Ross Lockwood, '08 BSc(Hons), spent his summer in Hawaii, but it wasn't your typical beach vacation. Lockwood, a PhD candidate in the field of condensed matter physics, spent 120 days living in a dome with five other people on the slopes of a volcano at 2,500 metres. They were testing the psychological implications of living on Mars, part of a NASA-funded project called the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS. Communication with "Earth" was time-delayed by 20 minutes each way to replicate being on Mars. We corresponded with Lockwood by email.
Here in the HI-SEAS habitat, my experience in sensor design and programming has led me to take the role of systems engineer. I monitor and repair everything from the power system (which includes solar power plus battery, fuel cell and gasoline generator backup), the communications system - a network extending from our location on Mauna Loa to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida - and the sensor system that monitors every detail in the habitat.
To be honest, it has been a challenge. It wasn't apparent at the beginning of the mission, but you develop a very strong connection with others in such close quarters. As a result, you see an amplification of how your emotions and actions have an impact on others. I noticed that I changed my own personality, the prickly parts at least, to minimize the negative impact I see on the other crew members.
I'm starving for sounds. There isn't a chirp of a bird or the sound of a car driving by up here. Also, when we are outside we are in spacesuits ... so our vision is never really clear. It's strange being in a place knowing that you haven't "seen" it because your vision is always blurred.
A true Mars colony would consist of a large network of vastly different people. However, I think that the happiest colonists on Mars would be the introverts - problem-solvers, no doubt, with a thirst for exploration, but not the grandstanding adventure types.
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