Hawaii's Mars Simulations Are Canceled (theatlantic.com) 87
The dome where crew members practiced red-planet missions will now be converted to a simulated moon base. Excerpt from a report: For the last five years, a small Mars colony thrived in Hawaii, many miles away from civilization. The Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS, was carried out in a small white dome nestled along the slope of a massive volcano called Mauna Loa. The habitat usually housed six people at a time, for as long as eight months. They prepared freeze-dried meals, took 30-second showers to conserve water, and wore space suits every time they left the dome. To replicate the communication gap between Earth and Mars, they waited 20 minutes for their emails to reach their family members, and another 20 to hear back. Sometimes, as they drifted off to sleep, with nothing but silence in their ears, they really believed they were on Mars.
In February of this year, something went wrong. The latest and sixth mission was just four days in when one of the crew members was carried out on a stretcher and taken to a hospital, an Atlantic investigation revealed in June. There had been a power outage in the habitat, and some troubleshooting ended with one of the residents sustaining an electric shock. The rest of the crew was evacuated, too. There was some discussion of returning -- the injured person was treated and released in the same day -- but another crew member felt the conditions weren't safe enough and decided to withdraw. The Mars simulation couldn't continue with a crew as small as three, and the entire program was put on hold. [...]
In February of this year, something went wrong. The latest and sixth mission was just four days in when one of the crew members was carried out on a stretcher and taken to a hospital, an Atlantic investigation revealed in June. There had been a power outage in the habitat, and some troubleshooting ended with one of the residents sustaining an electric shock. The rest of the crew was evacuated, too. There was some discussion of returning -- the injured person was treated and released in the same day -- but another crew member felt the conditions weren't safe enough and decided to withdraw. The Mars simulation couldn't continue with a crew as small as three, and the entire program was put on hold. [...]
Re: Thanks in a way & why, lol... apk (Score:1)
What happened to only posting about hosts when it's on-topic? This story is about Mars simulations being cancelled. It has nothing to do with DNS or hosts. Go away.
Re: (Score:1)
Arctic. (Score:2, Interesting)
If you want something close to a Mars simulation, go to the Arctic.
Hawaii is too warm.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It's too uncomfortable. People only stay there months at a time. There's no groceries, communications are awful. It's totally unlike the wonderful journey to Mars where people are going to live under great beautiful domes and robots will mine food and oxygen until the planet has been fully terraformed.
Re:Arctic. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Arctic. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the biggest thing is probably that you're still close enough to the medical facilities in Hilo if something goes wrong. This was largely a psych study, and there's no way you're getting an IRB to approve a something where people might actually die. If something goes wrong in Hawai'i, you'll be fine, but if something goes wrong in the Arctic, maybe not.
Re: (Score:3)
they really believed they were on Mars. (Score:2)
So...a loony bin financed some random rich dude? Was there any actual science?
>> they waited 20 minutes for their emails to reach their family members, and another 20 to hear back
If you think that's a long delay, it's a good thing you're not someone who tries to text me - especially about work.
Re: (Score:2)
Zealot Express (Score:2)
I suspect Mars will be first colonized by cultists/zealots of some kind, similar to how Utah was colonized by Mormons, who didn't get along with their neighbors when they first tried to settle further east. (Both sides point fingers, I won't pick sides here.)
Cultists will fund themselves and accept the risk. "Normal" people would typically not be so motivated.
Re: (Score:2)
They seem to have instead settled successfully, not given up. Sorry Ivan, you're gonna need to look that idiom up again!
Re: (Score:1)
"It's dry! It's rocky! It's red! It's deserted! We love it!"
Re: (Score:2)
So...a loony bin
It is called a dude ranch. And if you have to ask, you're too poor to understand.
Anybody remember Capricorn 1 (Score:3)
Sam Waterston was one of the astronauts
Hal Holbrook was the bad guy in charge of NASA
Re:Anybody remember Capricorn 1 (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
OJ wasn't a great actor, by any stretch of the imagination. But when I watch a movie he was in nowadays, I see things a little differently in hindsight, for whatever reason.
Like in Naked Gun - they're doing a riff on the train station scene from The Untouchables. OJ saves the baby... and then spikes it like a football.
Re: (Score:2)
[Allegedly.]
Missed opportunity (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe she was over reacting, maybe not, and while it didn't get to this point nobody is going to be impressed when they see, 'died of electrocution while pretending to live on Mars' on your headstone.
If you're going to take any of this seriously then that should include the people running it taking it seriously, which she didn't seem was happening when they were forced to break the chain and call 911 themselves and couldn't get a hold of the on duty doctor.
Re: (Score:1)
^This. Yes, Mars requires risk and some people may die. Taking chances while you're still on earth is just macho B.S. Work safe everybody.
Re: (Score:1)
Wish I had a mod point for you. The point is that they WEREN'T on Mars, and are collecting data on what can go wrong, and they got it. If an emergency makes your Mars LARP mortally dangerous, then roleplaying yourself to death or permanent injury is asinine. Value of human life aside, the team already clearly accomplished your goal.
Re:Missed opportunity (Score:5, Informative)
This was nothing more than a study of the mental/emotional effects of being on Mars, as well as a study of how some of the mechanical and procedural systems might work on Mars. They got plenty of data on that.
For a first run, this was about as good as one could hope, but with systems that haven't yet been refined for the unique challenges presented by living on Mars, there's no good reason to let people suffer and potentially die with such an early iteration.
Re: (Score:1)
Welp, I'm convinced. Time to skip flight simulators and just throw pilots into multi-billion-dollar flying machines, because without truly endangering their lives it won't be ~accurate~.
Re: Missed opportunity (Score:2)
If this were even remotely true, then VR horror games wouldnâ(TM)t be nearly as terrifying as they are. Turns out when youâ(TM)re all wrapped up in something, itâ(TM)s easy to get your mind in a place where it genuinely believes your experience is the true reality.
Re: (Score:1)
Agreed. We learn a lot from these episodes. Even if they have to cut things short unexpectedly.
Why did a crew member get shocked? Design flaw? Protocol issue? Other..
What 2nd crew member becoming ill related to that event? Circumstantial timing? Habitat issue identified?
All things being equal, this is proper approach forward. I just hope they're back to it soon, with more simulations.
Re:Missed opportunity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missed opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
You could even say this was realistic -- more realistic than anyone signed on for.
If you read first hand accounts of voyages from the Age of Sail, one of the things that's striking is how much long distance travel depended on human life being cheap. In Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast, he recounts a journey in which he departed Boston on August 14 and dropped anchor in Santa Barbara on January 19, five months later. Because it's a sailing ship, the sailors have to climb the ice-covered rigging in a storm to tie and untie knots. Sailors are swept of the deck walking from the fo'c'sle to the galley for a meal, and in a gale at night there's nothing that can be done about it. Injury and death at rates that would unacceptable to modern sensibilities were literally just the price of doing business.
The practical implication for a Mars mission, which due both to costs and launch windows would have to survive for many months, is that the crew roster is going to have to be heavy on medical expertise to meet modern expectations of safety. If you're a youngster with ambitions of being on the first Mars mission, get an undergraduate degree in engineering or Earth science and then an MD.
Re: (Score:2)
tl;dr: The first trip to Mars will be all, or almost all, doctors with hobbies.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, or the other lesson from the Age of Sail; conscript criminals.
Re: (Score:2)
Or political dissidents. China could do this with it's "social credit score". Take someone whose life is literally considered worthless to society and give them a chance to get out of the red. As it stands it's kind of a Catch-22: you are so socially disabled by a low social credit score you can't rehabilitate yourself.
Re: (Score:2)
No, currently they're just doing 1 year bans on premium modes of travel.
They've adopted wording that makes it sound like you won't be able to rehabilitate yourself. But they might already have a plan for where those people are going to disappear to.
Consider this: The population of China is so large, and the government's power so opaque, they don't even need to enact a policy to come up with enough people to man a space colonization project. They can just assign somebody to choose people, and be done with th
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, we do miss Opportunity. [nasa.gov]
You can't make this up. (Score:1)
"My buddy got zapped and he's OK THIS time, but this isn't safe so I'm going back to Earth."
"Oh. My Uber app says 40 minutes. Tea anyone?"
Re: (Score:1)
Genius! (Score:2)
Mars is dangerous, so let's switch it to Moon instead. I'm sure that will fix faulty electrical connections and poor chain of command...
Rules of Planet Colonization (Score:2)
1) Bring an electrician.
2) Bring a plumber
3) Bring a doctor
4) Bring some guys in red tops, they're the sacrificial ones.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What?
The presence of a logician makes it sound like a riddle, knights and knaves style. That's unless they walk into a bar, that would be joke.
Re: (Score:2)
Sad. (Score:1)
Waste of time (Score:2)