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Road To Mars: Solving the Isolation Problem
An anonymous reader writes: As space technology matures, new missions are being funded and humanity is setting its goals ever further. Space agencies are tackling some of the new problems that crop up when we try to go further away than Earth's moon. This New Yorker article takes a look at research into one of the biggest obstacles: extended isolation. Research consultant Jack Stuster once wrote, "Future space expeditions will resemble sea voyages much more than test flights, which have served as the models for all previous space missions." Long-duration experiments are underway to test the effects of isolation, but it's tough to study. You need many experiments to derive useful conclusions, but you can't just ship 100 groups of a half-dozen people off to remote areas of the globe and monitor all of them. It's also borderline unethical to expose the test subjects to the kind of stress and danger that would be present in a real Mars mission. The data collected so far has been (mostly) promising, but we have a long way to go. The technology and the missions themselves will probably come together long before we know how to deal with isolation. At some point, we'll just have to hope our best guess is good enough.
The ISS crew stays in their tin can for six month stints and seem to get along fine
Six months is not a year, and a year is not three.
Now, we are sending up a guy who will be there a full year, so we may see other things. Subtle (or not) effects of neurosis is almost a certainty. But such isolation could bring out more serious manifestations.
I think studies of prison inmates in isolation would probably be useful.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I think studies of prison inmates in isolation would probably be useful.
Not really. Solitary confinement is more a study in sensory deprivation. Child molesters are pretty much cut off from most social interaction, lest they get beat to death, but while away their time reading books, doing crafts and like, and most importantly, have a definite release date, so they get by okay with limited social interaction.
A man can endure most anything as long as he knows it will end eventually, and he has something to occupy himself.
And even then, I'm not certain the emphasis on socialness is all that it seems to be. There is a persistent myth that all humans require social interaction, but they never differentiate it from sensory deprivation, so it is hard to say what exactly they are measuring. More than social interaction, people require novelty and new things to occupy their time. Several people are perfectly at ease with never seeing another face for years at a time. What is going to be hard is seeing the same face, especially locked up in a tin can hurtling through space.
Antarctic research stations usually sign on for 6 month stints. Several usually sign on again and again, so it's clear that the right tight-knit group is able to go long periods without much outside interaction. The data is already there. You just have to be smart enough to look for it.