Speaker 1: Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from has
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, and this is the true story,
Speaker 1: true story of six strangers picked to live in a
Speaker 1: dome on a simulated Martian environment to find out what
Speaker 1: happens when people stop being polite and start getting real
Speaker 1: the real world simulated Mars. All right, guys, So first
Speaker 1: of all, anyone who doesn't recognize what that intro is,
Speaker 1: you are among my younger listeners. That was a reference
Speaker 1: to MTVS the real world. Today we're doing an episode
Speaker 1: that is from a listener request. Listener Jeremiah Wright sent
Speaker 1: me a message on Twitter and asked that I cover
Speaker 1: a recent experiment aimed at testing what it might be
Speaker 1: like to send human explorers to Mars. I was a
Speaker 1: pretty project conducted by the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and
Speaker 1: Simulation and the acronym is high seas H I DASH
Speaker 1: S E A S. So expect lots of pirate voices,
Speaker 1: yar as we talk about going to the Martian landscape.
Speaker 1: I'll try and limit that as much as possible. I
Speaker 1: know a lot of you find that cringe worthy, rightly,
Speaker 1: so but hey, we should be in September now, and
Speaker 1: that's talk like a pirate days in September, so we
Speaker 1: have that to look forward to. But yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: concentrate on that. Talk about the project, what went into it,
Speaker 1: some of the tech that was involved, why it was
Speaker 1: happening in the first place, what they were expecting to
Speaker 1: get out of it, and how it all turned out.
Speaker 1: So let's uh set the ground first by talking about
Speaker 1: what Mars is like and why it's important for us
Speaker 1: to simulate as many different scenarios as we possibly can
Speaker 1: before going to Mars. If you've seen or read The Martian,
Speaker 1: you probably have some ideas of what Mars must be like.
Speaker 1: And uh, for those who have not seen the movie
Speaker 1: or read the book, I highly recommend it. It is
Speaker 1: not a scientifically accurate There are some major liberties taken
Speaker 1: in both the novel and the movie. I'd say more
Speaker 1: so in the movie than the novel, but both of
Speaker 1: them have major liberties. But it is very entertaining and
Speaker 1: the science in it in general is pretty good. So
Speaker 1: if you have not seen the movie or read the book,
Speaker 1: check it out. It's my recommendation. Anyway, you know that
Speaker 1: Mars does not have a breathable atmosphere, has very low
Speaker 1: air pressure, has very extreme temperatures. But here are some
Speaker 1: of the liberties that both the film and the novel
Speaker 1: talk and these are not spoilers really. One is that, uh,
Speaker 1: there are some major wind storms dust storms that play
Speaker 1: an important role in both versions of the story, and
Speaker 1: the density of the Martian atmosphere is way too low
Speaker 1: to have that devastating dust storm happen. The air is
Speaker 1: literally too thin to hold larger particulates. So you could
Speaker 1: have dust blowing around, but it wouldn't be blowing around
Speaker 1: in huge amounts and not at such enormous force because
Speaker 1: there's just not enough air there. That's it's not dense enough.
Speaker 1: And uh so that is problematic, but hey, there had
Speaker 1: to be an emergency in the story in order to
Speaker 1: get to the the um, the plot point of a
Speaker 1: stranded astronaut left behind on Mars. You had to have
Speaker 1: something happen so that you could have the central uh
Speaker 1: conflict set up, And so I give it a pass.
Speaker 1: It's not a huge deal breaker, but it wouldn't actually
Speaker 1: happen that way on Mars. Also, the gravity on Mars
Speaker 1: is just thirty eight percent that of Earth's gravity. Mars
Speaker 1: is less massive than Earth, and so it's gravitational pull
Speaker 1: is less than that of Earth. It's greater than the Moon's.
Speaker 1: The Moon is about one six and Mars is a
Speaker 1: little more than one third. But that means it would
Speaker 1: also be easier to pick up heavier stuff. So if
Speaker 1: you're an astronaut and you have to pick up something
Speaker 1: that weighs more than you typically could carry, you would
Speaker 1: probably be able to lift it without too much trouble.
Speaker 1: It might still be very bulky and cumbersome, but you
Speaker 1: could lift it, lift it. But it also means as
Speaker 1: you move around, you'd be a lot more bouncy. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't just walk across. Uh. The other big, big issue
Speaker 1: is that the service of Mars receives way more radiation
Speaker 1: than the surface of Earth. Now, this is due to
Speaker 1: a couple of things. One of those is that it
Speaker 1: has that thin atmosphere, which does not allow much protection.
Speaker 1: Earth's atmosphere is one of the reasons we are so
Speaker 1: uh so able to survive. Is trying to find a
Speaker 1: better word for it, but really, the atmosphere provides a
Speaker 1: great deal of protection for us, not just the fact
Speaker 1: that we breathe the oxygen in the atmosphere, but it
Speaker 1: slows down a lot of radiation or blocks radiation from
Speaker 1: getting to us. Another is that Mars does not have
Speaker 1: a strong magnetic field like Earth does. Our magnetic field
Speaker 1: also protects us from other types of radiation, and Mars
Speaker 1: lacks that. So if you were on the surface of Mars,
Speaker 1: you would be subjected to way more radiation than you
Speaker 1: would encounter here on Earth. And uh, we humans don't
Speaker 1: deal with that too well. All right, So a little
Speaker 1: bit more about Mars. Besides those issues I had with
Speaker 1: the Martian, UH, Mars's atmosphere being so thin means that
Speaker 1: liquid water doesn't tend to exist on its surface for
Speaker 1: very long. There may be liquid water underneath the surface
Speaker 1: of the soil, especially since it mixes with some other
Speaker 1: stuff that lowers the freezing point of water, but most
Speaker 1: water is going to end up freezing. Um, it's not
Speaker 1: going to stay in liquid form for very long. The
Speaker 1: atmosphere is primarily carbon dioxide and bike primarily I'm talking
Speaker 1: of the atmosphere is c O two, which is not
Speaker 1: great for us. Uh. Nitrogen makes less than two percent
Speaker 1: of the atmosphere on Mars. Here on Earth. Nitrogen is
Speaker 1: the most plentiful element in our atmosphere, accounts for seventy
Speaker 1: of our atmosphere, and oxygen, which on Earth is like
Speaker 1: of our atmosphere, is only found in trace amounts in
Speaker 1: the Martian atmosphere, so you would not be able to breathe.
Speaker 1: Even if the atmosphere were more thick than it is,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to breathe there because there's not
Speaker 1: enough oxygen to support life from Earth on Mars, at
Speaker 1: least not life like us. There's some life forms that
Speaker 1: would do all right in that environment if you ignored
Speaker 1: other factors like the radiation. Now not not everyone says
Speaker 1: that carbon carbon dioxide rich atmosphere is necessarily a bad thing.
Speaker 1: Some scientists have actually suggested we might use the CEO
Speaker 1: two in the atmosphere to help generate rocket fuel for
Speaker 1: a return trip to Earth, which would be an enormous
Speaker 1: help because that means we would only have to carry
Speaker 1: half as much fuel as we would need for a
Speaker 1: round trip. Right, we would just take the fuel we
Speaker 1: need to get to Mars and then create the fuel
Speaker 1: we need to get back to Earth while we're on Mars,
Speaker 1: and weight in space launches is a deal breaker. If
Speaker 1: you get too much weight, it becomes too difficult and
Speaker 1: too expensive. So you want to limit the amount of
Speaker 1: weight as much as you can when you're sending stuff
Speaker 1: out into space so that you don't hit that critical
Speaker 1: point where it's just too difficult and too expensive to do. So.
Speaker 1: If we were able to make our fuel on Mars
Speaker 1: for the return turn trip home, that would be enormous.
Speaker 1: Of course, you could also plan a trip to Mars
Speaker 1: where there is no return trip home. It's a one
Speaker 1: way ticket, and in fact, there are some uh some
Speaker 1: projects that have been proposed that essentially would be that
Speaker 1: it would be a one way trip to Mars and
Speaker 1: that's where you would live out the rest of your life,
Speaker 1: which possibly would not be that much longer because Mars
Speaker 1: is a very hostile environment. But assuming you want to
Speaker 1: get back, being able to make rocket fuel on the
Speaker 1: surface of Mars is a pretty good deal. Now, I
Speaker 1: said that temperatures on Mars have a pretty wide range,
Speaker 1: and it is incredibly wide. It goes from about seventy
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit, which is twenty degrees celsius, down to negative
Speaker 1: two hundred twenty five degrees fahrenheit or negative one fifty
Speaker 1: three degrees celsius, so a Martian winter at night gets
Speaker 1: awful chilly. Obviously, we would want to locate any habitats
Speaker 1: that we would put on Mars in and a probably
Speaker 1: a belt closest to the most stable temperature on the
Speaker 1: planet um and if we were to go there, we'd
Speaker 1: have to be there for a really long time. I
Speaker 1: didn't really put this in my notes, but I can
Speaker 1: talk about it. The orbits of Earth and Mars are
Speaker 1: such that at certain points they are fairly close together,
Speaker 1: or at least as close as they get, and then
Speaker 1: as they continue their orbits they start to spread apart.
Speaker 1: So if you think of Earth as a circle, you
Speaker 1: know that is the orbit of Earth. That's one circle,
Speaker 1: and then a slightly larger circle on the outside is Mars.
Speaker 1: And then you just imagine how they're both traveling at
Speaker 1: different speeds, so they start to spread apart. Eventually you
Speaker 1: get to a point where Earth and Mars are on
Speaker 1: opposite sides of the Sun from each other, and then
Speaker 1: if you go long enough, they line up again. Well,
Speaker 1: when you are launching stuff to get from Earth to Mars,
Speaker 1: you want to travel the least amount of distance possible.
Speaker 1: It's just like I was talking about with the weight.
Speaker 1: The weight is going to be an issue and the
Speaker 1: distance is an issue. So you want to fire your
Speaker 1: rockets so that the pathway that the rocket takes is
Speaker 1: the least amount of distance. And that doesn't mean waiting
Speaker 1: until Earth and Mars are closest, because it's an eight
Speaker 1: month journey to get from around eight months to get
Speaker 1: from Earth to two Mars, so you actually have to
Speaker 1: shoot ahead of time. It's it's that idea. You're not
Speaker 1: shooting where Mars is, You're shooting where Mars is going
Speaker 1: to be. And this involves a lot of complicated math,
Speaker 1: knowing about the planetary orbits and just the geometry involved,
Speaker 1: and making sure that you are conserving as much fuel
Speaker 1: as possible. Same thing on the return trip. So if
Speaker 1: you were to land on Mars, by the time you
Speaker 1: landed on Mars, Earth and Mars would no longer be
Speaker 1: ideally situated. You would have to wait for them to
Speaker 1: line up again, and that can take a long time,
Speaker 1: like about two years, essentially more than a year and
Speaker 1: um and that means that if you're gonna land on Mars,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be there for a while. Assuming that you
Speaker 1: are being very careful with your fuel. If somehow fuel
Speaker 1: is no longer an issue, like we've magically created cold
Speaker 1: fusion or something, uh, then that would not be You
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to worry about it as much. You would
Speaker 1: have more time in space itself, because you would still
Speaker 1: have to travel a long distance from Mars back to Earth,
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't have to worry about waiting for the
Speaker 1: opportune time, that window when the distance is going to
Speaker 1: be at the smallest amount. All right, getting back to Mars,
Speaker 1: the regulars on Mars, which is the soil on Mars,
Speaker 1: could be very problematic to the Phoenix Lander discovered traces
Speaker 1: of perchlorate in the regulars. Uh. This is a salt
Speaker 1: derived from perchloric acid. On the plus side, that stuff
Speaker 1: can be used as a propellant like an oxidizing agent
Speaker 1: within rocket fuel, So again, you could use this stuff
Speaker 1: to help create rocket fuel on the surface of Mars
Speaker 1: along with the carbon dioxide that you're taking from the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of cool. But on the downside, perchlorate
Speaker 1: can have a toxic effect on humans, particularly when it
Speaker 1: comes to the thyroid gland, so you'd have to be careful,
Speaker 1: like if you if you've been keeping count, the radiation
Speaker 1: will kill you, the atmosphere will kill you, the uh
Speaker 1: temperatures could kill you, and the soil will kill you
Speaker 1: on Mars. Mars is trying to kill you really hard.
Speaker 1: So it's another and you have to take into account
Speaker 1: if you're going to send human beings there. However, all
Speaker 1: that being said, the Martian soil also seems to contain
Speaker 1: nutrients that are necessary to grow plants, and in fact,
Speaker 1: NASA has conducted several experiments using simulated Martian soil because
Speaker 1: we've never we've never taken a sample from Mars and
Speaker 1: brought it back to Earth, right, so we've simulated Martian
Speaker 1: soil using soil primarily from places like Hawaii around volcanic planes,
Speaker 1: which is again that's gonna go back to the simulated
Speaker 1: habitat we're going to talk about in just a minute.
Speaker 1: So they've taken that soil and they tried to grow
Speaker 1: stuff in it, and they've been successful with those experiments.
Speaker 1: Both NASA and other facilities have grown crops and so
Speaker 1: it looks like we would be able to do the
Speaker 1: same on Mars. Now if we were to do that,
Speaker 1: we would have to have the plants inside a habitat
Speaker 1: because you would have to have the air pressure there
Speaker 1: to allow liquid water to exist, and we would need
Speaker 1: to leach the purchlor at out of the soil in
Speaker 1: order to make sure that it's not going to affect
Speaker 1: the plants. But that's something we could do. It's not
Speaker 1: it's not impossible. It's not even really that difficult. We
Speaker 1: could do it. It would take some effort, but we
Speaker 1: could do it. And you would probably have to add
Speaker 1: some fertilizer to the soil to make sure it has
Speaker 1: plentiful nutrients for plant life, because Mars has not had
Speaker 1: any life on it. If it ever has had life
Speaker 1: on it, it's been a really really long time, so
Speaker 1: you would have to you know, you don't have that cycle,
Speaker 1: that nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle, all that stuff that
Speaker 1: allows for plant life to flourish here on Earth. That
Speaker 1: hasn't been going on on Mars in a very long time,
Speaker 1: if in fact, it ever has happened. So we would
Speaker 1: have to add fertilizer to the soil, but it would
Speaker 1: probably work. So that's super cool. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: into the experiment simulating life on Mars. Here on Earth
Speaker 1: is problematic, very tricky, right, because for one thing, all
Speaker 1: the elements I just mentioned we cannot really replicate here
Speaker 1: on Earth, nor would we want to. It would actually
Speaker 1: put people in serious danger. We would want to engineer
Speaker 1: as many solutions to problems as we possibly could here
Speaker 1: on Earth without actually subjecting people to really dangerous conditions
Speaker 1: until we got to a point where we were really
Speaker 1: confident that the solutions we had created would protect people
Speaker 1: from those conditions. You know, once you get to that rate,
Speaker 1: that that level, you will find people willing to take
Speaker 1: on that risk. I mean, if we didn't have people
Speaker 1: like that, then test flight engineers would never happen, right,
Speaker 1: We would never get test pilots, who are some of
Speaker 1: the craziest people on the planet. And I say that
Speaker 1: with respect the the You know, they take enormous risks
Speaker 1: in experimental aircraft and push it to the limit in
Speaker 1: order to advance our engineering and scientific knowledge, which is
Speaker 1: amazing to me. The same thing is true for astronauts,
Speaker 1: same thing is true for people who are testing the
Speaker 1: equipment that are ventrally. Astronauts will rely upon to keep
Speaker 1: them alive. But we don't have to worry about radiation.
Speaker 1: The way we would on Mars. Uh. The atmosphere is
Speaker 1: perfectly fine here on Earth. It's not like we've got
Speaker 1: to some place. There's not like a region on the
Speaker 1: planet where the atmosphere is really dangerous or we don't
Speaker 1: have the potentially toxic soil. I mean, in some extreme environments,
Speaker 1: you could have toxic soil and dangerous atmospheric conditions, especially
Speaker 1: around really polluted areas. But typically on Earth we're we're
Speaker 1: pretty okay in those realms. Uh. And it would be
Speaker 1: pretty unethical to subject anyone to staying in a really
Speaker 1: dangerous zone just for the sake of experimentation. But the
Speaker 1: goal of high seas isn't to create a perfect representation
Speaker 1: of what it would be like to live on Mars.
Speaker 1: It's not meant to subject people to the extremes of
Speaker 1: the environment. It's really to discover the best ways to
Speaker 1: keep a crew healthy and happy as they live in isolation. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the crew had to be shave as if they were
Speaker 1: on Mars. You know, they had to behave as if
Speaker 1: all of those conditions were in play. But more importantly,
Speaker 1: they had to figure out how to design a habitat
Speaker 1: and a series of missions to make sure the crew
Speaker 1: could coexist and cooperate throughout the duration of the mission,
Speaker 1: over months and months of time. So how do you
Speaker 1: keep people from succumbing to loneliness or irritability? How do
Speaker 1: you make sure they get the nutrition they need to
Speaker 1: stay healthy and active. That was the real experiment, not
Speaker 1: so much the technology side, but the psychology side. And
Speaker 1: it all began as a collaboration between a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of different companies and research organizations and colleges. So here's
Speaker 1: the full list, and it's pretty long. You got the
Speaker 1: University of Hawaii, You've got Cornell, You've got Michigan State University,
Speaker 1: Arizona State University, the University of South Florida, the University
Speaker 1: of Maryland, the Institutes for Behavior Resources, Smart Information Flow Technologies,
Speaker 1: Blue Planet Foundation, Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems,
Speaker 1: and NASA. And the result was that high seas organization,
Speaker 1: and they had plotted out exactly where they wanted to
Speaker 1: put this experimental habitat in a place that would closely
Speaker 1: resemble the surface of Mars and essentially abandoned people for
Speaker 1: months at a time, not really abandoned people, I'll get
Speaker 1: more into that, but really limit the interaction people could
Speaker 1: have with anyone outside of the habitat itself. So the
Speaker 1: experiment site is on the volcano of mounta Loa on
Speaker 1: the Big Island of Hawaii. And I'm being obnoxious the
Speaker 1: way I pronounced these things largely because the Big Island
Speaker 1: of Hawaii is my favorite place to visit. I have
Speaker 1: been there multiple occasions, and it is probably the slowest
Speaker 1: island in the chain as far as like all the
Speaker 1: ones that people go to for tourists purposes. Oahu is
Speaker 1: where Honolulu is, That's where the major airport is, That's
Speaker 1: where the major city is. Uh. You've got Kawaii, which
Speaker 1: is gorgeous, uh and tiny and and they shot a
Speaker 1: lot of Lost on Kawaii and uh, it's beautiful, but
Speaker 1: a little touristy. It's a little small touristy section. And
Speaker 1: then you've got Maui, which is like the resort island.
Speaker 1: I've been to Oahu, I've been to those islands, and
Speaker 1: Big Island. Big Island to me is my favorite. It
Speaker 1: is a little more laid back, and it has a
Speaker 1: lot of different ecosystems, from rocky beaches to rainforest to grassland.
Speaker 1: Two snow on top of the volcanic peaks, including Mount
Speaker 1: a Looa. Mounta Loa gets snow at the top of
Speaker 1: it at the higher elevations. It is not the tallest
Speaker 1: of the volcanoes on the big island. The tallest would
Speaker 1: be Mount a kia Um And also it can be
Speaker 1: confused with Killaueya. Kilauea is the the volcano you would
Speaker 1: really be looking at if you went to the Volcanic
Speaker 1: National Park and you were looking at the lava flows
Speaker 1: uh that are either coming from event or going out
Speaker 1: or rift into the ocean. That's Kilauea on on one
Speaker 1: side of the island. But the biggest of all the volcanoes,
Speaker 1: the largest in in just sheer size, is Mount Loa
Speaker 1: and it is an active volcano. So this experiment is
Speaker 1: located on an active volcano. Now that being said, eruptions
Speaker 1: are rarely violent. They do happen, but the eruptions are
Speaker 1: more like lava flowing out of the volcano, or almost
Speaker 1: like it's leaking out of the volcano, not being propelled
Speaker 1: up in a big flume like you would think in
Speaker 1: a traditional volcanic eruption. It tends to flow from the
Speaker 1: summit down towards the edges of the island and what
Speaker 1: is often called the curtain of fire. There are these
Speaker 1: rift in the earth and they act almost like channels
Speaker 1: where the lava will flow through. Uh. While the eruption
Speaker 1: itself can be relatively nonviolent, they're still pretty destructive, right,
Speaker 1: Like you can have a slow moving lava flow that
Speaker 1: will cause real damage to property. It's rare that anyone
Speaker 1: gets hurt in these things because the lava moves at
Speaker 1: a walking pace. It's not going super fast. I think
Speaker 1: it hasn't been since the nineteen thirties since someone was
Speaker 1: injured by an eruption. Everyone tends to be able to
Speaker 1: get all the way in time and evacuated. But it
Speaker 1: does cause damage because you know, homes don't move, and
Speaker 1: a f lava flow encounters a house, then you know
Speaker 1: you've just got a fire on your hands. But it's
Speaker 1: generally a pretty safe place you get. You aren't expected
Speaker 1: to have a like sudden eruption that's going to put
Speaker 1: you into danger. The site for the simulated Martian habitat
Speaker 1: is located at about eight thousand feet elevation on Manta Loa,
Speaker 1: the summit of the volcano. If you were to go
Speaker 1: at the very top is thirteen thousand, six d seventy
Speaker 1: nine feet, so this is a little more than halfway
Speaker 1: up the full height of the volcano, and it's on
Speaker 1: a slope um that keeps it fairly level. For comparison sake,
Speaker 1: the primary observing side of the Mantala Observatory is at
Speaker 1: eleven thousand onety one feet of elevation, so the mantal
Speaker 1: Loa Observatory is higher up. But don't confuse that with
Speaker 1: the Manta Chia observatories. Those are astronomical research facilities on
Speaker 1: the taller peak of Monachia to the north of mantal
Speaker 1: Looa's summit. Mantal Looa's observatory is an atmospheric observatory, primarily
Speaker 1: keeping an eye on CEO two levels in our atmosphere. Now,
Speaker 1: the habitat itself is in an abandoned quarry on the
Speaker 1: northern slope of Mountaloa. The team picked that site because
Speaker 1: it has very little vegetation. It looks like the surface
Speaker 1: of Mars. It's this rocky barren kind of of area. Uh,
Speaker 1: there are no rare or an endangered species that make
Speaker 1: it a home, so there was no chance of having
Speaker 1: a negative impact on an endangered species, and so you
Speaker 1: would also have a fairly accurate representation of Mars, and
Speaker 1: you would not be bringing harm to any threatened species. Also,
Speaker 1: there are no cultural or archaeological sites in that area,
Speaker 1: so the team wouldn't be causing any harm to something
Speaker 1: of cultural or historical value, which I think is incredibly intelligent. Um,
Speaker 1: the Hawaiian people have a very rich history. Their culture
Speaker 1: is phenomenal and of course, uh the the European explorers
Speaker 1: who came in had a huge impact on that culture.
Speaker 1: So trying to not make it, trying not to endanger
Speaker 1: that rich history more is really important from a sociological standpoint.
Speaker 1: If you ever get a chance to look into their culture,
Speaker 1: really you should do it because it is it is
Speaker 1: beautiful and incredibly fascinating culture. So the habitat itself was
Speaker 1: designed by V. Paul Punte of the Envisioned Design and
Speaker 1: it was built by the Blue Planet Foundation of Honolulu,
Speaker 1: and it's super duper cool, you guys. So it's a
Speaker 1: geodesic dome that's the main habitat, a geodesic dome that's
Speaker 1: thirty six ft in diameter and it has two stories.
Speaker 1: The volume inside the dome is thirteen thousand, five hundred
Speaker 1: seventy cubic feet. Now, not all of that is accessible. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a very tall ceiling. Like like, the second floor
Speaker 1: is only half a half floor, so half of it
Speaker 1: looks out into the lower level. So you have this
Speaker 1: nice tall ceiling over half of the lower level. And
Speaker 1: since it's a dome, the walls curve inward. So because
Speaker 1: they curve in word, you don't have full use of
Speaker 1: the space that's right along the edge of the walls
Speaker 1: right You couldn't. You couldn't stand up like a table
Speaker 1: or chair right up against the wall because the way
Speaker 1: the walls curve inside. On the ground floor, there are
Speaker 1: eight square feet that are that's considered to be usable space.
Speaker 1: The ground floor has a kitchen, dining room, bathroom with shower,
Speaker 1: a lab and exercise room, and some commons working spaces.
Speaker 1: The upper floor is aloft, with about four square feet available. Uh.
Speaker 1: It has six staterooms and one half bath. That ceiling
Speaker 1: is pretty high and the reason why they have that
Speaker 1: high ceiling in the first places. Studies have shown that
Speaker 1: the longer time, the amount of time you spend in
Speaker 1: a place, the more it seems to shrink to you.
Speaker 1: So you want the space to already be pretty lofty,
Speaker 1: pretty tall, and and open, because you're gonna have that
Speaker 1: shrinking effect, and you don't want people to start feel
Speaker 1: like they're they're penned up or they're trapped. It's very
Speaker 1: important from a psychological point of view. Uh. There are
Speaker 1: actually some pictures on the High Seas website where you
Speaker 1: can take a look at the rooms and the layout
Speaker 1: and some of the equipment inside this habitat, and I
Speaker 1: recommend you do it because they're pretty cool. They only
Speaker 1: have a few that are actually of the interior of
Speaker 1: the habitat. Most of their pictures are of the exterior
Speaker 1: or of uh the various participants dressed up in simulated
Speaker 1: space suits as they go outside, because in order to
Speaker 1: simulate and an experience on Mars, you are not allowed
Speaker 1: to leave the habitat without first going through a simulated
Speaker 1: airlock experience, including getting all geared up inside a simulated
Speaker 1: space suit. AH, very important if you want to make
Speaker 1: as as accurate as possible as the experience on Mars
Speaker 1: would be. UH. Disregarding the other stuff we already talked about,
Speaker 1: like the fact that you're not going to be able
Speaker 1: to simulate thirty of Earth's gravity here on Earth. The
Speaker 1: picture of the kitchen makes look really nifty and modern.
Speaker 1: It has a stove and oven, it's got a microwave,
Speaker 1: a breadmaker, and a crock pot. Um they've thought that
Speaker 1: by giving the participants different abilities to prepare food, it
Speaker 1: would also help morale. Towards the end of the first mission,
Speaker 1: Commander Angelo Vermulin talked about the foods that were a
Speaker 1: big hit versus the ones that did not go over
Speaker 1: so well to kind of, you know, help with the
Speaker 1: future experiments. There have been four missions so far in
Speaker 1: the high Seas Habitat the first one lasted four months,
Speaker 1: and that's the one I'm talking about right here that
Speaker 1: Commander Vermullin was working on. He said that the foods
Speaker 1: available to the crew were limited to ones that could
Speaker 1: be easy to carry in a spacecraft, whether it would
Speaker 1: be carried in the spacecraft that the astronauts going to
Speaker 1: Mars would use, or a spacecraft sent ahead of time,
Speaker 1: or a resupply mission sent later on to send more
Speaker 1: cargo and supplies to people already on Mars um. In
Speaker 1: any case, you have to make sure that you you
Speaker 1: are packing stuff that is uh space efficient right, meaning
Speaker 1: that you can pack a lot of it into a
Speaker 1: small area and that it's not too heavy. So uh.
Speaker 1: He said that the favorites in the pre prepared category,
Speaker 1: so these are ones that were ready to go, you
Speaker 1: just had to heat them up in some way, included
Speaker 1: creamy wild rice soup, mashed potatoes, raspberry crumble, and apple sauce,
Speaker 1: among others. The least favorite of the pre prepared foods
Speaker 1: was one called kung Fo chicken, which the entire group
Speaker 1: described as being mostly tasteless and slimy in texture. The
Speaker 1: team also prepared meals for themselves and for each other
Speaker 1: using ingredients that were sent along, and those met with
Speaker 1: a lot of success. Those meals included everything from a
Speaker 1: seafood cholder to Russian borshed to Moroccan tangen uh and others.
Speaker 1: They also like to use tortillas a lot to make
Speaker 1: various raps. Apparently this is also a big hit aboard
Speaker 1: the International Space Station. Tortillas are easy to pack and
Speaker 1: you can put a lot of different stuff in them,
Speaker 1: So they talked about experimenting with all sorts of things
Speaker 1: from breakfast foods to fish and everything else, and apparently
Speaker 1: those were a huge hit, But in general, pre prepared
Speaker 1: meals were actually favored, not because they tasted better, but
Speaker 1: because they didn't require a lot of work and thought
Speaker 1: to prepare them. If you're working all day trying to
Speaker 1: complete mission objectives, and every single day they had mission
Speaker 1: objectives they were supposed to meet, then you are putting
Speaker 1: a lot of thought and energy into cooking, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's exhausting, it's overwhelming. So instead, if you were to
Speaker 1: go the pre prepared route, where you don't really have
Speaker 1: to think very much and cooking is easy and clean
Speaker 1: up as a breeze, that is an easy choice. You
Speaker 1: could see that Also, if you were to go with
Speaker 1: the preparation mode, like the full on cook a meal mode,
Speaker 1: it means using more water then you would with pre
Speaker 1: prepared stuff, and water conservation is incredibly important. Water would
Speaker 1: be a very precious resource for astronauts on Mars. He
Speaker 1: would need to have a very careful way of managing
Speaker 1: your water supply. Now, assuming we do send people to Mars,
Speaker 1: we will likely create means to get water from Mars itself.
Speaker 1: There is frozen water on Mars, and there are probably
Speaker 1: different ways that we could harvest water from Mars. But
Speaker 1: even so, you would want to be very judicious with
Speaker 1: your use of it, and you would want to conserve
Speaker 1: as much as you could and reuse as much as
Speaker 1: you could. And more on that in just a minute.
Speaker 1: The commander also said he figured future missions should have
Speaker 1: more comfort foods for particularly stressful days. Um He said
Speaker 1: that there should be a lot more spices, herbs, and
Speaker 1: hot sauces to add a kick to foods and give
Speaker 1: them more flavor, and there needed to be more foods
Speaker 1: with fiber in them. Apparently the fiber content of a
Speaker 1: lot of the foods they had was fairly low, which
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to have a regular problem
Speaker 1: with a lack of fiber. But so some of the
Speaker 1: ingredients included in that first mission, This is just a
Speaker 1: small list of some of the ones that jumped out
Speaker 1: at me that I thought were kind of interesting. Anchovies,
Speaker 1: awesome pre cooked bacon, freeze dried meats, which the crew said,
Speaker 1: we're really only good if you use them as an
Speaker 1: ingredient within a bigger dish. You wouldn't want to eat
Speaker 1: one of the freeze dried meats on their own because
Speaker 1: they had very little aroma and less taste. So you
Speaker 1: essentially just got a meat consistency with no flavor to it.
Speaker 1: They had a lot of different freeze dried vegetables and fruits.
Speaker 1: They had nuts and seeds. They had pastas and other starches.
Speaker 1: They had baking ingredients like flour and yeast. Uh. They
Speaker 1: had powdered dairy products. They had tea, coffee, and other drinks,
Speaker 1: including tang. They had seasonings and condiments. Some of my
Speaker 1: favorite ingredients listed included canned eel popping corn masa, which
Speaker 1: I really do like to cook with, powdered eggs POI.
Speaker 1: It's very Hawaiian velveta cheese. And of course tang. You
Speaker 1: gotta have tang on there on your space trip and uh.
Speaker 1: The High Seas Experiment assumed the residents on Mars would
Speaker 1: receive regular supplies from Earth, So that was they would
Speaker 1: actually hire a company to bring shipments of food and
Speaker 1: water at certain intervals during the experiments to represent a
Speaker 1: resupply mission sent from Earth to keep the astronauts supplied. Um,
Speaker 1: because you wouldn't want to pack a full year's worth
Speaker 1: of food and water onto the habitat all at once.
Speaker 1: It would be prohibitively large. You would have to have
Speaker 1: a much larger space, and that would not be very efficient. Remember,
Speaker 1: the larger the habitat, the more you have to pack
Speaker 1: in in order to maintain the proper air pressure, you
Speaker 1: need more oxygen, and it just it makes everything more complicated.
Speaker 1: So you want to find that perfect balance where it's
Speaker 1: efficient but not so small that it's going to make
Speaker 1: habitats the habitants go space crazy. You don't want space madness.
Speaker 1: That's bad. As for that exercise area, the astronauts used
Speaker 1: it a lot, in particular during the first mission. Uh.
Speaker 1: There we are some projects that NASA was conducting, some
Speaker 1: some experiments they were using. They were studying how well
Speaker 1: different types of materials hold up to prolonged activity and
Speaker 1: where and they were looking at two things. We're looking
Speaker 1: at how much does the material stand up to wear
Speaker 1: and tear, like does it does it maintain its integrity?
Speaker 1: And also how long can someone go wearing the same
Speaker 1: clothing before they stank up the joint? And that's serious.
Speaker 1: They really did do that because again, you want to
Speaker 1: conserve your water. You're not gonna be taking a shower
Speaker 1: that frequently, and so they wanted to find micro bacterial
Speaker 1: type fibers that are anti microbial I should say, fibers
Speaker 1: that would limit the effect of bacteria on a person's
Speaker 1: skin from creating a stink and stinking up the joint.
Speaker 1: When you have six people working in close proximity, you
Speaker 1: don't want to have a lot of bo filling up
Speaker 1: that habitat. So that was one of the experiments on
Speaker 1: that first mission. Just imagine going out there and exercising
Speaker 1: your heart out and hoping that you're anti microbial under
Speaker 1: things can keep the job going. According to one former participant,
Speaker 1: most folks would exercise along with exercise videos like Insanity
Speaker 1: or P niney X. That's pretty hardcore. Obviously, on the
Speaker 1: service of Mars, things would be different because again you
Speaker 1: would have that lower gravity, so you'd have to figure
Speaker 1: out a lot of different resistance training type experience type
Speaker 1: of approaches to allow for appropriate amounts of exercise where
Speaker 1: you're not just bouncing all over the habitat. Now, the
Speaker 1: staterooms were basically big enough for a bed, a stool,
Speaker 1: and a small computer desk, and of course there's no
Speaker 1: view outside. The dome was made out of flexible material.
Speaker 1: The rooms have like a plywood kind of roof to them,
Speaker 1: so there's a fabric shell on the outside. On the
Speaker 1: inside you have this like plywood roof. It's solid. You
Speaker 1: don't have a view um and I think the only
Speaker 1: porthole they have is near the entrance of the actual habitat,
Speaker 1: where you would go through the whole airlock system. Otherwise
Speaker 1: you don't know. You're just looking at the interior of
Speaker 1: the habitat. Now, the pictures of the rooms are kind
Speaker 1: of cool. I think Harry Potter would have felt right
Speaker 1: at home moving from his cupboard under the Dursley stairs
Speaker 1: to the High Seas facility. It would have seemed like
Speaker 1: pretty much a one to one comparison. Uh. You would
Speaker 1: store all of your belongings, like your clothing and stuff
Speaker 1: under the bed. There's no closet or anything. In fact,
Speaker 1: the bedroom looks like a closet. The beds themselves are
Speaker 1: positioned so that the one of the long edges is
Speaker 1: against the outer side of the wall right, so that
Speaker 1: way when you open the door, you're looking at the
Speaker 1: side of the bed essentially, and you can take maybe
Speaker 1: two steps and then sit down on your bed, and
Speaker 1: then you have your little bit desk and your stool
Speaker 1: there too. Uh. So that that computer desk. I mentioned
Speaker 1: the team did have access to computers and the Internet,
Speaker 1: but in order to simulate the isolation someone would feel
Speaker 1: on Mars, all communications between the participants and the outside
Speaker 1: world were delayed by around twenty minutes. That simulates the
Speaker 1: amount of time it would take data to make its
Speaker 1: way from Mars to Earth at the speed of light. Now,
Speaker 1: like I said before, the distance between Mars and Earth
Speaker 1: varies throughout their respective orbits around the Sun, but a
Speaker 1: rough average is a twenty minute twenty light minute gap,
Speaker 1: meaning it takes light twenty minutes to pass between Mars
Speaker 1: and Earth. So that means there was no way to
Speaker 1: chat in real time. It was all asynchronous communication, and
Speaker 1: all the websites they could access were cashed images, so
Speaker 1: they couldn't have access to a dynamic webs site and
Speaker 1: they're not going to look at a website that is
Speaker 1: changing in real time. They would look at a cashed
Speaker 1: version of it. This was all to simulate the limitations
Speaker 1: they would face if they were actually on Mars. Power
Speaker 1: for the habitat came from solar panels and batteries. Solar
Speaker 1: power obviously, if you don't use the electricity generator from
Speaker 1: a solar panel right away, you waste it, so you
Speaker 1: have to either use it or store it. So you
Speaker 1: would use the solar power to power the stuff inside
Speaker 1: the habitat and store any excess electricity in batteries. They
Speaker 1: also had a hydrogen fuel cell to provide backup power
Speaker 1: if the batteries ever fell below five capacity, so that
Speaker 1: way you wouldn't have an interruption in power. Obviously, that
Speaker 1: would be devastating on Mars itself. Inside the habitat, they
Speaker 1: also had a three D printer which allowed the crew
Speaker 1: to print out replacement parts for equipment. If something had broken,
Speaker 1: let's say, like a leg on a on a small
Speaker 1: table is wobbly, you could actually print out a little
Speaker 1: eady stop gaps so that you stop it from wobbling.
Speaker 1: Or it might be something way more serious, or it
Speaker 1: could even be something simple like a comb, so you
Speaker 1: didn't have to pack a comb, you just print one
Speaker 1: when you get there. I thought that was kind of cool.
Speaker 1: The two bathrooms in the habitat had, or have, because
Speaker 1: the habitat still exists, have composting toilets. Poop is important, y'all.
Speaker 1: If you were on Mars, you might want to use
Speaker 1: poop as fertilizer for the soil you're using to grow
Speaker 1: plants in. You would actually have to process the poop,
Speaker 1: you know, you'd have to process a little bit. It's
Speaker 1: not like you would just dump the pooh into a
Speaker 1: a field of you know, whatever it was you're growing
Speaker 1: radishes or potatoes in the case of the Martian, but um,
Speaker 1: you would, you know, want to save that. So they
Speaker 1: were trying to keep that similar. Also, they had to
Speaker 1: learn how to repair composting toilets because sometimes stuff breaks.
Speaker 1: As for water, the habitat had a water tank or
Speaker 1: has a water tank. I keep using the past tense,
Speaker 1: but I should stress they still plan to do two
Speaker 1: more missions with the high Seas habitats, so it's not
Speaker 1: like it's gone away. Has a water tank that can
Speaker 1: store about one thousand gallons. The project hired people to
Speaker 1: bring water and refill the tank at regular intervals, but
Speaker 1: it was important that it wasn't so frequent. To make
Speaker 1: it easy. The team inside the habitat had to plan
Speaker 1: out their water usage so that they did not run
Speaker 1: out of water. It was a really tough challenge. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: on Earth, we would be able to send water supplies
Speaker 1: up occasionally, but not that frequently because again, once the
Speaker 1: Mars and Earth orbits are out of alignment, it takes
Speaker 1: way more energy for us to get to Mars, and
Speaker 1: that means more fuel, and that means more expense and
Speaker 1: a bigger technological challenge. So you really don't want to
Speaker 1: have to send more water if you really can avoid it. Uh,
Speaker 1: they didn't go to the extremes of water conservation that
Speaker 1: you would find a board like the International Space Station
Speaker 1: where scientists have attempt it to recapture as much water
Speaker 1: as possible, including water people breathe out, just the water
Speaker 1: you would lose the respiration, UH, that kind of water
Speaker 1: On the I s S. They tried to reclaim as
Speaker 1: much as that as possible, filter it, and then reuse
Speaker 1: it in various ways. But they did look at different
Speaker 1: ways to pay attention to conservation and recycling. During the
Speaker 1: year long mission that just concluded, the team actually had
Speaker 1: to respond to a water emergency. They had planned out
Speaker 1: how much water consumption they would go through uh through
Speaker 1: the month of July, and they worked it out to
Speaker 1: like the millimeter of how far down the water tank
Speaker 1: they would go. But then the water supplier, the company
Speaker 1: that actually would come up and refill. The water tank
Speaker 1: suffered a mechanical failure, and it had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the habitat. It wasn't their fault at all, but
Speaker 1: it meant that the water that would come in and
Speaker 1: resupply them wasn't coming. And this is a simulation. They
Speaker 1: can't just get a different company to come out and
Speaker 1: deliver water something like the This might happen on a
Speaker 1: real Martian mission. So the crew had to figure out
Speaker 1: what they wanted to do. Now. They had an emergency
Speaker 1: backup water tank, but it hadn't been touched in years.
Speaker 1: This emergency water tank had existed since the very first mission,
Speaker 1: but no one had had to use it, so they
Speaker 1: weren't sure about the quality of the water. They had
Speaker 1: no idea if it would be drinkable, if it be
Speaker 1: safe to drink, and they lacked the equipment to test
Speaker 1: it because that would take up even more space, and
Speaker 1: if you don't absolutely need something, you're not gonna take
Speaker 1: it in a habitat that has very limited space to it.
Speaker 1: So they had to figure out a way to make
Speaker 1: the water usable and be and and be sure that
Speaker 1: it was safe without having the ability to test it.
Speaker 1: So what they did has been an old fashioned method
Speaker 1: of distilling the water. They put uh They put containers
Speaker 1: or pots of water inside a big plastic tote essentially,
Speaker 1: and they had an electric heater element. An electric heater
Speaker 1: element would heat up the pot of water so that
Speaker 1: the water would boil. On top of the tote. They
Speaker 1: put a plastic sheet and they clamped it down along
Speaker 1: the sides. They had just regular old clamps that they used.
Speaker 1: Boy Joe McCormick were here because he loves clamps. But
Speaker 1: they put clamps all along the edges and kept it
Speaker 1: nice and tight. They put a spoon over the center
Speaker 1: of the plastic sheet to create an indentation, a dip
Speaker 1: in the sheet, kind of like if you were to
Speaker 1: imagine a bowling ball on a trampoline. It makes the
Speaker 1: material dip down, so steam from the boiling water would
Speaker 1: rise up. It would condense against the plastic. The drops
Speaker 1: of water would slowly slide down to the lowest point
Speaker 1: where the spoon was, and eventually dripped down into the
Speaker 1: container itself. The water that would drip down was safe
Speaker 1: to drink. It had been distilled, and so they were
Speaker 1: able to make drinking water this way. They just had
Speaker 1: to constantly keep checking on the water, make sure that
Speaker 1: it was at the right level, uh, and replace the
Speaker 1: water in the pots, so that they added that to
Speaker 1: their daily activities. But otherwise it didn't impact the mission,
Speaker 1: so they were able to continue their mission and respond
Speaker 1: to this water emergency in a way that was realistic.
Speaker 1: You know. It didn't require them to step outside of
Speaker 1: the simulation in order to keep it going, so that
Speaker 1: was really cool. Now, next to the habitat itself is
Speaker 1: a steel shipping container that serves as a workshop for
Speaker 1: the habitat. It's actually attached to the habitat, so the
Speaker 1: participants can pass back and forth between the shipping container
Speaker 1: and the habitat itself in order to do more work,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't necessarily have to don a full space
Speaker 1: suit in order to do that. And like I mentioned,
Speaker 1: they have completed four simulated mission so far. The first
Speaker 1: took place in two thousand thirteen it lasted four months long.
Speaker 1: The second mission took place in two thousand fourteen the
Speaker 1: early part of two thousand fourteen and lasted another four months.
Speaker 1: The third began in the fall of two thousand fourteen
Speaker 1: and lasted six months, and the fourth mission began on
Speaker 1: August two thousand fifteen and ended a year later, so
Speaker 1: it was just a few days before I recorded this. Obviously,
Speaker 1: for the experiment to be meaningful, everyone has to behave
Speaker 1: as if they are in fact on Mars. Again, they
Speaker 1: don't have to pretend like they're in low gravity situations.
Speaker 1: That would be ridiculous. It would be it would require
Speaker 1: you to exert way too much energy. But going outside
Speaker 1: the habitat mint, putting on a space suit, going through
Speaker 1: that simulated airlock uh scenario before you could go out.
Speaker 1: And because the project was simulating an actual visit to Mars,
Speaker 1: they would receive mission objectives that would require the participants
Speaker 1: to do this on a fairly frequent basis. Every single
Speaker 1: mission they've done has had several Mars walks included where
Speaker 1: they were sent off to specific locations to take information down,
Speaker 1: make observations, explore things like lava tubes and vents um,
Speaker 1: which was really cool. I mean, it allowed them to
Speaker 1: actually do real work. They were actually doing real research.
Speaker 1: It's just the the research in this case was Earth research.
Speaker 1: They were just simulating the experience of it as if
Speaker 1: they were on Mars. So the information they gathered is
Speaker 1: useful to us. It's just useful to us as people
Speaker 1: on Earth, which is kind of cool. There was like
Speaker 1: a two for one in a way. Now. It also
Speaker 1: meant that the team had to show discipline when entering
Speaker 1: or leaving that that habitat um and sometimes they would
Speaker 1: actually plan out a Mars walk when they didn't have
Speaker 1: one on the schedule, simply to occupy their minds, because
Speaker 1: boredom is a real problem when you're in that that
Speaker 1: type of isolation, especially if you're in there for a
Speaker 1: whole year. And keep in mind that a habitat on
Speaker 1: Mars would have a much higher internal air pressure than
Speaker 1: the planet would, so the air pressure inside the habitat
Speaker 1: would be very very high compared to the Martian atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and that means if you opened up the habitat without
Speaker 1: using an airlock, the air inside the habitat would rush out.
Speaker 1: It would blow out of the habitat and go out
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere and dissipate, and that would be no bueno.
Speaker 1: That's end of end of habitat. You would you would
Speaker 1: lose air pressure and you would have a catastrophic emergency,
Speaker 1: which also happens in the Martian No spoiler there either,
Speaker 1: It's a big part of the story, and you would
Speaker 1: imagine that would have to happen in order to up
Speaker 1: the stakes on the drama. The when the stakes start
Speaker 1: with being abandoned on Mars, there are only so many
Speaker 1: things you can do to increase the stakes at that point,
Speaker 1: and you have to do that in order to have
Speaker 1: a compelling story. All right, let's talk about the participants
Speaker 1: of this most recent experiment, the people who spent an
Speaker 1: entire year in isolation with one another, the six Strangers.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned in the beginning of this podcast. First
Speaker 1: of all, the the High Seas Project always seeks out
Speaker 1: participants who are astronaut like, meaning they have the qualifications
Speaker 1: that NASA would look for when choosing astronauts for their
Speaker 1: various space faring missions. So you already have to be
Speaker 1: a pretty remarkable person to be considered to take part
Speaker 1: in this experiment. Uh, they have to be physically fit,
Speaker 1: they have to be mentally fit, and they have to
Speaker 1: have at least one degree in science or engineering, and
Speaker 1: most of them have multiple degrees. We're talking mega super
Speaker 1: smart people. As I was looking through the various accomplishments
Speaker 1: and degrees that a lot of these participants have I
Speaker 1: started to feel very badly about myself. I consider myself
Speaker 1: to be a fairly smart person, but these folks leave
Speaker 1: me in the dust. So each team member has assigned
Speaker 1: duties that they must complete day to day. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: mundane stuff like cleaning up the habitat or cooking or
Speaker 1: something along those lines. Sometimes it's mission oriented stuff like
Speaker 1: going out on a Mars walk or conducting experiments within
Speaker 1: the habitat itself. But they can also pursue personal research
Speaker 1: projects during the course of the experiment. So a lot
Speaker 1: of the people who apply to be part of High
Speaker 1: Seas are also graduate students typically. Uh and a year
Speaker 1: long commitment's a big deal. I mean, you can do
Speaker 1: some really serious research within the course of a year,
Speaker 1: but that's a full year of your life. So here's
Speaker 1: the mission team from Mission for You had Commander Carmel Johnston.
Speaker 1: She's a soil scientist from Montana and her primary focus
Speaker 1: was to study how a Martian crew might grow food
Speaker 1: on a real mission. Uh. You had Christian Heinek, a
Speaker 1: physicist and engineer from Germany. She had worked on projects
Speaker 1: ranging from electro magnetic phenomena like the polar lights two
Speaker 1: simulations of the Earth's mantle before she joined High seas
Speaker 1: super smart, like her degrees are crazy because they focus
Speaker 1: on so many different different disciplines of science. She clearly
Speaker 1: is very intelligent and very curious, which is awesome. Then
Speaker 1: there was Shana Gifford. She also has a ton of
Speaker 1: academic credentials, including degrees in clinical laboratory science, biotechnology, journalism,
Speaker 1: and neuroscience. And she's also a science communicator. So as
Speaker 1: a fellow science communicator, again, I am humbled by her accomplishments.
Speaker 1: I should get her on the show if I can,
Speaker 1: uh yet. Andre Stewart and aerospace engineer and flight engineer
Speaker 1: for NASA. He's also he was working for Lockheed Martin
Speaker 1: before this this project, and there's also a picture of
Speaker 1: him in the habitat wearing a Jane hat from Firefly,
Speaker 1: so that's kind of awesome. Then you have a Cyprian,
Speaker 1: their sue, an astrobiologist expert. One of his goals is
Speaker 1: to pioneer ways that future Martian colonists will produce various
Speaker 1: resources using biological processes, which would mean you'd use you know,
Speaker 1: like bacteria to produce stuff you would need. You would
Speaker 1: genetically modify the bacteria, so that waste products that otherwise
Speaker 1: would just be thrown out could be converted into useful stuff.
Speaker 1: That could be everything from helping generate food or oxygen
Speaker 1: or rocket fuel even And the goal is to make
Speaker 1: Martian colonies, future Martian colonies, more independent from Earth, not
Speaker 1: as like some sort of utopian society, but rather you
Speaker 1: don't have to rely on so many resupplies. You can
Speaker 1: support yourself independently, which would really increase the success probabilities
Speaker 1: of such a colony be really important. So that was
Speaker 1: really what he was focused on. And then you had
Speaker 1: Tristan basingth Weight who's an architect, and he was studying
Speaker 1: human habitation and extreme environments. So kind of a person
Speaker 1: who's living through this experience making note of it, making
Speaker 1: suggestions for what future habitats should incorporate. Maybe maybe elements
Speaker 1: they should get rid of, or elements they should add,
Speaker 1: stuff that will again improve the success rate of any
Speaker 1: future Martian colony. So what was the outcome, Well, they
Speaker 1: spent a full year in that habitat, so that part
Speaker 1: was a success. They did not have to end the
Speaker 1: experiment early. No one got severely injured. One of the
Speaker 1: bright spots they said is that when you are six
Speaker 1: people that are completely separated from everyone else, no one
Speaker 1: gets sick because viruses can't just spontaneously pop up. You
Speaker 1: could get uh, some food poisoning or something. And in fact,
Speaker 1: one of the participants did get hit by like a
Speaker 1: stomach bug of some sort or just maybe something they
Speaker 1: just did not agree with them for one reason or another.
Speaker 1: But apart from that, they couldn't pass anything along to
Speaker 1: each other because they were all healthy when they went
Speaker 1: into the habitat. So they said that was kind of cool.
Speaker 1: But keeping people happy when isolated for a really long
Speaker 1: time is very difficult. According to members of the crew,
Speaker 1: one of the best ways to improve morale is through emergencies. Really,
Speaker 1: because an emergency requires the crew to work together and
Speaker 1: focus on a particular task. You cannot act as a
Speaker 1: lone wolf or else everybody dies the mission is in jeopardy.
Speaker 1: So when the emergency is over, everyone feels satisfied and
Speaker 1: they feel closer to each other. But being in those
Speaker 1: close quarters for that long doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna
Speaker 1: be the best of buddies with everyone when it's over.
Speaker 1: The participants have been pretty diplomatic about this, but it's
Speaker 1: clear that some folks are going to be in touch
Speaker 1: with each other for a very long time and other
Speaker 1: folks maybe not so much. Um, So it's not like
Speaker 1: everyone becomes inseparable at the end of this. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. There's very little privacy in the habitat.
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone has their own private bedroom, but that bedroom,
Speaker 1: like I says, a closet, uh, And there's no real
Speaker 1: space to kind of get away unless you go to
Speaker 1: that bedroom, assuming that you have the time to do so,
Speaker 1: because you also have duties to perform and most of
Speaker 1: the stuff the the actual possessions in the habitat were
Speaker 1: pretty much considered communal property. You could have private possessions,
Speaker 1: but you also understood that those private possessions might end
Speaker 1: up getting pulled into a solution to a problem. So
Speaker 1: it may mean the thing you were thinking of as
Speaker 1: yours becomes important to solve an engineering issue. It sounds
Speaker 1: very kind of mcgeiver ishu, but it's true. And it's
Speaker 1: also a challenge to learn how each person is going
Speaker 1: to respond to and manage the stress of being in
Speaker 1: this isolated environment. Some management strategies like being passive aggressive
Speaker 1: don't work in a small enclosed environment where people can't
Speaker 1: get away from each other. And also you had the
Speaker 1: challenge of cultural differences being involved. This was an international
Speaker 1: series of missions, meaning that there were people from all
Speaker 1: different parts of the world who could potentially be part
Speaker 1: of this. Now that meant a couple of different things.
Speaker 1: That cultural differences could rear up and cause friction, but
Speaker 1: it also meant that people got to try different cuisines
Speaker 1: from other parts of the world. And apparently that was
Speaker 1: one of the big things. People really like the idea
Speaker 1: of trying stuff like home cooked meals from other cultures,
Speaker 1: and it was an interesting way to broaden your horizons.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that cultural difference could also pose an issue
Speaker 1: with communication. So, like I said, basing for Weight himself
Speaker 1: was saying, sometimes they would just plan an impromptu e V,
Speaker 1: a extra vehicular activity essentially a Mars walk, just to
Speaker 1: alleviate boredom. That you would go through the whole process
Speaker 1: of suiting up and going through the airlock, which could
Speaker 1: take around an hour to do. Uh, that's a lot
Speaker 1: of work just to avoid tedium. Now, this particular mission,
Speaker 1: Mission four of High Seas is over. It's not the
Speaker 1: only time we've ever seen people try to simulate the
Speaker 1: isolation people would feel if they were to go to Mars. Actually,
Speaker 1: in Russia, there have been a series of three experiments
Speaker 1: where people were living in a simulated spacecraft. The three
Speaker 1: experiments collectively totaled sixty days, and the last of the
Speaker 1: three experiments was five hundred twenty days, so like a
Speaker 1: year and a half of isolation. The mission included a
Speaker 1: simulated landing on Mars that long one did as well
Speaker 1: as re e v A s on the Martian surface.
Speaker 1: According to the Russians at the time, everything turned out swimmingly.
Speaker 1: There have been some other reports that said that there
Speaker 1: were you know, there were issues, not nothing that would
Speaker 1: stop the mission, but that not everything was absolutely perfect
Speaker 1: as you might have been led to believe. Um, so
Speaker 1: there could be some propaganda stuff going on in there.
Speaker 1: I would imagine any group, even if you have very
Speaker 1: disciplined people, would suffer setbacks now and again just because
Speaker 1: of the various different personalities and the stress involved. But
Speaker 1: what's next, Well, the next high seas experiment is already
Speaker 1: in the planning stages. If you wanted to apply oops,
Speaker 1: because this episode is going to come out too late
Speaker 1: for you to do that. I'm recording this on September two,
Speaker 1: two sixteen, but applications are due on September five, and
Speaker 1: this episode goes up after that. And as far as
Speaker 1: I know, the applications are for both of the last
Speaker 1: two missions that are scheduled, one schedule for two thousand seventeen,
Speaker 1: one schedule for two thousand eighteen. They're both going to
Speaker 1: last eight months long each, so I apologize if you
Speaker 1: wanted to apply, it's too late. Those are supposed to
Speaker 1: be the two final experiments for high Seas, though you
Speaker 1: never know, there may be another high seas experiment, perhaps
Speaker 1: a redesigned habitat um. I don't know how that's going
Speaker 1: to turn out after these last two missions, or if
Speaker 1: the whole thing will just say, all right, here's all
Speaker 1: the data we gathered and now this branch of experimentation
Speaker 1: is over. That's a possibility. And then of course we
Speaker 1: have the long term goal of actually going to Mars.
Speaker 1: A Martian habitat might be at least partially underground in
Speaker 1: the future Mars colony. The reason to put a Martian
Speaker 1: colony underground is to protect against that radiation I was
Speaker 1: talking about. You would want protection from cosmic radiation as
Speaker 1: well as X rays, all to violet rays, that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and the Martian soil could do that for you.
Speaker 1: Since there's no magnetosphere, or not a strong one anyway
Speaker 1: to protect you. You could protect yourself by burying your
Speaker 1: habitats under the ground. So you would probably have a
Speaker 1: few surface level buildings with tunnels that lead down into
Speaker 1: underground habitats where people were actually living, and you would
Speaker 1: do the same process of getting into a space suit
Speaker 1: if you wanted to emerge out on the Martian surface.
Speaker 1: One of the different proposals I have seen a lot
Speaker 1: of different UH proposed missions to Mars involved. This would
Speaker 1: include sending robots ahead of time to go and excavate
Speaker 1: an area where then they could assemble at least some
Speaker 1: of the habitats and then piled dirt regulars on top
Speaker 1: of them to bury them. And that way astronauts when
Speaker 1: they arrive at Mars would already have a place to
Speaker 1: go to they wouldn't have to set it up themselves.
Speaker 1: That seems pretty intelligent to me. They would also involve
Speaker 1: sending cargo ahead of time so that when the mark
Speaker 1: the the the Martian UH colonists or the explorers more
Speaker 1: likely explorers than colonists. First off, when they land, they
Speaker 1: would already have some of their stuff there. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to take everything with them, and thus again you
Speaker 1: could spread out the weight of all of that stuff
Speaker 1: across multiple launches instead of trying to pack it all
Speaker 1: into a single one. And they could then take those
Speaker 1: that cargo storied in the proper space and start their
Speaker 1: mission uh, probably for a couple of years, and then
Speaker 1: try a return trip to Earth. We're talking about probably
Speaker 1: a full like three to three and a half years
Speaker 1: for a full Martian mission, when you include the trips
Speaker 1: out to Mars back from Mars, and the time spent
Speaker 1: on Mars. Uh. I think it's really exciting, and I
Speaker 1: love that we have been working very seriously on designing
Speaker 1: a habitat that meets both the technical requirements we would
Speaker 1: have on Mars and the psychological requirements we would have.
Speaker 1: Because if you've ever really used any technology developed entirely
Speaker 1: just by engineers, you may notice, well, it works, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't work in a way that seems natural or intuitive.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that happens, and it may be that it makes
Speaker 1: perfect sense. It just requires you to think in a
Speaker 1: very specific way. You have to adjust your behavior and
Speaker 1: your thinking so that you get the most out of
Speaker 1: that piece of technology. But when you're talking about people
Speaker 1: living on another planet, you want that to be effortless.
Speaker 1: You don't want to have to adjust your thinking and
Speaker 1: your behavior to your destination, or at least not entirely.
Speaker 1: Some of that is absolutely necessary because of the differences
Speaker 1: between Mars and Earth, but you want the the habitat
Speaker 1: two be as much benefit to you as possible. So anyway,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Jeremiah for the suggestion. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. This was a lot of fun to look into. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm sad that I was not able to see this
Speaker 1: habitat the last time I was in Hawaii, which was
Speaker 1: not that long ago. When I was last in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: this experiment was underway. They were inside the habitat, but
Speaker 1: it is not exactly on an easily accessible part of
Speaker 1: Mount Loah, which is part of the point, right. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't want it to be easily accessible, then you could
Speaker 1: put the whole experiment at risk with tourists just walking
Speaker 1: up and standing on the surface of Mars in the
Speaker 1: background of the pictures as astronauts are trying to do
Speaker 1: missions that would be a little silly, so I totally understand.
Speaker 1: But still it's kind of a bummer because I would
Speaker 1: love to see this place. I mean, I really really
Speaker 1: would love to see this place. And I got to
Speaker 1: Hawaii a lot. So if anyone at High Seas is like, hey,
Speaker 1: when we're not doing a mission, we're not doing an experiment, uh,
Speaker 1: and you want to see this space, come on over.
Speaker 1: Please let me know, because I will do it in
Speaker 1: a heartbeat. I will book a trip to Hawaii so
Speaker 1: I can see it. First of all, I love Hawaii, uh,
Speaker 1: and I would love to go back again. And second
Speaker 1: of all, I think it would be the experience of
Speaker 1: a lifetime, even just to walk around this habitat and
Speaker 1: see the condition of the space and how what it
Speaker 1: must feel like to be in that space, even just
Speaker 1: for a few like a half hour, as opposed to
Speaker 1: a full year, it would be phenomenal. But I hold
Speaker 1: out very little hope that anyone that High Seas is
Speaker 1: listening to this um if they are passed along, I'd
Speaker 1: love to check it out. Guys, this has been a
Speaker 1: fantastic time for me. I hope you've enjoyed it. I
Speaker 1: didn't go into too much pirate voice, so I hope
Speaker 1: that helps, and UH didn't make too many high seas puns.
Speaker 1: I really look forward to tackling a lot more topics
Speaker 1: that you guys choose. Just send me messages, send me
Speaker 1: an email the addresses tech stuff at how stuff works
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Speaker 1: that's John Strickland j O N S t R I
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Speaker 1: blame you, but he is adorable and you should look
Speaker 1: at him because he's the cutest. You guys, have a
Speaker 1: great day. I will talk to you again really soon
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: it hastaff works dot com.