Tomorrow evening, we go into the dome. Check out my first post on Discover about the mission: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/fieldnotes/?p=9#.UWtwhSt4aqw

I’ll be blogging a bit for The Economist as well as Discover. During the mission, all my posts will be available on hi-seas.org.

MARS HO!

Today the TED blog highlighted the HI-SEAS mission and our crew commander (and TED fellow) Angelo Vermeulen. Here’s an excerpt of the Q&A:

What will the HI-SEAS simulation be investigating and teaching us?

The Mars simulation we’re setting up is called Hawaii Space Exploration Analog & Simulation or HI-SEAS. It’s primarily a food study. One of the main problems during long-term space travel is so-called menu fatigue. It’s basically astronauts getting tired of their food and losing appetite. By the way astronauts do not eat out of tubes and do not swallow food pills. That’s an old persistent cliché which is still in a lot of people’s minds. It’s almost an archetype of astronaut life. However this dates to the ’50s and ’60s, and has been long abandoned. The food that astronauts currently eat is pretty good, but it’s all pre-prepared. It’s add-water-and-heat, and you have your meal. But even those meals, even when they try to make variations, after a couple of months people get tired of that, and so they start to eat less. As a consequence they might also perform less, and jeopardize the mission.

For example, in the Mars-500 experiment — an isolation study of 500 days near Moscow, a collaboration between Europe and Russia — food became the item that people constantly talked about. Food is absolutely crucial to the psychology of your crew, and you need to handle that carefully.

One of the solutions could be to allow the crew to cook. Because cooking empowers you over your food. You can make endless variations, and there’s an interesting bonus: it improves social cohesion. You talk about food, you share food. It’s a basic human thing. The reason that space agencies have been holding it off are twofold. First of all, current human space exploration is done in microgravity conditions — like in the ISS — and as such cooking has hardly been possible. One needs a good deal of gravity to cook meals. In HI-SEAS we’re talking about simulating life on the surface of Mars, not about traveling to Mars. And since there’s a decent amount of gravity on Mars (38% of Earth’s gravity), you can do your regular cooking.

So what you’re doing is not for people in a space vehicle.
No, it’s not for the transit phase. It’s for an actual stay on a planetary surface, such as Mars, but also the Moon. The second reason space agencies have been holding off cooking is because it takes more time, water and energy, and all of those things are extremely precious in outer space. A pre-prepared meal is indeed way more efficient. But it’s a tradeoff: if your crew becomes unhappy and starts to perform less, you might want to invest a little bit by allotting more time and resources for preparing food.

We are actually the first crew in the history of space exploration to be allowed to cook properly. Obviously we’re not real astronauts, we’re simulating astronaut life. But still. This is the very first, very thorough study of the potential of cooking. That’s the baseline research — that’s why we’re funded.

To read more, go here.

There’s also the matter of seeing and talking with friends and family before I go. HI-SEAS is a four-month mission with no real-time communication. There will be no Skype, no instant messages, no texts, and no phone calls. I’ll be as detached as I’ve ever been, while still trying to hang on to my earthly connections through the asynchrony of email. I suspect I’ll be of two minds throughout the mission, one on Mars and the other back on Earth. It’ll be interesting to find out when each mind will speak loudest.

Right now my Earth-mind has the volume turned way up. So, to satisfy my need to see family and friends before I go, Jill and I will be hosting a Mars Party for the ages. We will have Mars bars, dehydrated foods, cleverly named alcoholic drinks, and a quiz to test your knowledge of the Red Planet in pop culture and science. Mars Party date: March 30th. You are officially invited!*

For those of you who want to keep up with the HI-SEAS mission, I encourage you to follow me on Twitter: @kgreene. I’ll post pictures, observations, and links my writing. I already have plans to blog for The Economist on the first three days of the mission. I’m also in talks with editors at Discover to post weekly updates on their site. And finally, I will be writing a feature for Discover magazine after the mission wraps.

I’ll also be posting a couple more items on this blog before I go, so keep an eye out for those. Thanks, and stay tuned!

*This party is in San Francisco. If you’d like to come, just let me know by email or Twitter–all are welcome and I’m sorry if I missed you on the initial invitation! 

I have two primary project goals while at HI-SEAS. The first is to conduct a rigorous sleep study. I’m collecting data to determine if and how bright morning light mght affects crew sleep quality. While at MDRS, I tested protocols for this study and now have a fairly good idea of the ultimate experimental design I’ll use during the four-month mission.

The second goal is to write about the experience of being on a simulated Mars mission in a non-boring way. As a journalist, I’m still getting comfortable with the idea of inserting myself into the story. But with this HI-SEAS project, that’s the point. Or at least part of the point. So I’m still calibrating my writing approach with the expectation that it will evolve as the mission progresses. 

During the January mission, I tried out a few different styles, lengths, tones, etc. I shied away from journalistic objectivity, and tried to avoid an expressly personal, bloggy tone. I attempted to write from varying perspectives about a host of topics that resonated in me during those two weeks. Some of the posts work better than other, but they all have elements that I plan to make use of during HI-SEAS.

In case you missed them the first time around, here are my posts from MDRS:

1. This post was written on our first day in simulation at the Mars Desert Research Station. Our two-week mission at MDRS in January 2013 served as preparation for the four-month HI-SEAS mission in April.  Mars Desert Research Station, Day 1.

2. Early in the mission, before the simulation began, the crew sat down to work on a comprensive schedule for every task needed to be done while at MDRS. Scheduled Calm.

3. This post describes the first EVA (extra-vehicular activity), in which three crew members explored the area surrounding the habitat while wearing simulated spacesuits. Inside, Outside.

4. General observations at MDRS. Now, Press “Record”.

Plastic electric candles at the dinner table. Yellow molded flames that flicker. Digital imitates analog, as usual.

Meals cooked, meals logged, meals weighed, meals photographed, meals shared, meals cleared, meals planned, meals made, meals shared.

Tests for noses to identify food smells, to see airflow, to map sinus shapes. A foam plug expands in one nostril, mask over nose and mouth, an airtight seal. Breath normally. Now, press “record.”

Tae-bo in the mornings, sock-footed. Feel the rivet bumps on the lab floor, and kick, and step, and punch, and step.

Calvin and Hobbes in the bathroom, Something Under the Bed is Drooling, Spaceman Spiff, and frustratingly faulty plumbing.

Stomacher, a machine to mash up foods for biochemical analysis. Stomacher, a delightful word when said with a Puerto Rican accent.

The robotic rover awaits instructions to hopefully, one day, follow its human, to haul rocks or a spectrometer or dandelion wine. Some kind of habitat-warming gift for new neighbors?

EVA team to Hab Comm. Do you read? Hab Comm. Go ahead. EVA team is out the airlock. Roger, EVA team. Enjoy the hike.

It’s hard to fully feel the true psychological weight of a simulated Mars mission until you put on a helmet, strap on an air unit, and zip up your suit. It doesn’t feel real until until you’re locked in and bound to a life support system, until a plastic dome lowers over your head and an air-conditioning unit whirs in your ears, muffling your crew mates’ conversation.  Before you take a hike in a spacesuit, you are just a visitor to a two-story structure in the middle of the high desert. You are a just a part of a group, soaking up the burgeoning camaraderie of your crew, eating surprisingly delicious meals, gasping at freeze-in-your-step sunrises out the porthole windows.

But when you walk from the airlock, in your soft suit of armor, with regolith pressing between the treads of your boots, you feel what you need to feel. You understand what simulations are for. You see how they make changes in your mind and how they take what you thought you understood and form it into something new. As you walk with your crew mates, you remember all the pictures you’ve seen of floating astronauts above the earth and all the videos you’ve watched of bounding explorers on the moon. And you realize, one small cut, just a nick in your suit or in your lifeline chords, one malfunction in the cooling unit, and it’s only a matter of seconds before your insulated world of warmth and oxygen breaks wide open. Your skin, usually such an effective protector, pales when exposed to the harshness of space.

You are in good hands on your journey today. The EVA leader has done this before, and he planned an outing that would be interesting and not-so strenuous. You are grateful because everything you do in your suit takes longer than you expect. You are double gloved and fumble with your pen and pad of paper. You hold a map, a notepad, your phone for pictures, and the GPS unit, checking directions to waypoints and confirming distances via walky-talky. The EVA scientist collects soil for microbiological tests later, back at the base. You revel in shadows cast by your helmets and air tubes on the rusty hills. You revel in the unearthly landscape.

As you walk, you point to something your EVA leader calls alien debris. It looks remarkably like a smashed Gatorade bottle. You arrive at the location called Brain Rock Formation and think yes, yes those do look like some sort of brains. Soon, you find the petrified tree stump you were looking for, overturned, with other hardened pieces of wood scattered about. After some time, you turn toward the habitat. Your path back takes you over partially frozen creeks, and you leave bootprints in red mud. When you stop for one last look around, you catch a glimpse of contrails in the sky. The white streaks remind you of a cover of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles. Who are the Martians? Your EVA leader sees the plane too and smiles. Alien space spacecraft, for sure.

To see pictures of this EVA, click here.

Our first day of settling into the simulation was a day of schedules, crucial for calm and crucial for focus. By the time the simulation started, we were the proud owners of schedules for waking, eating, cooking, research, washing dishes, testing protocols, sweeping floors, EVAs, showering, writing, discussing, reporting, bathroom cleaning, photographing, video recording, and sleeping. These schedules do not include our engineer’s schedule, which consists of constant checks and rechecks, of tending systems that can’t be controlled. It takes vigilance to keep a facility running and to keep inhabitants of this dwelling safe and sound. It’s such a harsh environment, after all. But with these schedules, expectations were set. We were grounded to each other and to our new home. With these schedules, crew 122 was ready to roll.

We staggered our arrival at the Mars Desert Research Station. Two of us rode in first, hauling gear, riding with a member of the previous crew. Here’s the turnoff, the road has new dirt, watch out for the steep hairpin turn. Two of us waited at Bowl Mountain Market, ate some snacks, asked questions of a different member of Crew 121, got answers. Two of us were still on the way, hauling a robot rover in a Jeep and having stopped back in Grand Junction for supplies needed before we would seal away for two weeks.

The previous crew was prepared to leave by the time some of us arrived at the habitat, but they had to wait, unfortunately. The Crew 121-122 changeover was protracted like this: multiple carloads of people and things, limited vehicles, waiting. Still, while they waited for all of us to assemble, members of Crew 121 proffered encouraging smiles and useful information. Their time at MDRS was good, we learned. They wanted to come back, they said. But a cold front was moving in; they also looked forward to flying home to Florida’s warm sun.

At the the habitat, we learned about critical systems: the propane tank, the water tank, the toilet. We learned about the all-terrain vehicle challenges, the spacesuits tricks, the oven quirks. We learned it would be a cold night. Frigid outside the habitat and brisk on the first floor, but most likely not in our second-floor sleeping quarters. There it would be hot.

We put away lab equipment, inventoried our food stores, and laid out our sleeping bags. We let the one of us who had a vision for it, cook a delicious meal of tuna, pasta, and “surprise.” We ate. Dinner brought us together and filled us with calm.

After cleanup, it was late, and we were exhausted. We agreed to leave the planning and discussing, the writing and making schedules to the next day, the day we would enter “sim” with a finger snap and a yes, now we are on Mars.

We went to bed, and in our rooms we slept under sheets and breathed dry desert air. Some of us dreamt. One of us dreamt the propane tank exploded, a practical joke, apparently, by the previous crew that had gotten out of hand. The blast was big. It was enough to put us on a trajectory to Mars.

In the morning we woke up, safe, sound and refreshed, ready to start the journey.

This past week I’ve been in southern Utah, in a simulated Mars habitat with my HI-SEAS crew. We’re living and working in the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), practicing, in effect, our upcoming four-month mission in Hawaii.

This means we’re testing best practices for our main food study and for our individual research projects. We have one more week to go of our two-week rotation at MDRS, and so far we’ve learned a lot. For instance, during HI-SEAS, the nasal patency tests can be completed much faster with multiple computers. That sort of thing.

I’m not doing much blogging about MDRS here because my crew mate, Sian Proctor, has done an excellent job of updating the official HI-SEAS website (hi-seas.org). If you want to learn more about our time at MDRS, our upcoming mission in Hawaii, check it out And don’t forget to enter our recipe contest!

How much more difficult is college when you’re coming from an economically disadvantaged background? Shockingly harder. nytimes.com/2012/12/23/edu…

— Kate Greene (@kgreene) December 31, 2012

A former police officer writes about the dark presence of his gun. newyorker.com/online/blogs/n…

— Kate Greene (@kgreene) December 31, 2012

I’m a pessimist about display innovation. But here’s a hopeful look at electrowetting for lighter, brighter screens. spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-elect…

— Kate Greene (@kgreene) December 31, 2012

Write like you’re already dead. Stay within yourself. Advice from Gordimer, Hitchens, Fister, collected by Eugenides. newyorker.com/online/blogs/b…

— Kate Greene (@kgreene) December 31, 2012

Fiona Apple’s mirror neurons. A profile writer who gets (too?) close. A well-crafted, sorrowful story. vulture.com/2012/06/hiding…

— Kate Greene (@kgreene) December 31, 2012

A look at triclosan, the active ingredient in antibacterial soap, possible effects on our bodies & the environment. onearth.org/article/antiba…

— Kate Greene (@kgreene) December 31, 2012

The childhood experience of Encyclopedia Brown, beautifully recounted in an homage to series author, Sobol. vulture.com/2012/07/encycl…

— Kate Greene (@kgreene) December 31, 2012

“Social lasers of cruelty…where everybody coheres into this cruelty beam.” Digital pioneer criticizes online culture. smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/W…

— Kate Greene (@kgreene) December 31, 2012

Debating is great fun. It helps to be British. Athens. Debating is not enough, & does not automatically lead to truth. andreaskluth.org/2012/12/30/tho…

— Kate Greene (@kgreene) December 31, 2012

Astronaut insomnia & changing lightbulbs on the space station. This closely relates to my @hi_seas research. huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/04/ast…

— Kate Greene (@kgreene) December 31, 2012

Happy 2013, everyone! May this year be a year full of excellent words, inspiring sentences, and floating fruit.