Long Term Isolation: Deep space travel and the effects it has on the brain

Jaime Cross

    With all the new exciting things like creating plans to go to Mars, and looking to explore the rest of the solar system; there can be setbacks that NASA and other space agencies need to take into account. Not things like engines and life support, but the psychological toll long term isolation can do to a person. In this blog post, we will be going over the cruel reality that could take part in future deep-space missions. Also, I will be referencing the TV show called Mars by National Geographic, I recommend you go check it out.

     NASA has recently funded research projects that study long term detachment from society. Projects like HI-SEA's (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) and NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations have) been used to research the mental effects of being away from society, being only stuck with a few people. NASA has also been conducting its own experiments on studying the effects long term living in space. They had Scott Kelly and Peggy Whitson were the two people that stayed at the ISS separately for as close to a year as possible. They both are doing fine mentally, yet this is due in part to the human interactions like doing interviews with the press or just the crew of the ISS. Missions to Mars are supposed to host up to four people, and yet the ISS currently has six people on board. When the Shuttle was flying it would host up to ten people, but with the limited capacity of the Soyuz rocket, it only hosts six. So the lower capacity in a Mars mission might have more of a psychological effect on the crew.

     Scott Kelly, one of the few people to stay a full year in space, has been well after returning to Earth. Since he has a twin brother they were able to figure out before and after what was similar and what changed. Most of the research the brothers want to be kept quiet, yet for the few things they did release was very interesting. Scott's telomeres got longer. Telomeres being the end of the chromosomes, their purpose is to prevent decomposition or fusion with other chromosomes. This may imply that Scott will live longer than his twin, Mark Kelly. Many more things are to come from the "Twin Study". Hopefully enough to figure out what to do to help humans get ready to travel long distances.

     Now let's step into the shoes of an introvert. We introverts are not the kind of people to randomly go up to another person and talk to them. We need to become friends first. It can be harder for some than others. So for instance in the TV show Mars by Nat Geo, there is a character that goes to Mars along with his wife and he is an introvert. He has little to no contact with humans so he starts falling back into his own mind. With the low amounts of power they had at the base it was dark and a dust storm was raging outside. He began to go crazy. Possibly due to the low lighting, decreased oxygen, and may be an underlying psychological disorder. Crazy, being that he pictured his home at the base. He begins to walk towards the door in what he thought was his home and he eventually opened the airlock to the base, killing himself and half of the crew. This is something that can actually happen as far fetched it sounds.

     HI-SEA's (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) has been in operation since April 2013. It has consisted of five simulations spanning from four to eight months. They are centered in Hawaii and its goal is to study the effects of long term isolation on the psychological well being of the crew. They simulate life on Mars, so they haveExtravehicular activities (EVA's) pretending that they are walking on the Martian soil.

     So as you can see it's in the middle of nowhere. They chose the base location to be at the foot of Mauna Loa Volcano in Hawaii to simulate what the red planet would feel and look like. It's a remote location that has no one but the four to six-person crew. Each HI-SEA simulation has a different set of people and different types of nutrition. Each main focus is to find the perfect team composition so they can work effectively as a team.. They have very specific procedures to go through to receive water, food, or basic supplies. So every time they step outside they need to wear spacesuits. They also do research that would be done on Mars, such as studying the soil or rocks.

     Yes, these people aren't trained astronauts, yet they are not there to be. The study is to determine how a human would respond if they were put into extreme isolation. They put proximity sensors on each crew member to see who they interact with and to monitor their heart rate to study how they react to a situation.

     All simulations were nominal except a fight on the fourth mission. The University of Hawaii will not disclose what it was about yet they did say it happened. According to the mission commander's ted talk, It may have been due to the twenty-minute shower one crew member had which exhausted their water supply down to nearly nothing. They also had a communications error when they requested more water. The water truck didn't arrive as scheduled. They were not informed why until they called it in and were told that the truck broke down. This is, of course, a highly unlikely event that will not occur in a real NASA Mars mission. It was an unprofessional error that could have been so easily avoided. Overall the fourth simulation of HI-SEAs was the worst of the five.

     Speaking of fights there was a famous project in the 1990s called Biosphere 2. This project was to study human isolation on earth. So this time it wasn't simulating life on Mars or deep space missions, but if a human were to live alone. They had fish and animals that were to be taken care of, yet they were not. Most of the time the animals died of starvation. The people inside would consume too much food, which in turn made them eat the emergency food supplies. This led to low morale amongst the crew and made them easily made angry. This led to two factions forming inside the sphere and war almost broke out inside. The project was stopped before anyone could get hurt. Now imagine if this were to happen during a small mission to Mars. What would happen? They would be alone left to themselves millions of miles away from Earth. Anything could happen. They could start a fight and someone could get hurt or maybe even die. Mission procedures state that they would abort the mission if such things were to happen.

     On-orbit tests were conducted and had results different from that of HI-SEAs. On-orbit tests showed that after getting down to earth is when the astronauts would show symptoms of depression and asthenization. Asthenization is a mental illness dealt upon only astronauts, that have come down to earth after a long space-flight. Symptoms of asthenization is lack of appetite, fatigue, and sleep disorders. This leads to depression and alcohol abuse. Astronauts have been diagnosed with this mental disorder.

     Even with all the bad things that come from being in space for a long time, there could be some good things to come out of it. Astronauts also come back saying that their appreciation for their existence and the beauty of Earth was increased by spending time in orbit. Also things like creating bonds with people that they work with.

     When astronauts go into space for a long amount of time they tend to have very good relationships with their fellow astronauts. Like for example, Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer on Expedition 51 became best friends in space. Yet astronauts aren't always the nicest to the flight controllers down on Earth. They have been recorded to be rude and resistant to do work. They were said to reflect a teenage attitude. Simulations like the MARS 500 mission is a good example. MARS 500 is another space simulation mission conducted by the Russians. The point of MARS 500 is similar to HI-SEAs. They are supposed to stay in isolation for 500 days and simulate how it would be like to live on Mars. This experiment went well except for the attitude the crew gave to the flight controllers.

     Overall, NASA and other space agencies have yet to figure out what could help astronauts stay sane on deep space missions. The best thing they could do at this point is to keep morale high and hope for the best. The problem that will never fade is that all humans will always have conflict. We all fight at some point, yet it may not escalate into what Biosphere 2 had yet there is no getting past it.

     Thank you for reading this post on The All Encompassing Space Blog! Comment below for any questions or suggestions for future posts! I will see you all next time Space Nerds!