Six Men Endure 105-Day Mars Flight Simulator

drunken_boxer777 writes with this excerpt from an AP report: "Six men emerged from a metal hatch after 105 days of isolation in a mock spacecraft, still smiling after testing the stresses that space travelers may face on the journey to Mars. They had no television or Internet and their only link to the outside world was communications with the experiment's controllers — who also monitored them via TV cameras — and an internal e-mail system. Communications with the outside world had 20-minute delays to imitate a real space flight."

Comments

Why no TV/Internet?

[lobiusmoop]

I would have thought that would be an easy thing to provide them for mental stimulation on a long boring journey. Couple of laptops with few thousand hours of video, games, website snapshots, virtual environments to explore.

Re:Why no TV/Internet?

[Grishnakh]

What kind of dumb question is this? Perhaps the same way they already receive other communications signals from Earth? How do you think the Mars landers communicate with Earth?

Uh, DVR?

[ShooterNeo]

It wouldn't be too difficult to pack a few hard drives or SSDs with a few thousand movies and episodes of TV shows. Ironically, while it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to buy all those DVDs and rip them, it would cost a lot more money to send the media holding the video files to mars. There would be a lengthy time-lag for emails, but that's little different than email is already.

Re:Uh, DVR?

[Captain Spam]

It wouldn't be too difficult to pack a few hard drives or SSDs with a few thousand movies and episodes of TV shows.

Except, as soon as word got out of them flipping the first bit on the drive during the copy operation, the MPAA/RIAA/ABC/CBS/NBC/etc would be down their necks, complaining to their congresspeople about how much more important their anti-piracy efforts are over scientific discovery, cosmic exploration, and our astronauts not going insane during a nearly one-third year flight. And then they'd add a few extra trillion in to the "potential lost sales" figures they flaunt due to the Martians the astronauts would potentially be sharing the movies with who would then not buy the movies.

Then they'd bitch about making sure there's DRM on the spacecraft (jacking up the price and complexity) and make excuses that a 40-minute round-trip communication back to the central servers on earth every X minutes of playback is a perfectly reasonable compromise to make "sure" it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, and would try their damndest to delay the launch until they could convince the entire judicial branch of the United States government to quite cheerfully treat the astronauts like potential criminals.

I mean, other than THAT, it'd be a perfectly reasonable idea.

Physchology

[mcrbids]

Living in cramped quarters with a few other people for 105 days is not so big a deal. Reality would likely be far different. See, those 105 people *knew* that just outside the cramped wall was a big, beautiful, receptive planet, with air to breathe, beer to drink, and babes walking around to scope out. They are a day-flight away from home, wherever it be. Something go wrong? Darn, too bad. Simulation over, everybody have a beer and go home!

But an actual, honest-to-god Mars trip is different, and everybody will know it. Just outside the cramped wall is the darkest, blackest, most incomprehensibly complete void mankind can fathom. No air, no beer, no babes. Nothing. And not just some nothing, MILLIONS of miles of nothing. Months of travel at speeds inconceivable to airlines flight. Something go wrong? Everybody's dead!

Sure, just about anybody could live with this kind of stress for a while, but we're not talking about a while, we're talking about MONTHS of this kind of pressure. Many perfectly healthy, strong, capable people would crack under this kind of pressure. And even our best and brightest crack under the pressure of living here on Earth, with lots of air, beer, and pretty babes!

The simulation is more of a publicity stunt, and it's appropriate. People want to try the trip, and that's A-OK. But do not think, even for a moment, that this gives particularly meaningful data on what a real Mars trip would be like!

Re:Physchology

[MobileMrX]

Here's the solution:

"Hey guys, we are going to do one more simulation, just step over here. We've made some improvements that make this ULTRA realistic."

Let them think it is a simulation until they get to Mars, then send them the "tricked you!" email when they get there.

Re:Physchology

[Dr. Spork]

I see it differently, and I think the test subject do too: If you're the first crew to Mars, you know every second that what you're doing is fucking important, and that you have a special privilege and responsibility, and that the whole world is watching you. I think it's pretty likely that under such circumstances the dude wouldn't have tried to fondle the hot Canadian chick. You'd keep a lid on it.

Contrast that to an experiment where you basically have five people in railroad car undergoing isolation torture with dubious scientific value. Then you realize "you know, if I have nice bloody fistfight with Sergey, they'll cancel this stupid experiment, let me go home, and the jerk might even lose a tooth like he deserves to. All signs point to yes."

So in summary, I'm saying that a real crew on its way to the actual planet Mars has many more reasons to be on their best behavior.

Re:Physchology

[DerekLyons]

See, those 105 people *knew* that just outside the cramped wall was a big, beautiful, receptive planet, with air to breathe, beer to drink, and babes walking around to scope out.

Believe it not, that makes it harder rather then easier. When I was making SSBN patrols for the USN, 'fast cruises' (simulating underway while tied up to the pier) were much harder knowing those things were so close. Actual patrols were easier because you knew they weren't close and thus weren't nearly so much a distraction.
 
 

Sure, just about anybody could live with this kind of stress for a while, but we're not talking about a while, we're talking about MONTHS of this kind of pressure. Many perfectly healthy, strong, capable people would crack under this kind of pressure.

Which is why they don't let just anyone go, just like the Submarine Service they pick preferentially from the right hand side of the bell curve. Sure, the occasional loon makes it through screening, but that doesn't disprove the whole concept.

Re:Physchology

[nizo]

"You know, if there was an 'airlock accident' I could flush Segey out into space, and then I could have my way with one of my crewmates because, seriously, who can stop me?"

Yeah I'm thinking the screening process will be pretty thorough for a Mars mission.

Re:Physchology

[KeensMustard]

The engineering solution to the psychology problem is to put some mutually agreeable and compatible people in the capsule and launch it. People are mission critical component and a good engineer doesn't fight the properties of his materials.

The ironic thing is that people aren't a mission critical component after all. There really isn't any reason for them to be aboard.

Trip to Mars takes 9 months

[Geoffrey.landis]

Nice test, but of course a Hohmann trajectory to Mars takes nine months-- 275 days, not 105. They exited the spacecraft when they were only halfway there!

Re:internal email system?

[Voyager529]

...so basically this e-mail system will be about as useful as Twitter?

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

No one implied that Astronaut #4 was male...