obnoxious the

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Speaker 1: way I pronounced these things largely because the Big Island

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Speaker 1: of Hawaii is my favorite place to visit. I have

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Speaker 1: been there multiple occasions, and it is probably the slowest

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Speaker 1: island in the chain as far as like all the

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Speaker 1: ones that people go to for tourists purposes. Oahu is

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Speaker 1: where Honolulu is, That's where the major airport is, That's

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Speaker 1: where the major city is. Uh. You've got Kawaii, which

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Speaker 1: is gorgeous, uh and tiny and and they shot a

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Speaker 1: lot of Lost on Kawaii and uh, it's beautiful, but

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Speaker 1: a little touristy. It's a little small touristy section. And

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Speaker 1: then you've got Maui, which is like the resort island.

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Speaker 1: I've been to Oahu, I've been to those islands, and

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Speaker 1: Big Island. Big Island to me is my favorite. It

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Speaker 1: is a little more laid back, and it has a

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Speaker 1: lot of different ecosystems, from rocky beaches to rainforest to grassland.

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Speaker 1: Two snow on top of the volcanic peaks, including Mount

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Speaker 1: a Looa. Mounta Loa gets snow at the top of

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Speaker 1: it at the higher elevations. It is not the tallest

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Speaker 1: of the volcanoes on the big island. The tallest would

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Speaker 1: be Mount a kia Um And also it can be

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Speaker 1: confused with Killaueya. Kilauea is the the volcano you would

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Speaker 1: really be looking at if you went to the Volcanic

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Speaker 1: National Park and you were looking at the lava flows

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Speaker 1: uh that are either coming from event or going out

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Speaker 1: or rift into the ocean. That's Kilauea on on one

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Speaker 1: side of the island. But the biggest of all the volcanoes,

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Speaker 1: the largest in in just sheer size, is Mount Loa

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Speaker 1: and it is an active volcano. So this experiment is

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Speaker 1: located on an active volcano. Now that being said, eruptions

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Speaker 1: are rarely violent. They do happen, but the eruptions are

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Speaker 1: more like lava flowing out of the volcano, or almost

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Speaker 1: like it's leaking out of the volcano, not being propelled

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Speaker 1: up in a big flume like you would think in

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Speaker 1: a traditional volcanic eruption. It tends to flow from the

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Speaker 1: summit down towards the edges of the island and what

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Speaker 1: is often called the curtain of fire. There are these

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Speaker 1: rift in the earth and they act almost like channels

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Speaker 1: where the lava will flow through. Uh. While the eruption

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Speaker 1: itself can be relatively nonviolent, they're still pretty destructive, right,

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Speaker 1: Like you can have a slow moving lava flow that

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Speaker 1: will cause real damage to property. It's rare that anyone

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Speaker 1: gets hurt in these things because the lava moves at

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Speaker 1: a walking pace. It's not going super fast. I think

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Speaker 1: it hasn't been since the nineteen thirties since someone was

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Speaker 1: injured by an eruption. Everyone tends to be able to

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Speaker 1: get all the way in time and evacuated. But it

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Speaker 1: does cause damage because you know, homes don't move, and

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Speaker 1: a f lava flow encounters a house, then you know

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Speaker 1: you've just got a fire on your hands. But it's

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Speaker 1: generally a pretty safe place you get. You aren't expected

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Speaker 1: to have a like sudden eruption that's going to put

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Speaker 1: you into danger. The site for the simulated Martian habitat

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Speaker 1: is located at about eight thousand feet elevation on Manta Loa,

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Speaker 1: the summit of the volcano. If you were to go

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Speaker 1: at the very top is thirteen thousand, six d seventy

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Speaker 1: nine feet, so this is a little more than halfway

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Speaker 1: up the full height of the volcano, and it's on

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Speaker 1: a slope um that keeps it fairly level. For comparison sake,

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Speaker 1: the primary observing side of the Mantala Observatory is at

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Speaker 1: eleven thousand onety one feet of elevation, so the mantal

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Speaker 1: Loa Observatory is higher up. But don't confuse that with

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Speaker 1: the Manta Chia observatories. Those are astronomical research facilities on

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Speaker 1: the taller peak of Monachia to the north of mantal

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Speaker 1: Looa's summit. Mantal Looa's observatory is an atmospheric observatory, primarily

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Speaker 1: keeping an eye on CEO two levels in our atmosphere. Now,

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Speaker 1: the habitat itself is in an abandoned quarry on the

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Speaker 1: northern slope of Mountaloa. The team picked that site because

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Speaker 1: it has very little vegetation. It looks like the surface

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Speaker 1: of Mars. It's this rocky barren kind of of area. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there are no rare or an endangered species that make

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Speaker 1: it a home, so there was no chance of having

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Speaker 1: a negative impact on an endangered species, and so you

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Speaker 1: would also have a fairly accurate representation of Mars, and

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Speaker 1: you would not be bringing harm to any threatened species. Also,

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Speaker 1: there are no cultural or archaeological sites in that area,

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Speaker 1: so the team wouldn't be causing any harm to something

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Speaker 1: of cultural or historical value, which I think is incredibly intelligent. Um,

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Speaker 1: the Hawaiian people have a very rich history. Their culture

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Speaker 1: is phenomenal and of course, uh the the European explorers

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Speaker 1: who came in had a huge impact on that culture.

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Speaker 1: So trying to not make it, trying not to endanger

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Speaker 1: that rich history more is really important from a sociological standpoint.

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Speaker 1: If you ever get a chance to look into their culture,

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Speaker 1: really you should do it because it is it is

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00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:07,679
Speaker 1: beautiful and incredibly fascinating culture. So the habitat itself was

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00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 1: designed by V. Paul Punte of the Envisioned Design and

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Speaker 1: it was built by the Blue Planet Foundation of Honolulu,

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Speaker 1: and it's super duper cool, you guys. So it's a

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Speaker 1: geodesic dome that's the main habitat, a geodesic dome that's

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Speaker 1: thirty six ft in diameter and it has two stories.

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Speaker 1: The volume inside the dome is thirteen thousand, five hundred

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Speaker 1: seventy cubic feet. Now, not all of that is accessible. Uh,

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00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:38,240
Speaker 1: there's a very tall ceiling. Like like, the second floor

403
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,919
Speaker 1: is only half a half floor, so half of it

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00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:46,080
Speaker 1: looks out into the lower level. So you have this

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Speaker 1: nice tall ceiling over half of the lower level. And

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00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: since it's a dome, the walls curve inward. So because

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00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:58,439
Speaker 1: they curve in word, you don't have full use of

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Speaker 1: the space that's right along the edge of the walls

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00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 1: right You couldn't. You couldn't stand up like a table

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Speaker 1: or chair right up against the wall because the way

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00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 1: the walls curve inside. On the ground floor, there are

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Speaker 1: eight square feet that are that's considered to be usable space.

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Speaker 1: The ground floor has a kitchen, dining room, bathroom with shower,

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Speaker 1: a lab and exercise room, and some commons working spaces.

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00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:29,399
Speaker 1: The upper floor is aloft, with about four square feet available. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It has six staterooms and one half bath. That ceiling

417
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: is pretty high and the reason why they have that

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Speaker 1: high ceiling in the first places. Studies have shown that

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Speaker 1: the longer time, the amount of time you spend in

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Speaker 1: a place, the more it seems to shrink to you.

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Speaker 1: So you want the space to already be pretty lofty,

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Speaker 1: pretty tall, and and open, because you're gonna have that

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Speaker 1: shrinking effect, and you don't want people to start feel

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Speaker 1: like they're they're penned up or they're trapped. It's very

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Speaker 1: important from a psychological point of view. Uh. There are

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00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:05,960
Speaker 1: actually some pictures on the High Seas website where you

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00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:08,880
Speaker 1: can take a look at the rooms and the layout

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00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: and some of the equipment inside this habitat, and I

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Speaker 1: recommend you do it because they're pretty cool. They only

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Speaker 1: have a few that are actually of the interior of

431
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: the habitat. Most of their pictures are of the exterior

432
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 1: or of uh the various participants dressed up in simulated

433
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 1: space suits as they go outside, because in order to

434
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: simulate and an experience on Mars, you are not allowed

435
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 1: to leave the habitat without first going through a simulated

436
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 1: airlock experience, including getting all geared up inside a simulated

437
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 1: space suit. AH, very important if you want to make

438
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 1: as as accurate as possible as the experience on Mars

439
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 1: would be. UH. Disregarding the other stuff we already talked about,

440
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:54,880
Speaker 1: like the fact that you're not going to be able

441
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:58,960
Speaker 1: to simulate thirty of Earth's gravity here on Earth. The

442
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,520
Speaker 1: picture of the kitchen makes look really nifty and modern.

443
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,679
Speaker 1: It has a stove and oven, it's got a microwave,

444
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: a breadmaker, and a crock pot. Um they've thought that

445
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 1: by giving the participants different abilities to prepare food, it

446
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: would also help morale. Towards the end of the first mission,

447
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: Commander Angelo Vermulin talked about the foods that were a

448
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:22,880
Speaker 1: big hit versus the ones that did not go over

449
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: so well to kind of, you know, help with the

450
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 1: future experiments. There have been four missions so far in

451
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 1: the high Seas Habitat the first one lasted four months,

452
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: and that's the one I'm talking about right here that

453
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: Commander Vermullin was working on. He said that the foods

454
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 1: available to the crew were limited to ones that could

455
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: be easy to carry in a spacecraft, whether it would

456
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: be carried in the spacecraft that the astronauts going to

457
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: Mars would use, or a spacecraft sent ahead of time,

458
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: or a resupply mission sent later on to send more

459
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:03,399
Speaker 1: cargo and supplies to people already on Mars um. In

460
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 1: any case, you have to make sure that you you

461
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: are packing stuff that is uh space efficient right, meaning

462
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: that you can pack a lot of it into a

463
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: small area and that it's not too heavy. So uh.

464
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,960
Speaker 1: He said that the favorites in the pre prepared category,

465
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 1: so these are ones that were ready to go, you

466
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 1: just had to heat them up in some way, included

467
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: creamy wild rice soup, mashed potatoes, raspberry crumble, and apple sauce,

468
00:27:31,760 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 1: among others. The least favorite of the pre prepared foods

469
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: was one called kung Fo chicken, which the entire group

470
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 1: described as being mostly tasteless and slimy in texture. The

471
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: team also prepared meals for themselves and for each other

472
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: using ingredients that were sent along, and those met with

473
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 1: a lot of success. Those meals included everything from a

474
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:59,639
Speaker 1: seafood cholder to Russian borshed to Moroccan tangen uh and others.

475
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:02,919
Speaker 1: They also like to use tortillas a lot to make

476
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: various raps. Apparently this is also a big hit aboard

477
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: the International Space Station. Tortillas are easy to pack and

478
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 1: you can put a lot of different stuff in them,

479
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: So they talked about experimenting with all sorts of things

480
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 1: from breakfast foods to fish and everything else, and apparently

481
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:20,880
Speaker 1: those were a huge hit, But in general, pre prepared

482
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: meals were actually favored, not because they tasted better, but

483
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:26,679
Speaker 1: because they didn't require a lot of work and thought

484
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:29,600
Speaker 1: to prepare them. If you're working all day trying to

485
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,879
Speaker 1: complete mission objectives, and every single day they had mission

486
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:37,119
Speaker 1: objectives they were supposed to meet, then you are putting

487
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: a lot of thought and energy into cooking, and uh,

488
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 1: it's exhausting, it's overwhelming. So instead, if you were to

489
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: go the pre prepared route, where you don't really have

490
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: to think very much and cooking is easy and clean

491
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: up as a breeze, that is an easy choice. You

492
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: could see that Also, if you were to go with

493
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 1: the preparation mode, like the full on cook a meal mode,

494
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,959
Speaker 1: it means using more water then you would with pre

495
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: prepared stuff, and water conservation is incredibly important. Water would

496
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: be a very precious resource for astronauts on Mars. He

497
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 1: would need to have a very careful way of managing

498
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 1: your water supply. Now, assuming we do send people to Mars,

499
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 1: we will likely create means to get water from Mars itself.

500
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 1: There is frozen water on Mars, and there are probably

501
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 1: different ways that we could harvest water from Mars. But

502
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: even so, you would want to be very judicious with

503
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: your use of it, and you would want to conserve

504
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: as much as you could and reuse as much as

505
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: you could. And more on that in just a minute.

506
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 1: The commander also said he figured future missions should have

507
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 1: more comfort foods for particularly stressful days. Um He said

508
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:48,479
Speaker 1: that there should be a lot more spices, herbs, and

509
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:50,719
Speaker 1: hot sauces to add a kick to foods and give

510
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,719
Speaker 1: them more flavor, and there needed to be more foods

511
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 1: with fiber in them. Apparently the fiber content of a

512
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: lot of the foods they had was fairly low, which

513
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to have a regular problem

514
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: with a lack of fiber. But so some of the

515
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: ingredients included in that first mission, This is just a

516
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 1: small list of some of the ones that jumped out

517
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: at me that I thought were kind of interesting. Anchovies,

518
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 1: awesome pre cooked bacon, freeze dried meats, which the crew said,

519
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: we're really only good if you use them as an

520
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: ingredient within a bigger dish. You wouldn't want to eat

521
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 1: one of the freeze dried meats on their own because

522
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 1: they had very little aroma and less taste. So you

523
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 1: essentially just got a meat consistency with no flavor to it.

524
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 1: They had a lot of different freeze dried vegetables and fruits.

525
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 1: They had nuts and seeds. They had pastas and other starches.

526
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: They had baking ingredients like flour and yeast. Uh. They

527
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 1: had powdered dairy products. They had tea, coffee, and other drinks,

528
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 1: including tang. They had seasonings and condiments. Some of my

529
00:30:54,680 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 1: favorite ingredients listed included canned eel popping corn masa, which

530
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: I really do like to cook with, powdered eggs POI.

531
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: It's very Hawaiian velveta cheese. And of course tang. You

532
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 1: gotta have tang on there on your space trip and uh.

533
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: The High Seas Experiment assumed the residents on Mars would

534
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 1: receive regular supplies from Earth, So that was they would

535
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 1: actually hire a company to bring shipments of food and

536
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: water at certain intervals during the experiments to represent a

537
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: resupply mission sent from Earth to keep the astronauts supplied. Um,

538
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: because you wouldn't want to pack a full year's worth

539
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: of food and water onto the habitat all at once.

540
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: It would be prohibitively large. You would have to have

541
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: a much larger space, and that would not be very efficient. Remember,

542
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 1: the larger the habitat, the more you have to pack

543
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 1: in in order to maintain the proper air pressure, you

544
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 1: need more oxygen, and it just it makes everything more complicated.

545
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: So you want to find that perfect balance where it's

546
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: efficient but not so small that it's going to make

547
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: habitats the habitants go space crazy. You don't want space madness.

548
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 1: That's bad. As for that exercise area, the astronauts used

549
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: it a lot, in particular during the first mission. Uh.

550
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 1: There we are some projects that NASA was conducting, some

551
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: some experiments they were using. They were studying how well

552
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: different types of materials hold up to prolonged activity and

553
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 1: where and they were looking at two things. We're looking

554
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 1: at how much does the material stand up to wear

555
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 1: and tear, like does it does it maintain its integrity?

556
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,960
Speaker 1: And also how long can someone go wearing the same

557
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 1: clothing before they stank up the joint? And that's serious.

558
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: They really did do that because again, you want to

559
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: conserve your water. You're not gonna be taking a shower

560
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: that frequently, and so they wanted to find micro bacterial

561
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 1: type fibers that are anti microbial I should say, fibers

562
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: that would limit the effect of bacteria on a person's

563
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: skin from creating a stink and stinking up the joint.

564
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 1: When you have six people working in close proximity, you

565
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:14,960
Speaker 1: don't want to have a lot of bo filling up

566
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 1: that habitat. So that was one of the experiments on

567
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 1: that first mission. Just imagine going out there and exercising

568
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: your heart out and hoping that you're anti microbial under

569
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: things can keep the job going. According to one former participant,

570
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: most folks would exercise along with exercise videos like Insanity

571
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 1: or P niney X. That's pretty hardcore. Obviously, on the

572
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 1: service of Mars, things would be different because again you

573
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: would have that lower gravity, so you'd have to figure

574
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: out a lot of different resistance training type experience type

575
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: of approaches to allow for appropriate amounts of exercise where

576
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 1: you're not just bouncing all over the habitat. Now, the

577
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: staterooms were basically big enough for a bed, a stool,

578
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 1: and a small computer desk, and of course there's no

579
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: view outside. The dome was made out of flexible material.

580
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: The rooms have like a plywood kind of roof to them,

581
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 1: so there's a fabric shell on the outside. On the

582
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: inside you have this like plywood roof. It's solid. You

583
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 1: don't have a view um and I think the only

584
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 1: porthole they have is near the entrance of the actual habitat,

585
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:27,880
Speaker 1: where you would go through the whole airlock system. Otherwise

586
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: you don't know. You're just looking at the interior of

587
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 1: the habitat. Now, the pictures of the rooms are kind

588
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: of cool. I think Harry Potter would have felt right

589
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 1: at home moving from his cupboard under the Dursley stairs

590
00:34:38,360 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: to the High Seas facility. It would have seemed like

591
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 1: pretty much a one to one comparison. Uh. You would

592
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,720
Speaker 1: store all of your belongings, like your clothing and stuff

593
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 1: under the bed. There's no closet or anything. In fact,

594
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:54,240
Speaker 1: the bedroom looks like a closet. The beds themselves are

595
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 1: positioned so that the one of the long edges is

596
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 1: against the outer side of the wall right, so that

597
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:05,840
Speaker 1: way when you open the door, you're looking at the

598
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:08,439
Speaker 1: side of the bed essentially, and you can take maybe

599
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: two steps and then sit down on your bed, and

600
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:12,320
Speaker 1: then you have your little bit desk and your stool

601
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:16,320
Speaker 1: there too. Uh. So that that computer desk. I mentioned

602
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 1: the team did have access to computers and the Internet,

603
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:22,760
Speaker 1: but in order to simulate the isolation someone would feel

604
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:26,320
Speaker 1: on Mars, all communications between the participants and the outside

605
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 1: world were delayed by around twenty minutes. That simulates the

606
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:31,879
Speaker 1: amount of time it would take data to make its

607
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 1: way from Mars to Earth at the speed of light. Now,

608
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:37,719
Speaker 1: like I said before, the distance between Mars and Earth

609
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: varies throughout their respective orbits around the Sun, but a

610
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 1: rough average is a twenty minute twenty light minute gap,

611
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 1: meaning it takes light twenty minutes to pass between Mars

612
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 1: and Earth. So that means there was no way to

613
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: chat in real time. It was all asynchronous communication, and

614
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:57,239
Speaker 1: all the websites they could access were cashed images, so

615
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: they couldn't have access to a dynamic webs site and

616
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:02,319
Speaker 1: they're not going to look at a website that is

617
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: changing in real time. They would look at a cashed

618
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 1: version of it. This was all to simulate the limitations

619
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: they would face if they were actually on Mars. Power

620
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:16,320
Speaker 1: for the habitat came from solar panels and batteries. Solar

621
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,839
Speaker 1: power obviously, if you don't use the electricity generator from

622
00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: a solar panel right away, you waste it, so you

623
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 1: have to either use it or store it. So you

624
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: would use the solar power to power the stuff inside

625
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 1: the habitat and store any excess electricity in batteries. They

626
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 1: also had a hydrogen fuel cell to provide backup power

627
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: if the batteries ever fell below five capacity, so that

628
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 1: way you wouldn't have an interruption in power. Obviously, that

629
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:46,839
Speaker 1: would be devastating on Mars itself. Inside the habitat, they

630
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 1: also had a three D printer which allowed the crew

631
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:53,440
Speaker 1: to print out replacement parts for equipment. If something had broken,

632
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:57,320
Speaker 1: let's say, like a leg on a on a small

633
00:36:57,360 --> 00:36:59,879
Speaker 1: table is wobbly, you could actually print out a little

634
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: eady stop gaps so that you stop it from wobbling.

635
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 1: Or it might be something way more serious, or it

636
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 1: could even be something simple like a comb, so you

637
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: didn't have to pack a comb, you just print one

638
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: when you get there. I thought that was kind of cool.

639
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 1: The two bathrooms in the habitat had, or have, because

640
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:20,800
Speaker 1: the habitat still exists, have composting toilets. Poop is important, y'all.

641
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:24,799
Speaker 1: If you were on Mars, you might want to use

642
00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 1: poop as fertilizer for the soil you're using to grow

643
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,800
Speaker 1: plants in. You would actually have to process the poop,

644
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 1: you know, you'd have to process a little bit. It's

645
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: not like you would just dump the pooh into a

646
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,399
Speaker 1: a field of you know, whatever it was you're growing

647
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 1: radishes or potatoes in the case of the Martian, but um,

648
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:48,399
Speaker 1: you would, you know, want to save that. So they

649
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:50,719
Speaker 1: were trying to keep that similar. Also, they had to

650
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 1: learn how to repair composting toilets because sometimes stuff breaks.

651
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 1: As for water, the habitat had a water tank or

652
00:37:57,600 --> 00:37:59,720
Speaker 1: has a water tank. I keep using the past tense,

653
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:02,359
Speaker 1: but I should stress they still plan to do two

654
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: more missions with the high Seas habitats, so it's not

655
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: like it's gone away. Has a water tank that can

656
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 1: store about one thousand gallons. The project hired people to

657
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: bring water and refill the tank at regular intervals, but

658
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,839
Speaker 1: it was important that it wasn't so frequent. To make

659
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:20,879
Speaker 1: it easy. The team inside the habitat had to plan

660
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 1: out their water usage so that they did not run

661
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 1: out of water. It was a really tough challenge. Uh. Now,

662
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:30,800
Speaker 1: on Earth, we would be able to send water supplies

663
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 1: up occasionally, but not that frequently because again, once the

664
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 1: Mars and Earth orbits are out of alignment, it takes

665
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:39,960
Speaker 1: way more energy for us to get to Mars, and

666
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: that means more fuel, and that means more expense and

667
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 1: a bigger technological challenge. So you really don't want to

668
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:52,800
Speaker 1: have to send more water if you really can avoid it. Uh,

669
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 1: they didn't go to the extremes of water conservation that

670
00:38:56,160 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: you would find a board like the International Space Station

671
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 1: where scientists have attempt it to recapture as much water

672
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 1: as possible, including water people breathe out, just the water

673
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: you would lose the respiration, UH, that kind of water

674
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 1: On the I s S. They tried to reclaim as

675
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: much as that as possible, filter it, and then reuse

676
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: it in various ways. But they did look at different

677
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 1: ways to pay attention to conservation and recycling. During the

678
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 1: year long mission that just concluded, the team actually had

679
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: to respond to a water emergency. They had planned out

680
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:31,239
Speaker 1: how much water consumption they would go through uh through

681
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 1: the month of July, and they worked it out to

682
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: like the millimeter of how far down the water tank

683
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:40,320
Speaker 1: they would go. But then the water supplier, the company

684
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: that actually would come up and refill. The water tank

685
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 1: suffered a mechanical failure, and it had nothing to do

686
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:48,319
Speaker 1: with the habitat. It wasn't their fault at all, but

687
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:50,319
Speaker 1: it meant that the water that would come in and

688
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 1: resupply them wasn't coming. And this is a simulation. They

689
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 1: can't just get a different company to come out and

690
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 1: deliver water something like the This might happen on a

691
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:04,719
Speaker 1: real Martian mission. So the crew had to figure out

692
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 1: what they wanted to do. Now. They had an emergency

693
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:12,320
Speaker 1: backup water tank, but it hadn't been touched in years.

694
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 1: This emergency water tank had existed since the very first mission,

695
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 1: but no one had had to use it, so they

696
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: weren't sure about the quality of the water. They had

697
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:23,360
Speaker 1: no idea if it would be drinkable, if it be

698
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: safe to drink, and they lacked the equipment to test

699
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 1: it because that would take up even more space, and

700
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:32,439
Speaker 1: if you don't absolutely need something, you're not gonna take

701
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:36,239
Speaker 1: it in a habitat that has very limited space to it.

702
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: So they had to figure out a way to make

703
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 1: the water usable and be and and be sure that

704
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 1: it was safe without having the ability to test it.

705
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,880
Speaker 1: So what they did has been an old fashioned method

706
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: of distilling the water. They put uh They put containers

707
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 1: or pots of water inside a big plastic tote essentially,

708
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:04,839
Speaker 1: and they had an electric heater element. An electric heater

709
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: element would heat up the pot of water so that

710
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,319
Speaker 1: the water would boil. On top of the tote. They

711
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 1: put a plastic sheet and they clamped it down along

712
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:16,360
Speaker 1: the sides. They had just regular old clamps that they used.

713
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 1: Boy Joe McCormick were here because he loves clamps. But

714
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 1: they put clamps all along the edges and kept it

715
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:27,560
Speaker 1: nice and tight. They put a spoon over the center

716
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:31,479
Speaker 1: of the plastic sheet to create an indentation, a dip

717
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 1: in the sheet, kind of like if you were to

718
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 1: imagine a bowling ball on a trampoline. It makes the

719
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: material dip down, so steam from the boiling water would

720
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 1: rise up. It would condense against the plastic. The drops

721
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 1: of water would slowly slide down to the lowest point

722
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 1: where the spoon was, and eventually dripped down into the

723
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: container itself. The water that would drip down was safe

724
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,239
Speaker 1: to drink. It had been distilled, and so they were

725
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 1: able to make drinking water this way. They just had

726
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: to constantly keep checking on the water, make sure that

727
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 1: it was at the right level, uh, and replace the

728
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: water in the pots, so that they added that to

729
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:15,400
Speaker 1: their daily activities. But otherwise it didn't impact the mission,

730
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,840
Speaker 1: so they were able to continue their mission and respond

731
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: to this water emergency in a way that was realistic.

732
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 1: You know. It didn't require them to step outside of

733
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 1: the simulation in order to keep it going, so that

734
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 1: was really cool. Now, next to the habitat itself is

735
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:34,799
Speaker 1: a steel shipping container that serves as a workshop for

736
00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: the habitat. It's actually attached to the habitat, so the

737
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:42,440
Speaker 1: participants can pass back and forth between the shipping container

738
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:46,760
Speaker 1: and the habitat itself in order to do more work,

739
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't necessarily have to don a full space

740
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: suit in order to do that. And like I mentioned,

741
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,879
Speaker 1: they have completed four simulated mission so far. The first

742
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:58,879
Speaker 1: took place in two thousand thirteen it lasted four months long.

743
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 1: The second mission took place in two thousand fourteen the

744
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 1: early part of two thousand fourteen and lasted another four months.

745
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 1: The third began in the fall of two thousand fourteen

746
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 1: and lasted six months, and the fourth mission began on

747
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:14,279
Speaker 1: August two thousand fifteen and ended a year later, so

748
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:19,280
Speaker 1: it was just a few days before I recorded this. Obviously,

749
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 1: for the experiment to be meaningful, everyone has to behave

750
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:25,719
Speaker 1: as if they are in fact on Mars. Again, they

751
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 1: don't have to pretend like they're in low gravity situations.

752
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:32,280
Speaker 1: That would be ridiculous. It would be it would require

753
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:35,280
Speaker 1: you to exert way too much energy. But going outside

754
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:37,319
Speaker 1: the habitat mint, putting on a space suit, going through

755
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: that simulated airlock uh scenario before you could go out.

756
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 1: And because the project was simulating an actual visit to Mars,

757
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 1: they would receive mission objectives that would require the participants

758
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 1: to do this on a fairly frequent basis. Every single

759
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:54,360
Speaker 1: mission they've done has had several Mars walks included where

760
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: they were sent off to specific locations to take information down,

761
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 1: make observations, explore things like lava tubes and vents um,

762
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 1: which was really cool. I mean, it allowed them to

763
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: actually do real work. They were actually doing real research.

764
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 1: It's just the the research in this case was Earth research.

765
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:17,719
Speaker 1: They were just simulating the experience of it as if

766
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 1: they were on Mars. So the information they gathered is

767
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,920
Speaker 1: useful to us. It's just useful to us as people

768
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 1: on Earth, which is kind of cool. There was like

769
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:29,919
Speaker 1: a two for one in a way. Now. It also

770
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:32,080
Speaker 1: meant that the team had to show discipline when entering

771
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:37,360
Speaker 1: or leaving that that habitat um and sometimes they would

772
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:41,359
Speaker 1: actually plan out a Mars walk when they didn't have

773
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 1: one on the schedule, simply to occupy their minds, because

774
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:48,640
Speaker 1: boredom is a real problem when you're in that that

775
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:50,880
Speaker 1: type of isolation, especially if you're in there for a

776
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:53,719
Speaker 1: whole year. And keep in mind that a habitat on

777
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:57,279
Speaker 1: Mars would have a much higher internal air pressure than

778
00:44:57,320 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 1: the planet would, so the air pressure inside the habitat

779
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: would be very very high compared to the Martian atmosphere,

780
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 1: and that means if you opened up the habitat without

781
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:13,760
Speaker 1: using an airlock, the air inside the habitat would rush out.

782
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 1: It would blow out of the habitat and go out

783
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere and dissipate, and that would be no bueno.

784
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:26,919
Speaker 1: That's end of end of habitat. You would you would

785
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:30,719
Speaker 1: lose air pressure and you would have a catastrophic emergency,

786
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,399
Speaker 1: which also happens in the Martian No spoiler there either,

787
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:37,760
Speaker 1: It's a big part of the story, and you would

788
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,359
Speaker 1: imagine that would have to happen in order to up

789
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 1: the stakes on the drama. The when the stakes start

790
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: with being abandoned on Mars, there are only so many

791
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:50,840
Speaker 1: things you can do to increase the stakes at that point,

792
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: and you have to do that in order to have

793
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 1: a compelling story. All right, let's talk about the participants

794
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 1: of this most recent experiment, the people who spent an

795
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:03,320
Speaker 1: entire year in isolation with one another, the six Strangers.

796
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 1: As I mentioned in the beginning of this podcast. First

797
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 1: of all, the the High Seas Project always seeks out

798
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: participants who are astronaut like, meaning they have the qualifications

799
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 1: that NASA would look for when choosing astronauts for their

800
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: various space faring missions. So you already have to be

801
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:26,839
Speaker 1: a pretty remarkable person to be considered to take part

802
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:30,279
Speaker 1: in this experiment. Uh, they have to be physically fit,

803
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:32,440
Speaker 1: they have to be mentally fit, and they have to

804
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:36,160
Speaker 1: have at least one degree in science or engineering, and

805
00:46:36,239 --> 00:46:40,720
Speaker 1: most of them have multiple degrees. We're talking mega super

806
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 1: smart people. As I was looking through the various accomplishments

807
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 1: and degrees that a lot of these participants have I

808
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:52,240
Speaker 1: started to feel very badly about myself. I consider myself

809
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 1: to be a fairly smart person, but these folks leave

810
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: me in the dust. So each team member has assigned

811
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 1: duties that they must complete day to day. Sometimes it's

812
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 1: mundane stuff like cleaning up the habitat or cooking or

813
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 1: something along those lines. Sometimes it's mission oriented stuff like

814
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 1: going out on a Mars walk or conducting experiments within

815
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 1: the habitat itself. But they can also pursue personal research

816
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 1: projects during the course of the experiment. So a lot

817
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:22,279
Speaker 1: of the people who apply to be part of High

818
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:26,399
Speaker 1: Seas are also graduate students typically. Uh and a year

819
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:28,520
Speaker 1: long commitment's a big deal. I mean, you can do

820
00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:31,239
Speaker 1: some really serious research within the course of a year,

821
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:35,839
Speaker 1: but that's a full year of your life. So here's

822
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: the mission team from Mission for You had Commander Carmel Johnston.

823
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 1: She's a soil scientist from Montana and her primary focus

824
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:47,280
Speaker 1: was to study how a Martian crew might grow food

825
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:52,080
Speaker 1: on a real mission. Uh. You had Christian Heinek, a

826
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 1: physicist and engineer from Germany. She had worked on projects

827
00:47:55,600 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 1: ranging from electro magnetic phenomena like the polar lights two

828
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:05,120
Speaker 1: simulations of the Earth's mantle before she joined High seas

829
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:10,320
Speaker 1: super smart, like her degrees are crazy because they focus

830
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 1: on so many different different disciplines of science. She clearly

831
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:20,719
Speaker 1: is very intelligent and very curious, which is awesome. Then

832
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 1: there was Shana Gifford. She also has a ton of

833
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:31,560
Speaker 1: academic credentials, including degrees in clinical laboratory science, biotechnology, journalism,

834
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 1: and neuroscience. And she's also a science communicator. So as

835
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 1: a fellow science communicator, again, I am humbled by her accomplishments.

836
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:42,439
Speaker 1: I should get her on the show if I can,

837
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 1: uh yet. Andre Stewart and aerospace engineer and flight engineer

838
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:50,480
Speaker 1: for NASA. He's also he was working for Lockheed Martin

839
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:53,320
Speaker 1: before this this project, and there's also a picture of

840
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:55,760
Speaker 1: him in the habitat wearing a Jane hat from Firefly,

841
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:59,719
Speaker 1: so that's kind of awesome. Then you have a Cyprian,

842
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: their sue, an astrobiologist expert. One of his goals is

843
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:08,000
Speaker 1: to pioneer ways that future Martian colonists will produce various

844
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 1: resources using biological processes, which would mean you'd use you know,

845
00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 1: like bacteria to produce stuff you would need. You would

846
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: genetically modify the bacteria, so that waste products that otherwise

847
00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:23,920
Speaker 1: would just be thrown out could be converted into useful stuff.

848
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:28,880
Speaker 1: That could be everything from helping generate food or oxygen

849
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:32,959
Speaker 1: or rocket fuel even And the goal is to make

850
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:38,319
Speaker 1: Martian colonies, future Martian colonies, more independent from Earth, not

851
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:42,400
Speaker 1: as like some sort of utopian society, but rather you

852
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 1: don't have to rely on so many resupplies. You can

853
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:52,760
Speaker 1: support yourself independently, which would really increase the success probabilities

854
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:56,800
Speaker 1: of such a colony be really important. So that was

855
00:49:56,880 --> 00:49:59,359
Speaker 1: really what he was focused on. And then you had

856
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:03,680
Speaker 1: Tristan basingth Weight who's an architect, and he was studying

857
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 1: human habitation and extreme environments. So kind of a person

858
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:12,240
Speaker 1: who's living through this experience making note of it, making

859
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: suggestions for what future habitats should incorporate. Maybe maybe elements

860
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 1: they should get rid of, or elements they should add,

861
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 1: stuff that will again improve the success rate of any

862
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 1: future Martian colony. So what was the outcome, Well, they

863
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:32,160
Speaker 1: spent a full year in that habitat, so that part

864
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:34,360
Speaker 1: was a success. They did not have to end the

865
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:38,919
Speaker 1: experiment early. No one got severely injured. One of the

866
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:41,360
Speaker 1: bright spots they said is that when you are six

867
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:44,839
Speaker 1: people that are completely separated from everyone else, no one

868
00:50:44,880 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 1: gets sick because viruses can't just spontaneously pop up. You

869
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:53,759
Speaker 1: could get uh, some food poisoning or something. And in fact,

870
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 1: one of the participants did get hit by like a

871
00:50:56,000 --> 00:51:00,839
Speaker 1: stomach bug of some sort or just maybe something they

872
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:03,120
Speaker 1: just did not agree with them for one reason or another.

873
00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:06,640
Speaker 1: But apart from that, they couldn't pass anything along to

874
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: each other because they were all healthy when they went

875
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:10,839
Speaker 1: into the habitat. So they said that was kind of cool.

876
00:51:11,719 --> 00:51:14,239
Speaker 1: But keeping people happy when isolated for a really long

877
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:17,279
Speaker 1: time is very difficult. According to members of the crew,

878
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:22,720
Speaker 1: one of the best ways to improve morale is through emergencies. Really,

879
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 1: because an emergency requires the crew to work together and

880
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 1: focus on a particular task. You cannot act as a

881
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:34,960
Speaker 1: lone wolf or else everybody dies the mission is in jeopardy.

882
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:37,840
Speaker 1: So when the emergency is over, everyone feels satisfied and

883
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: they feel closer to each other. But being in those

884
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 1: close quarters for that long doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna

885
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: be the best of buddies with everyone when it's over.

886
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:55,080
Speaker 1: The participants have been pretty diplomatic about this, but it's

887
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:58,120
Speaker 1: clear that some folks are going to be in touch

888
00:51:58,200 --> 00:51:59,919
Speaker 1: with each other for a very long time and other

889
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 1: folks maybe not so much. Um, So it's not like

890
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:07,520
Speaker 1: everyone becomes inseparable at the end of this. So that's

891
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. There's very little privacy in the habitat.

892
00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone has their own private bedroom, but that bedroom,

893
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: like I says, a closet, uh, And there's no real

894
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:20,520
Speaker 1: space to kind of get away unless you go to

895
00:52:20,600 --> 00:52:22,880
Speaker 1: that bedroom, assuming that you have the time to do so,

896
00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:26,400
Speaker 1: because you also have duties to perform and most of

897
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 1: the stuff the the actual possessions in the habitat were

898
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:35,400
Speaker 1: pretty much considered communal property. You could have private possessions,

899
00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:38,160
Speaker 1: but you also understood that those private possessions might end

900
00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:40,560
Speaker 1: up getting pulled into a solution to a problem. So

901
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 1: it may mean the thing you were thinking of as

902
00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:51,280
Speaker 1: yours becomes important to solve an engineering issue. It sounds

903
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:54,319
Speaker 1: very kind of mcgeiver ishu, but it's true. And it's

904
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:57,239
Speaker 1: also a challenge to learn how each person is going

905
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 1: to respond to and manage the stress of being in

906
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:06,080
Speaker 1: this isolated environment. Some management strategies like being passive aggressive

907
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:10,480
Speaker 1: don't work in a small enclosed environment where people can't

908
00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:13,200
Speaker 1: get away from each other. And also you had the

909
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:17,200
Speaker 1: challenge of cultural differences being involved. This was an international

910
00:53:17,520 --> 00:53:20,799
Speaker 1: series of missions, meaning that there were people from all

911
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 1: different parts of the world who could potentially be part

912
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:26,440
Speaker 1: of this. Now that meant a couple of different things.

913
00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:30,319
Speaker 1: That cultural differences could rear up and cause friction, but

914
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:33,480
Speaker 1: it also meant that people got to try different cuisines

915
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 1: from other parts of the world. And apparently that was

916
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:38,480
Speaker 1: one of the big things. People really like the idea

917
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:44,680
Speaker 1: of trying stuff like home cooked meals from other cultures,

918
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:47,759
Speaker 1: and it was an interesting way to broaden your horizons.

919
00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:51,760
Speaker 1: But yeah, that cultural difference could also pose an issue

920
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 1: with communication. So, like I said, basing for Weight himself

921
00:53:55,920 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: was saying, sometimes they would just plan an impromptu e V,

922
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:04,040
Speaker 1: a extra vehicular activity essentially a Mars walk, just to

923
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: alleviate boredom. That you would go through the whole process

924
00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:09,040
Speaker 1: of suiting up and going through the airlock, which could

925
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:12,319
Speaker 1: take around an hour to do. Uh, that's a lot

926
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:19,240
Speaker 1: of work just to avoid tedium. Now, this particular mission,

927
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:23,839
Speaker 1: Mission four of High Seas is over. It's not the

928
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:27,520
Speaker 1: only time we've ever seen people try to simulate the

929
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 1: isolation people would feel if they were to go to Mars. Actually,

930
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:35,319
Speaker 1: in Russia, there have been a series of three experiments

931
00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:40,719
Speaker 1: where people were living in a simulated spacecraft. The three

932
00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:45,440
Speaker 1: experiments collectively totaled sixty days, and the last of the

933
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:50,719
Speaker 1: three experiments was five hundred twenty days, so like a

934
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 1: year and a half of isolation. The mission included a

935
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:59,600
Speaker 1: simulated landing on Mars that long one did as well

936
00:54:59,640 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 1: as re e v A s on the Martian surface.

937
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:06,719
Speaker 1: According to the Russians at the time, everything turned out swimmingly.

938
00:55:08,040 --> 00:55:09,879
Speaker 1: There have been some other reports that said that there

939
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:14,080
Speaker 1: were you know, there were issues, not nothing that would

940
00:55:14,080 --> 00:55:18,440
Speaker 1: stop the mission, but that not everything was absolutely perfect

941
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,879
Speaker 1: as you might have been led to believe. Um, so

942
00:55:22,040 --> 00:55:24,200
Speaker 1: there could be some propaganda stuff going on in there.

943
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:27,960
Speaker 1: I would imagine any group, even if you have very

944
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:33,360
Speaker 1: disciplined people, would suffer setbacks now and again just because

945
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:38,440
Speaker 1: of the various different personalities and the stress involved. But

946
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:42,200
Speaker 1: what's next, Well, the next high seas experiment is already

947
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:46,240
Speaker 1: in the planning stages. If you wanted to apply oops,

948
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:48,759
Speaker 1: because this episode is going to come out too late

949
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:51,319
Speaker 1: for you to do that. I'm recording this on September two,

950
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:55,640
Speaker 1: two sixteen, but applications are due on September five, and

951
00:55:55,719 --> 00:55:58,120
Speaker 1: this episode goes up after that. And as far as

952
00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:01,880
Speaker 1: I know, the applications are for both of the last

953
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:05,280
Speaker 1: two missions that are scheduled, one schedule for two thousand seventeen,

954
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:09,040
Speaker 1: one schedule for two thousand eighteen. They're both going to

955
00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:14,440
Speaker 1: last eight months long each, so I apologize if you

956
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:18,520
Speaker 1: wanted to apply, it's too late. Those are supposed to

957
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 1: be the two final experiments for high Seas, though you

958
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:25,000
Speaker 1: never know, there may be another high seas experiment, perhaps

959
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:29,040
Speaker 1: a redesigned habitat um. I don't know how that's going

960
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 1: to turn out after these last two missions, or if

961
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:33,799
Speaker 1: the whole thing will just say, all right, here's all

962
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:37,359
Speaker 1: the data we gathered and now this branch of experimentation

963
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:40,880
Speaker 1: is over. That's a possibility. And then of course we

964
00:56:40,920 --> 00:56:43,240
Speaker 1: have the long term goal of actually going to Mars.

965
00:56:44,120 --> 00:56:47,480
Speaker 1: A Martian habitat might be at least partially underground in

966
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:51,320
Speaker 1: the future Mars colony. The reason to put a Martian

967
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:54,759
Speaker 1: colony underground is to protect against that radiation I was

968
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:58,440
Speaker 1: talking about. You would want protection from cosmic radiation as

969
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:01,080
Speaker 1: well as X rays, all to violet rays, that kind

970
00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 1: of stuff, and the Martian soil could do that for you.

971
00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 1: Since there's no magnetosphere, or not a strong one anyway

972
00:57:08,719 --> 00:57:12,000
Speaker 1: to protect you. You could protect yourself by burying your

973
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:14,920
Speaker 1: habitats under the ground. So you would probably have a

974
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:19,280
Speaker 1: few surface level buildings with tunnels that lead down into

975
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:23,120
Speaker 1: underground habitats where people were actually living, and you would

976
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:26,080
Speaker 1: do the same process of getting into a space suit

977
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:28,640
Speaker 1: if you wanted to emerge out on the Martian surface.

978
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:32,600
Speaker 1: One of the different proposals I have seen a lot

979
00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:37,360
Speaker 1: of different UH proposed missions to Mars involved. This would

980
00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:42,000
Speaker 1: include sending robots ahead of time to go and excavate

981
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:46,480
Speaker 1: an area where then they could assemble at least some

982
00:57:46,560 --> 00:57:51,479
Speaker 1: of the habitats and then piled dirt regulars on top

983
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:55,200
Speaker 1: of them to bury them. And that way astronauts when

984
00:57:55,200 --> 00:57:57,400
Speaker 1: they arrive at Mars would already have a place to

985
00:57:57,520 --> 00:57:59,920
Speaker 1: go to they wouldn't have to set it up themselves.

986
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:03,440
Speaker 1: That seems pretty intelligent to me. They would also involve

987
00:58:03,640 --> 00:58:06,160
Speaker 1: sending cargo ahead of time so that when the mark

988
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:10,919
Speaker 1: the the the Martian UH colonists or the explorers more

989
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: likely explorers than colonists. First off, when they land, they

990
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:18,160
Speaker 1: would already have some of their stuff there. They wouldn't

991
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:20,840
Speaker 1: have to take everything with them, and thus again you

992
00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:25,560
Speaker 1: could spread out the weight of all of that stuff

993
00:58:25,640 --> 00:58:28,160
Speaker 1: across multiple launches instead of trying to pack it all

994
00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 1: into a single one. And they could then take those

995
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:35,040
Speaker 1: that cargo storied in the proper space and start their

996
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 1: mission uh, probably for a couple of years, and then

997
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:43,000
Speaker 1: try a return trip to Earth. We're talking about probably

998
00:58:43,000 --> 00:58:45,920
Speaker 1: a full like three to three and a half years

999
00:58:45,960 --> 00:58:48,840
Speaker 1: for a full Martian mission, when you include the trips

1000
00:58:48,880 --> 00:58:51,840
Speaker 1: out to Mars back from Mars, and the time spent

1001
00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:55,680
Speaker 1: on Mars. Uh. I think it's really exciting, and I

1002
00:58:55,760 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 1: love that we have been working very seriously on designing

1003
00:59:00,560 --> 00:59:05,480
Speaker 1: a habitat that meets both the technical requirements we would

1004
00:59:05,600 --> 00:59:09,680
Speaker 1: have on Mars and the psychological requirements we would have.

1005
00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:15,760
Speaker 1: Because if you've ever really used any technology developed entirely

1006
00:59:15,880 --> 00:59:19,640
Speaker 1: just by engineers, you may notice, well, it works, but

1007
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:23,960
Speaker 1: it doesn't work in a way that seems natural or intuitive.

1008
00:59:24,360 --> 00:59:26,760
Speaker 1: Sometimes that happens, and it may be that it makes

1009
00:59:26,760 --> 00:59:29,000
Speaker 1: perfect sense. It just requires you to think in a

1010
00:59:29,080 --> 00:59:32,160
Speaker 1: very specific way. You have to adjust your behavior and

1011
00:59:32,240 --> 00:59:35,040
Speaker 1: your thinking so that you get the most out of

1012
00:59:35,080 --> 00:59:39,200
Speaker 1: that piece of technology. But when you're talking about people

1013
00:59:39,360 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 1: living on another planet, you want that to be effortless.

1014
00:59:43,560 --> 00:59:45,920
Speaker 1: You don't want to have to adjust your thinking and

1015
00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:49,680
Speaker 1: your behavior to your destination, or at least not entirely.

1016
00:59:49,880 --> 00:59:52,920
Speaker 1: Some of that is absolutely necessary because of the differences

1017
00:59:52,960 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 1: between Mars and Earth, but you want the the habitat

1018
00:59:58,600 --> 01:00:04,840
Speaker 1: two be as much benefit to you as possible. So anyway,

1019
01:00:04,960 --> 01:00:08,840
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Jeremiah for the suggestion. I really

1020
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:12,000
Speaker 1: appreciate it. This was a lot of fun to look into. Um.

1021
01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:14,600
Speaker 1: I'm sad that I was not able to see this

1022
01:00:14,720 --> 01:00:16,840
Speaker 1: habitat the last time I was in Hawaii, which was

1023
01:00:16,880 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 1: not that long ago. When I was last in Hawaii,

1024
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:23,120
Speaker 1: this experiment was underway. They were inside the habitat, but

1025
01:00:24,120 --> 01:00:26,880
Speaker 1: it is not exactly on an easily accessible part of

1026
01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:29,120
Speaker 1: Mount Loah, which is part of the point, right. You

1027
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:31,960
Speaker 1: wouldn't want it to be easily accessible, then you could

1028
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:34,800
Speaker 1: put the whole experiment at risk with tourists just walking

1029
01:00:34,880 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 1: up and standing on the surface of Mars in the

1030
01:00:37,080 --> 01:00:39,720
Speaker 1: background of the pictures as astronauts are trying to do

1031
01:00:39,960 --> 01:00:44,360
Speaker 1: missions that would be a little silly, so I totally understand.

1032
01:00:44,960 --> 01:00:46,600
Speaker 1: But still it's kind of a bummer because I would

1033
01:00:46,680 --> 01:00:49,320
Speaker 1: love to see this place. I mean, I really really

1034
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:51,200
Speaker 1: would love to see this place. And I got to

1035
01:00:51,240 --> 01:00:54,640
Speaker 1: Hawaii a lot. So if anyone at High Seas is like, hey,

1036
01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:59,040
Speaker 1: when we're not doing a mission, we're not doing an experiment, uh,

1037
01:00:59,040 --> 01:01:00,919
Speaker 1: and you want to see this space, come on over.

1038
01:01:01,360 --> 01:01:04,000
Speaker 1: Please let me know, because I will do it in

1039
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:06,600
Speaker 1: a heartbeat. I will book a trip to Hawaii so

1040
01:01:06,640 --> 01:01:09,440
Speaker 1: I can see it. First of all, I love Hawaii, uh,

1041
01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:11,520
Speaker 1: and I would love to go back again. And second

1042
01:01:11,560 --> 01:01:13,840
Speaker 1: of all, I think it would be the experience of

1043
01:01:13,840 --> 01:01:16,800
Speaker 1: a lifetime, even just to walk around this habitat and

1044
01:01:16,840 --> 01:01:20,920
Speaker 1: see the condition of the space and how what it

1045
01:01:21,000 --> 01:01:24,040
Speaker 1: must feel like to be in that space, even just

1046
01:01:24,080 --> 01:01:27,120
Speaker 1: for a few like a half hour, as opposed to

1047
01:01:27,640 --> 01:01:31,439
Speaker 1: a full year, it would be phenomenal. But I hold

1048
01:01:31,440 --> 01:01:33,640
Speaker 1: out very little hope that anyone that High Seas is

1049
01:01:33,680 --> 01:01:37,200
Speaker 1: listening to this um if they are passed along, I'd

1050
01:01:37,240 --> 01:01:40,400
Speaker 1: love to check it out. Guys, this has been a

1051
01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:43,200
Speaker 1: fantastic time for me. I hope you've enjoyed it. I

1052
01:01:43,240 --> 01:01:45,400
Speaker 1: didn't go into too much pirate voice, so I hope

1053
01:01:45,440 --> 01:01:48,760
Speaker 1: that helps, and UH didn't make too many high seas puns.

1054
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:53,800
Speaker 1: I really look forward to tackling a lot more topics

1055
01:01:53,840 --> 01:01:56,560
Speaker 1: that you guys choose. Just send me messages, send me

1056
01:01:56,600 --> 01:01:59,320
Speaker 1: an email the addresses tech stuff at how stuff works

1057
01:01:59,320 --> 01:02:01,600
Speaker 1: dot com, or send it to me on Twitter or

1058
01:02:01,640 --> 01:02:03,920
Speaker 1: Facebook at both of those the handle us text stuff

1059
01:02:04,040 --> 01:02:07,280
Speaker 1: hs W. You can also follow my personal Twitter account

1060
01:02:07,320 --> 01:02:10,640
Speaker 1: that's John Strickland j O N S t R I

1061
01:02:10,800 --> 01:02:14,080
Speaker 1: C K L A N D and UM. I post

1062
01:02:14,120 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 1: all the time from there, often about my dog, so

1063
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:20,080
Speaker 1: if you don't want to see that, it's I don't

1064
01:02:20,120 --> 01:02:22,360
Speaker 1: blame you, but he is adorable and you should look

1065
01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:25,480
Speaker 1: at him because he's the cutest. You guys, have a

1066
01:02:25,480 --> 01:02:29,000
Speaker 1: great day. I will talk to you again really soon

1067
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:36,440
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

1068
01:02:36,440 --> 01:02:47,520
Speaker 1: it hastaff works dot com.