Mars Mission: How Hard? NASA Astronauts Weigh In
While NASA doesn’t yet have an active human Mars program yet (perhaps a relief after watching Mark Watney’s struggles in The Martian),
the agency is hoping to get there some day. A part of that will be the
Orion spacecraft, which is expected to carry astronauts beyond low-Earth
orbit in the late 2020s.
PHOTOS: Real NASA Space Tech in ‘The Martian’
Once we get people out beyond the moon, the game changes. The further you travel away from Earth, the more of a communications lag there is; the harder it is to turn around and get home; the more “empty” space appears when you are away from a planet or small world — there will be no auroras to entertain the astronauts during their downtime.
How hard would such a mission be? Two retired NASA astronauts — who each spent several months on the International Space Station — have very different takes. Clay Anderson (Expedition 15/16 in 2007) says NASA should hire very different people, while Steve Swanson (Expedition 39/40 in 2014) says what the agency is working on now shouldn’t be too different for future missions to Mars.
“(Mars) doesn’t require a jet fighter pilot. It doesn’t require
a Ph.D. astronaut — although those people would be just fine,” Anderson
told Discovery News. “But I think that it’s going to take people that
are very good generalists, that can do many things.”
PHOTOS: How a NASA Astronaut is Paving the Way to Mars
During Anderson’s five months on station (which he talks about in his new book The Ordinary Spaceman), he said he felt frustrated at times and would take it out on ground controllers or crew-mates. Crew compatibility will be paramount as they become more isolated from Earth, he said. Crew commanders will have to be less rigid and more like coaches, he said, able to resolve issues as they arise.
Stress, he added, can make people do things that were not anticipated, which is similar to what can happen in a military deployment in an isolated environment, he added. “It is a very dangerous environment, and the person you are being deployed with is not who you thought you were deployed with.”
For these reasons, Anderson says NASA may need to rethink astronaut selection to consider people who are, for example, very good at fixing things on the fly — as opposed to sending only scientists such as astrophysicists. And the agency, he added, should also encourage people to talk about their issues in orbit without the fear of being grounded forever — being passed over for future missions.
PHOTOS: Curiosity’s Epic First Year on a Mars Mountain
Swanson, who retired from NASA in August and is working at Boise State University in Idaho, says the agency is already considering some of these isolation problems. He took part in a time delay experiment on station where the astronauts were expected to do simple tasks by themselves. And when astronauts are selected, it’s not necessarily for what they know — it’s how well they learn and work in teams.
“Do they play well with others, are they calm under pressure, do they have mechanical aptitude, are they well rounded, all these kind of things make a big picture,” Swanson told Discovery News.
PHOTOS: Watching the Sunsets of Mars Through Robot Eyes
Before leaving for a long-duration mission outside Earth orbit, Swanson added, astronauts would be told which systems could be fixed on the fly and which would require a call back to ground (waiting for an answer.) The crew commander would be responsible for more daily administration to partially replace the instant communication people have with the ground.
As for unknown unknowns — the psychological or physical challenges of Mars that we don’t know about yet — Swanson said NASA is always trying to think about what they may not know. There are open questions such as supplies for three years away, or how to keep astronaut spirits up without live conferences with family. “It’s a huge effort,” he said, adding that planning for that mission would take a while.
A NASA spokesperson said the physical requirements for astronauts would not change in Orion compared to shuttle or station, but did not respond to questions about how NASA expects astronaut selection generally would change (if at all).
source : Dnews
PHOTOS: Real NASA Space Tech in ‘The Martian’
Once we get people out beyond the moon, the game changes. The further you travel away from Earth, the more of a communications lag there is; the harder it is to turn around and get home; the more “empty” space appears when you are away from a planet or small world — there will be no auroras to entertain the astronauts during their downtime.
How hard would such a mission be? Two retired NASA astronauts — who each spent several months on the International Space Station — have very different takes. Clay Anderson (Expedition 15/16 in 2007) says NASA should hire very different people, while Steve Swanson (Expedition 39/40 in 2014) says what the agency is working on now shouldn’t be too different for future missions to Mars.
PHOTOS: How a NASA Astronaut is Paving the Way to Mars
During Anderson’s five months on station (which he talks about in his new book The Ordinary Spaceman), he said he felt frustrated at times and would take it out on ground controllers or crew-mates. Crew compatibility will be paramount as they become more isolated from Earth, he said. Crew commanders will have to be less rigid and more like coaches, he said, able to resolve issues as they arise.
Stress, he added, can make people do things that were not anticipated, which is similar to what can happen in a military deployment in an isolated environment, he added. “It is a very dangerous environment, and the person you are being deployed with is not who you thought you were deployed with.”
For these reasons, Anderson says NASA may need to rethink astronaut selection to consider people who are, for example, very good at fixing things on the fly — as opposed to sending only scientists such as astrophysicists. And the agency, he added, should also encourage people to talk about their issues in orbit without the fear of being grounded forever — being passed over for future missions.
PHOTOS: Curiosity’s Epic First Year on a Mars Mountain
Swanson, who retired from NASA in August and is working at Boise State University in Idaho, says the agency is already considering some of these isolation problems. He took part in a time delay experiment on station where the astronauts were expected to do simple tasks by themselves. And when astronauts are selected, it’s not necessarily for what they know — it’s how well they learn and work in teams.
“Do they play well with others, are they calm under pressure, do they have mechanical aptitude, are they well rounded, all these kind of things make a big picture,” Swanson told Discovery News.
PHOTOS: Watching the Sunsets of Mars Through Robot Eyes
Before leaving for a long-duration mission outside Earth orbit, Swanson added, astronauts would be told which systems could be fixed on the fly and which would require a call back to ground (waiting for an answer.) The crew commander would be responsible for more daily administration to partially replace the instant communication people have with the ground.
As for unknown unknowns — the psychological or physical challenges of Mars that we don’t know about yet — Swanson said NASA is always trying to think about what they may not know. There are open questions such as supplies for three years away, or how to keep astronaut spirits up without live conferences with family. “It’s a huge effort,” he said, adding that planning for that mission would take a while.
A NASA spokesperson said the physical requirements for astronauts would not change in Orion compared to shuttle or station, but did not respond to questions about how NASA expects astronaut selection generally would change (if at all).
source : Dnews
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