My eight-month mission in simulated space exploration

It was around 1:00 a.m., and we were huddled in a circle just outside our rooms. The cold nights were nothing new. We’ve been awakened by the ruckus of strong winds flapping our habitat’s vinyl covering against its metal frame. The winds of this storm were the strongest we experienced during our mission. To cope with our fears of the habitat collapsing, we joked about how we should put on helmets before going back to bed. With shared laughter, I appreciated how our crew used humor to defuse tension, but I feared that the dreaded group-think phenomena had emerged and that we were underestimating the hazard.

Fortunately, our crew of six “astronaut-like” individuals survived another night of isolation and confinement in the extreme environment of Mauna Loa volcano. At an elevation of 8,200 feet in a remote area of the Big Island, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) has created an immersive environment that is analogous to living on the planet Mars. These missions are investigating the biopsychosocial challenges of long-duration space exploration and are aiming to improve astronaut crew selection and team performance.

The work schedule and social situation were very intense in the habitat. I had only rare occasions of personal time during the eight months. That took some adjustment, but after spending the last several years working independently as a PhD student, it was a welcome change to be part of a team. 

Days on simulated Mars would typically begin with extravehicular activities for geology tasks that were designed by HI-SEAS researchers to evaluate our team performance. In mock spacesuits, we’d go out exploring the geology of Mauna Loa, which is iron-rich basalt, a red, rocky volcanic terrain that is similar to the surface of Mars.

In the afternoon, we would juggle personal research projects with e-mails from mission support, create content for news reporters or public outreach, and conduct NASA behavioral research tasks, including negotiation talks and multi-player computer games that evaluated our competitive and cooperative tendencies. Being reliant on solar energy, we had to do the majority of our cooking and baking during peak sunlight hours. Cooking on simulated Mars is a time-consuming endeavor. Our food inventory included a variety of flours and powdered dairy products, so we would make bread, yogurt, and cheese from scratch, and we also had freeze-dried fruits, vegetables, and meats that are surprisingly “normal” once they are rehydrated. 

In the evening, we would typically have a workout together with our “seventh crewmember,” Tony Horton, from P90X fitness videos. Next we would freshen up, being mindful that we each had only six minutes of shower water per week, then regroup for dinner and social time, watch a movie together, or have a friendly competition at board games. All throughout the day and at night before bed, we completed a myriad of questionnaires asking about our social interactions, emotional states, and physical health, for a total of about 40 surveys per week. This was my routine from October 15, 2014, to June 13, 2015.

I wanted to participate in this eight-month mission because it might be the closest I ever get to living on Mars, and it’s perfectly aligned with my enduring academic interests: space exploration, physiology, and data. After graduating with a bachelor’s in aerospace engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, I set out for graduate school at Purdue, the “Cradle of Astronauts.” My master’s work added biomedical research to my background, and then I moved over to the PhD program in industrial engineering at Purdue to develop data analytics for human performance modeling. For my dissertation, I’m working with advanced wearable technologies to develop capabilities for automated detection of adverse behavioral states that pose major risks to mission success.

NASA has identified 34 primary risks to address in preparing for long-duration human exploration missions, including adverse behavioral conditions, inadequate team coordination, and fatigue. HI-SEAS enabled me to collect valuable data about how sleep quality, activity levels, and stress states of our simulated astronaut crew varied throughout this eight-month mission. In the future, I dream of being on a mission to an asteroid or Mars, but regardless, I will continue researching how to improve the health and performance of individuals on Earth and Mars alike.