Alexander Kumar, a physician and researcher at Concordia Station, writes from Antarctica, where he conducts scientific experiments for the European Space Agency?s human spaceflight program.
Do you want to be an astronaut? Well, have you ever considered becoming a ?hivernaut? instead? Hivernaut is the term used to describe those who overwinter at Dome Charlie in Antarctica, one of the most isolated and extreme environments on Earth.
I am currently working at Concordia Station ? a remote manned research outpost that is jointly run by the French Polar Institute and the Italian Antarctic Program, located at Dome Charlie.
My work for the European Space Agency is on human spaceflight research, and you would be right to think that it includes overcoming gravity and rapid travel to the other side of the atmosphere. But it also includes research in environments analogous to space, where lessons can be learned for a fraction of the cost ? financially and to the environment ? and with considerably less risk to those involved.
A space-analogue environment, whether naturally occurring or created,? is a site that, for the purpose of research, mimics aspects of the challenges involved in space travel or life on the surface of other planets or moons. The sites can include vehicles and habitats, and range from planetary analogue test sites to reduced-gravity environments.
One thing that no analogue environment on Earth can truly replicate are the conditions found in space, notably zero gravity. I am writing while living within such an analogue environment, and my glass of water, laptop and desk stationery remain, thankfully, well secured by Earth?s gravitational pull.
But while my physical state remains comparatively stable and secure here, living in such isolation at this extreme can affect my psychological well-being, taking it through its own elliptical and precarious orbit through the Antarctic darkness ? an important aspect of this kind of research.
There have been many analogue projects in the past, and more are planned for the future to test elements such as technology to the human factors of psychology and physiology.
In recent years, NASA has expanded its human spaceflight and robotic exploration beyond low Earth orbit, preparing for its next missions by first conducting research on Earth using analogue environments. Overseen by its Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, it includes the management of commercial space transportation, exploration systems development, human spaceflight capabilities, advanced exploration systems, and space life sciences research and applications.
Recently NASA?s Extreme Environment Mission Operations (Neemo) underwater program, using the Aquarius habitat, reached its end. From deep in the Antarctic winter darkness, I had exchanged images with the European Space Agency?s British astronaut-in-training, Tim Peake, who was living 20 meters (about 65 feet) underwater and conducting extra-vehicular research in Neemo?s low-gravity environment for possible future asteroid exploration. Looking at the daylight streaming into the depths of the temperate waters in his photos, I realized how different and faraway we were, though testing similar elements of living.
NASA?s Desert Research and Technology Studies program, in the Arizona desert, tested hardware like Rover prototypes and experimented with sample-collection techniques.
And the polar regions have been used as extreme and reliable study environments ? a sort of ?Mars on ice.? The Mars Society established a Mars Analogue Research Station, and its first project was the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station on Devon Island in Nunavut, Canada?s northernmost territory, an area where I have lived and worked. Its second project, Mars Desert Research Station, is in the southern Utah desert. A NASA-financed expedition ? Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition? ? is also based in the Arctic.
Many of the projects focused on developing and testing planetary exploration technology and equipment, including prototypes for space suits, life systems and rovers.
In February, having identified features in the Moroccan desert in the northern Sahara near Erfoud that share qualities with the surface of Mars, the Austrian Space Forum and PolAres Research Program will conduct the integrated MARS2013 Mars Analog Field Simulation to test equipment, communications and more.
Later in 2013, Cornell University, in partnership with the University of Hawaii, will commence the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, known as Hi-Seas, in which a six-member crew will live in a simulated Mars habitat for 120 days conducting research, including on new forms of food and food preparation strategies for long-term space exploration.
One of the most famous and useful studies seeking to understand the psychological implications of long-duration spaceflight has been the European Space Agency?s Mars 500 mission, in collaboration with the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow.
With a multinational crew of six who spent 520 days in complete isolation, confined to working and living inside a module, the project included a simulated (successful) mission from Earth to the surface of Mars. The project was limited, not only by its absence of zero gravity but also by its geographical location: located in Moscow, it provided a comfort blanket of sorts, with the crew members knowing that they could leave the module at any time should they wish to cancel their participation. As it turns out, no one did.
I recently spoke with a Mars 500 crew member, Romain Charles. He explained that the three main challenges for astronauts on a trip to Mars are the effects of weightlessness, radiation exposure and the human factor ? the main element studied in the Mars 500 mission.
Mr. Charles said he could feel a real distance between the people working around the modules and the crew inside. Yet, he reported, in such confinement during the 520 days of isolation, there were no conflicts among the crew members, which was a surprise for the psychologists studying them. Granted, the crew was never in a life-threatening situation, but Mr. Charles said he was able to answer ?yes? to the question ?Is man able to endure the confinement of a trip to Mars??
Every space-analogue environment is limited in what it can test and the reliability of the results it can provide.
For example, living at Concordia, the isolation is far different from the experience of the Mars 500 project. Here we are unreachable from February to November.
Concordia seems an ideal environment for studying true isolation, and is said to have similarities to long space travel (a one-way trip to Mars would also last about nine months). But in contrast to long space travel, at Concordia Station we live in a comparatively comfortable and spacious environment and can walk outside and breathe without space suits and airlocks or extravehicular activities protocol. That obviously affects perception of sensory deprivation, confinement and, ultimately, isolation. Hypoxia, a feature of living at Concordia, is also not experienced in space travel.
To me, it is closer to simulating life in a colony on another planet or moon, perhaps closer to home than Mars, where our communications remain largely reliable, without delay, with the Internet, Skype, Facebook and Twitter available to bridge the distance from home ? though this luxury can also be a teasing torture, causing crew members to miss home perhaps more than they would if they were fully cut off.
Any analogue environment research is also affected by who is involved. At Concordia, crew members are selected after basic physical and psychological screening, with little competition for the slots. Astronaut selection, on the other hand, is a heavily competitive, thorough, in-depth, well-guarded secret, with a proven recipe for success.
The extrapolation of results from experiments like ours is also limited by many others factors, including diet and and small sample sizes ? for instance, 13 crew members are currently overwintering at Concordia. On the flip side, the more random selection of members of an Antarctic overwintering crew may be more representative of the entire standard distribution curve?s spectrum. In this way it may better reflect and identify any internal biological changes potentially suffered by all or some human populations ? astronauts or not.
Other Antarctic stations are just as isolated as Concordia and offer different experiences and opportunities for research, including Russia?s Vostok station, America?s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and also, possibly, the British Antarctic Survey?s Halley Station.
This year there are more than 50 people overwintering at South Pole Station, where I regularly speak with the lone overwintering physician, a United States Navy retiree, Dr. Dale Mol?. Having spent a lifetime working on submarines, he understands life in confinement. Like me, he also shares a love of polar exploration and history, and so sought the challenge of enduring the Antarctic winter.
Asked whether the South Pole Station could be used as a space-analogue environment, he explained that it offers many qualities ? starting with a large sample size that could be four to five times greater than what is offered by other stations like Concordia (in research the more subjects you study, the more reliable the research is).
Dr. Mol? explained how the South Pole bears some resemblance to a Mars mission. Besides its thin, arid atmospheres and extreme cold environment, it offers an austere, remote medical environment, where all water is frozen and there are no indigenous life forms.
Dr. Mol? further explained how the South Pole in winter is very similar to a submarine in everything but space and the presence of women. Aboard a submarine, life is pretty much confined to the elevated station. There is a monotony to the days. And submarines operate on a rotating watch schedule, so constant fatigue is a problem.
At the South Pole, the elevation and poor sleep hygiene can result in the ?big eye,? or insomnia (thus sleep studies are often incorporated into analogue studies).
Only by collaborating and collating the results of the various projects can we test conditions, identify challenges and find solutions to succeed in future long space missions. Then, like a giant jigsaw puzzle, the results could be assembled to provide enough confidence to allow a manned mission to land on Mars (and return to Earth).
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