When a Mars Simulation Goes Wrong
The drive to the little white dome on the northern slope of Mauna Loa is a bumpy one. Mauna Loa, the “Long Mountain,” is a colossal volcano that covers half of the island of Hawaii. The rocky terrain, rusty brown and deep red, crunches beneath car tires and jostles passengers. Up there, more than 8,000 feet above sea level and many miles away from the sounds of civilization, it doesn’t feel like Earth. It feels like another planet. Like Mars.
For the past five years, small groups of people have made this drive and moved into the dome, known as a habitat. Their job is to pretend that they really are on Mars, and then spend months living like it. The goal, for the researchers who send them there, is to figure out how human beings would do on a mission to the real thing.
In February of this year, the latest batch of pioneers, a crew of four, made the journey up the mountain. They settled in for an eight-month stay. Four days later, one of them was taken away on a stretcher and hospitalized.
The remaining crew members were evacuated by mission support. All four eventually returned to the habitat, not to continue their mission, but to pack up their stuff. Their simulation was over for good. The little white dome has remained empty since, and the University of Hawaii, which runs the program, and NASA, which funds it, are investigating the incident that derailed the mission.
The mission that began in February was the sixth iteration of the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS. The durations have varied, from four months to a full year, and participants come from all over the world and different fields.
HI-SEAS is a social experiment, and the participants are the lab rats. They wear devices to track their vitals, movements, and sleep, answer countless questionnaires about their own behavior and their interactions with others, and journal several times a week about their feelings.
Psychology researchers take all that data and use them to tease out information about what works and what doesn’t when you stick people in a tiny space they can’t escape. (Hint: They get on each other’s nerves—a lot—as documented in a recent podcast series, The Habitat. There’s also a little romance.)
Meanwhile, the crew members live as much as possible like they are on Mars. They eat freeze-dried food, use a composting toilet, take 30-second showers to conserve water, and never step outside without a space suit and helmet. They don’t communicate with anyone in real time, not even family. An email to mission support or their loved ones takes 20 minutes to get there. Receiving a response takes another 20 minutes. They’re not allowed to see anyone outside of the mission.
The habitat is a tight squeeze. The ground floor, which includes a kitchen, bathroom, a lab, and exercise spaces, measures 993 square feet. The second floor, where the
