8 month NASA isolation experiment ends

[The Caspian Hare]

 

Quote

 

After eight months of living in isolation on a remote Hawaii volcano, six NASA-backed research subjects will emerge from their Mars-like habitat on Sunday and return to civilization.

Their first order of business after subsiding on mostly freeze-dried and canned food: Feast on fresh-picked pineapple, papaya, mango, locally-grown vegetables and a fluffy, homemade egg strata cooked by their project's lead scientist.

The crew of four men and two women were quarantined on a vast plain below the summit of the world's largest active volcano in January. All of their communications with the outside world were subjected to a 20-minute delay—the time it takes for signals to get from Mars to Earth.

 

https://phys.org/news/2017-09-nasa-space-psychology-subjects-months.html

[fred_mc]

This kind of simulation has been made before. There was a similar simulation of a Mars journey in Russia some years ago (with participants from several different countries I think). Wonder what they could learn more from this simulation.

[+DanL]

The dynamics of the crew will change with every change of personnel. A 4 man 2 woman crew will have a different dynamic than one made of 4 women and 2 men. They need to experiment to see if there is a BEST mix for a crew to survive with the lowest possible stress. There are lots of possible variations and before you spend a large fortune sending a small crew on this voyage you need to learn as much as possible about what it will mean and do to the different crews.

Edited September 18, 2017 by DanL
oops!

[dlh]

It is reassuring that there were no murders or suicides.

[qxcontinuum]

are they still 8 , maybe 9 ... who knows... i guess will find out after 9 months ?

[taniwha]

On 26/09/2017 at 6:45 AM, qxcontinuum said:

are they still 8 , maybe 9 ... who knows... i guess will find out after 9 months ?

Well they have been isolated 8 months already, so maybe we will find out next month?  Twins would be cute.