Breakdown Forces New Look At Mars Mission Sexuality

FloatsomNJetsom writes "Popular Mechanics has up an interesting story, discussing what the long-term implications of the Lisa Nowak incident could mean for Mars Mission crew decisions: With a 30-month roundtrip, that isn't the sort of thing you'd want to happen in space. Scientists have been warning about the problems of sex on long-term spaceflight, and experts are divided as to whether you want a crew of older married couples, or asexual unitard-wearing eunuchs. The point the article makes specifically is that NASA's current archetype of highly-driven, task-oriented people might be precisely the wrong type for a Mars expedition. In addition scientists may use genomics or even functional MRI in screening astronauts, in addition to facial-recognition computers to monitor mental health during the mission." Maybe observers could just deploy the brain scanner to keep track of them?

Comments

Monitoring them will not work

[Alien54]

This has all of the makings of several classic sci-fi movies

Just because you monitor them does not give you the capability to fix things if things go bad on Mars.

Of course, you can send groups of people on long journeys. Just take a look at the classic journeys of exploration, where people were at sea, out of site of land, often for many months at a time.

But they had a solution to certain problems that you can't have in a space ship. You can't put discontents on an island in the fashion of Robinson Cruscoe, or set them adrift in a boat like Captain Bligh was.

You need to have a practical body of techniques as a solution to resolving human issues that does not require much in terms of medications. You can run out of medications. You need to be able to debug the mind.

Re:Way too much is being made of this...

[Excelcia]

1 in 136 is the percentage of people who are in jail at any one time. It's about ten times that for a lifetime average - ie, about 10% of the population will spend time in jail or prison in their life.

Re:Help, not screen

[sckeener]

Instead, NASA lost a great astronaut and her life has been destroyed.

Her life has been destroyed and several families. The court system isn't fun for anyone....the victim, the criminal, their families. I feel for the kids. It is going to be rough for them with so many changes all at once.

I lost both of my parents. My mother is guilty (murder of her cheating boy friend) and I believe my dad to be innocent since there is no physical evidence & no witnesses (molestation of a 3 year old).

Needless to say discussing my family is not something I usually do and Nowak's kids are going to have a hard time...I mean they are in school right now...imagine being a teenager with your mother on the news for attempted murder nightly! I can't even imagine discussing adult diapers with teenagers!

The diaper lady was not about sex...

[dtjohnson]

The diaper-wearing long-haul killer was unbelievably selfish and self-centered...to the point of being infantile. Someone with that kind of psychopathic personality should have never made it into the NASA manned spaceflight program, where people have to depend on each other. Someone who would drive 900 miles in diapers to kill someone to satisfy some selfish itch is not going to make any sacrifices for the good of the mission or her fellow space travelers.

Re:The diaper lady was not about sex...

[SpeedBump0619]

Someone with that kind of psychopathic personality should have never made it into the NASA manned spaceflight program, where people have to depend on each other. Someone who would drive 900 miles in diapers to kill someone to satisfy some selfish itch is not going to make any sacrifices for the good of the mission or her fellow space travelers.

You seem to be under the impression that NASA screens for team players. Whatever gave you that idea?

I'll grant there are a number of other minor aspects, but primarilly NASA knows that the people they send up have to be excellent at planning, adaptation, and execution. This woman had a problem, she saw a solution, and she acted on it. It isn't right, certainly, but it isn't shocking either. I'll bet her service record would show she was good at thinking outside the box.

Re:Submariners

[frdmfghtr]

The nuclear missile submarines do 3 months straight submerged -- every single patrol (my personal longest was 87 days) -- and many submarines have done extended tours, though admittedly usually for PR reasons, like the early Nautilus cruises.

My personal record was 59 days at sea on a SSN, surfacing twice to evacuate personnel for medical reasons. Had we not had these reasons, we would have been under for the whole 59 days.

Now, what you mean by "outside of human contact" changes the answer completely. Did the SSBNs still get regular radio dispatches (or maybe yo can't say :) ) We still had regular radio contact with the outside world so technically we weren't outside of human contact, even though we didn't touch land for two months.

Just *test* the applications for how they'll do.

[jonadab]

The test is simple: all applicants must first winter over at either Amundsen-Scott or Vostok, not physically attack anyone, and come back sane with mostly good things to say about the other people they had to work with.

The duration of this test wouldn't be as long as the actual mission, but the antarctic winter is long enough to weed out anyone very edgy, I think.

Note that stations with the ability to get people in and out during the winter, such as McMurdo, should not qualify.

Kim Stanley Robinson

[Castar]

There's a great science fiction series about the colonization of Mars - Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars.

In it, the author talks about this very problem. The way in which it's solved is very practical. They isolate the group of mission candidates on Antarctica for long periods of time, and thus weed out/break those who can't hack it. (This is after all the other screening, of course).

Something like that would no doubt work well, but in the book it depended on a long list of people who were qualified and eager to go to Mars and make those sacrifices, as well as a public that was willing to fund and support such a venture.