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The biggest surprises from living in a simulated Martian habitat for a full year
- nylsaar 10y agoTo spend a year in such tight spaces is quite an accomplishment. I wonder what could have been accomplished if the mission included a goal of remote material manufacturing. It might answer can we survive together and can we thrive together while doing so. Plus, I'd love to see what material could be made using Unmanned Ground Vehicles.
- Animats 10y agoIt's not a self-contained environment. They didn't have to grow food or recycle air. That was Biosphere II, which was a huge flop.
- Pyxl101 10y agoIs it fair to call that experiment a flop? It failed to achieve its goals of running a self-sustaining colony, but it sounds like we learned a lot about the challenges of doing so from running that experiment. I don't know if we should expect success on the first or second try of designing a self-sustaining ecosystem. Plus, didn't they last most of the 2 year period they were intended to? (I'm not an expert on it)
- reddytowns 10y agoThe very last sentence: It's the whole thing about living in a common space where everyone has to share and it's difficult at times but we got through it, we're on the other side now. was the only mention of personal friction. I admit that I might be over analyzing here, but it's such a strange cultural thing that we can't talk about anything except the most positive emotions when dealing with other people. Why is anger, hostility, annoyance，etc. so taboo to mention in public?
- kingkawn 10y agoI think people feel that discussing it will only make more of it.
- posterboy 10y agothat's pessimism vs optimism
- qznc 10y agoBasic PR rule: Do not associate your stuff with negative words.
- erpellan 10y agoYou can bet they are discussing everything in great detail internally. Just not giving it all to the press.
- OneTwoFree 10y agoThey never talk about very important factors: relationship and sex. No one can expect that these people will just stop doing it, but it could cause serious issues as there's nowhere to go after a break up. So they will take drugs to suppress these emotions? What alternatives are there?
- e12e 10y agoI recall reading an interview with one of the Russian cosmonauts that stayed for a long time at Mir, mentioning something about a couple of wet dreams and then not really thinking much about sex for the rest of his (long) stay. Can't find the link now, but I did see Canadian Chris Hadley make a similar (less explicit) comment in his Reddit ama: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1s4l7v/i_am_col_chris_hadfield_retired_astronaut/cdturdw https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1s4l7v/i_am_col_chris... And while I'm sure people would like to think that the military have sex with each other all the time -- I'm pretty sure people manage to avoid having sex aboard submarines and other environments that are similar to a space expedition: dangerous and with long days filled with taxing work in the form of various experiments, exercises and routine tasks.
- s_kilk 10y ago> people would like to think that the military have sex with each other all the time... This is, in fact, the case though. It's not unheard-of for personnel to have a casual boyfriend/girlfriend for the duration of a deployment, in a what-happens-in-vegas way.
- ebirebivbi 10y agoMaybe I'm antisocial, but noise from housemates drives me up the wall. I can't relax or concentrate with the sounds of people doing things adjacent rooms, and headphones only mask certain kinds of noises, and sometimes you don't want to wear headphones. The hab's design would be better if it gave people more privacy and separated the rooms around the circumference, and had better soundproofing.
- ceejayoz 10y agoIt's intended to simulate a Mars mission. People like you simply won't be going - they're not going to waste launch mass on soundproofing bedrooms.
- ebirebivbi 10y agoWho says it would cost launch mass to soundproof rooms ? Use your imagination. Everyone has their limits.
- ceejayoz 10y ago> Who says it would cost launch mass to soundproof rooms ? I'm open to zero-weight soundproofing ideas that doesn't require a significant amount of wasted volume. > Everyone has their limits. And NASA'll be picking people with higher limits. If you "can't relax or concentrate with the sounds of people doing things", sorry, but you're not gonna wind up an astronaut anytime soon.
- endgame 10y agoDON'T POP A NEWSLETTER FORM OVER THE TEXT I AM TRYING TO READ. I'm sure this is an interesting article but the only way we will stop this practice is if we stop giving user-hostile publications our eyeballs.
- curiousgal 10y agohttp://confirmshaming.tumblr.com/ http://confirmshaming.tumblr.com/
- Paul_S 10y ago...or you could use an adblocker - they block more than just ads (at least the good ones do).
- ccvannorman 10y agoMine didn't work on this site. Most newsletter popups are home grown and adblockers don't work on them. I just ignore them and try not to visit the site again if possible. (well done marketing geniuses! Was that your goal?)
- UlyssesSKrunk 10y agoabp didn't block this one. ublock may have tho, but in my experience even that lets through many of these by default
- dredmorbius 10y agoOptions are limited on Mobile. But, pre-warned, I'll open this in Pocket, which avoids this. If Firefox had an "open directly to Reader Mode" I'd use that virtually always.
- pwg 10y ago> DON'T POP A NEWSLETTER FORM OVER THE TEXT I AM TRYING TO READ. I'm running NoScript in default deny all JS here - I read the whole article without ever realizing there was a "newsletter form" until after I saw your comment above.
- 10y ago
- hownottowrite 10y agoHi-Seas crew journal entries: http://livefrommars.life http://livefrommars.life
- gaius 10y agoIt's interesting that one person responded, with no distractions I could get loads of stuff done, and the other responded, it was hard to get anything done because of all the distractions. Identical circumstances but two totally opposite interpretations of it.
- otabdeveloper 10y agoWe're going to settle Venus way, way before we're going to settle Mars. These projects should focus on exploring ways to build big blimps instead.
- Dowwie 10y agoWouldn't mindfulness meditation help change such a confined experience? Also, I thought that astronauts had such full schedules that extracurricular activities were limited?
- ceejayoz 10y ago> Also, I thought that astronauts had such full schedules that extracurricular activities were limited? That was the case until they mutinied. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_7#.22Mutiny.22_in_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_7#.22Mutiny.22_in_space
- Dowwie 10y agothis was good reading :)
- Sam_Harris 10y agoHUGE POP UP when trying to read it. Gave up.