Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

SpaceNut · 2015-09-16 21:18:03

We have talked about the food research that this station has done in the past in another thread topic and I thought that it was time to make this spot to capture other important Mars research.

NASA Begins 12-Month Experiment Simulating Life on Mars a series of studies to test how long-term isolation and confinement may affect crew psychology and team performance. HI-SEAS began in 2013, and three missions have been concluded; the fourth began on August 28 and will last for 365 days. (Twelve months is still far shorter than the length of a real expedition to Mars. Most actual mission profiles are 2.5 to 3 years long.)

Martha Lenio, commander of the NASA human performance study Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation wears a spacesuit outside of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, on June 13. For eight months Lenio has lived in a dome, confined with five other researchers in the crater of the volcano as part of a NASA study studying the prospect of manned missions to Mars. The unearthly environment atop the volcano provides an ideal setting to monitor the psychological response of human beings in conditions of isolation.

This is not the first Nasa research mission using the sites of Mars society,,

A major component of the experiments is exposing human guinea pigs to extreme scarcity. For example, they have access to only a very limited supply of water (each participant gets to shower seven minutes per week, max), and their food is exclusively dehydrated—unless they can come up with their own way to grow fresh produce. The crew from the recently concluded mission included a sustainability and indoor gardening expert, Martha Lenio, who managed to grow a few salutary tomatoes. They also are forced to endure the type of lackluster communication they’d experience on Mars. Sending and receiving email, for example, has an artificial 20-minute delay.
“Mars is the ultimate sustainability project,” says Lenio. “Living on Mars means coming up with a way to recycle every single resource: air, water, food and even waste. We forget that we have to recycle everything because Earth recycles it for us, but on Mars you don’t have that luxury. So if we can figure out a way to do this on Mars, for sure it will have implications here on Earth.”

SpaceNut · 2015-10-25 17:13:58

Getting to Mars ‘without killing each other’

Lots of good stuff on group dynamics

SpaceNut · 2016-08-28 17:36:06

Mock Mars Crew Returns to Civilization After Year in Isolation

After a year living in isolation, six crew members on a mock mission to Mars emerged on Sunday.
The crew members had been living in an isolated habitation the bare, rocky slopes of Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii, as part of the HI-SEAS program (Hawaii Space Exploration Analogue and Simulation), based out of the University of Hawaii.
The program is helping scientists to understand how the isolation of a deep space mission would impact human participants.

GW Johnson · 2016-08-28 18:43:36

So how does 1 year of isolation apply to a 2.5-3.3 year mission to Mars? You are still confined to either a habitat or a space suit, while you are there.

There are foods that last decades, most of which are frozen. But you cannot use them unless you can do water-based free-surface cooking. Which requires artificial gravity.

GW

SpaceNut · 2016-08-28 21:23:21

Duration is still out there for mission planning but there are other things that can be determined from doing these analog site tests...

This site has had 4 mission cycles from what I have found on there web site ... http://hi-seas.org/

Habitat size http://hi-seas.org/?p=1278

The geodesic dome is 36 feet in diameter , enclosing a volume of 13,570 cubic feet. The ground floor has an area of 993 square feet (878 square feet usable) and includes common areas such as kitchen, dining, bathroom with shower, lab, exercise, and common spaces. The second floor loft spans an area of 424 square feet and includes six separate staterooms and a half bath. In addition, a 160 square foot workshop converted from a 20-foot high steel shipping container is attached to the habitat.

So we will not be landing in a geodesic dome for sure but we can use the volume to prove out once the sytems are placed within the volume to see how much of it is eaten up for a closed loop system for life support.

The sleeping quarters have been in other topics as seen for the floor layouts.

This crew was sized at 6 for its mission but is that the best number once we find the volume of the habitat lander is less that the analog trial locations are using.

SpaceNut · 2016-08-29 18:16:59

I have been searching for the life support values which are being used on this project but will post links that relate.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic … P_-h3etz5o

Salyut/Mir cosmonaut's daily requirement is about 0.8kg of oxygen, 0.7kg of solid food, 1.9kg of drinking water, 0.7kg of water for food preparation... In addition to that, about 2kg is available for personal hygiene and washing. 1kg of exhaled carbon dioxide and 1.3kg of water vapor will have to be removed per day. Each
crewmember also produces about 1.5kg of urine and 0.5kg of solid waste (incl.0.4kg of water). The total 'throughput' appears to be about 4-5kg going in [food,water,oxygen], 4-5kg going out [CO2,
water vapor,urine,body waste]. Oxygen recovery/regeneration: Electrolysis of urine using potassium hydroxide
(KOH) is used to produce hydrogen (11% by mass;vented into space) and oxygen for breathing.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-08-29 20:15:01

GW Johnson wrote:

So how does 1 year of isolation apply to a 2.5-3.3 year mission to Mars? You are still confined to either a habitat or a space suit, while you are there.
There are foods that last decades, most of which are frozen. But you cannot use them unless you can do water-based free-surface cooking. Which requires artificial gravity.
GW

on Mars????

GW Johnson · 2016-08-30 17:54:22

No, Tom, you will need artificial gravity during the 9 month voyage there, and the 9 month voyage home. At the least. Use your common sense. Quit mis-reading what people write.

That's 18 months total transit time compared to 13 months at Mars in the usual mission. Any of those 13 months at Mars not spent on the surface are also spent in zero gee, unless you spin up for artificial gravity. Those 18 months in transit both ways are inherently zero gee, unless you do spin gravity.

That's a typical Hohmann transfer orbit mission, which is the minimum propulsion energy required. It can be shortened to 6 months one way in transit at the cost of significantly-more propulsion energy required. You still have around a year at Mars or so, either way. And, unless you base on the surface, time spent in Mars orbit is also zero gee, unless you spin up for artificial gravity.

Plus, there is nothing at all (!!!!) to suggest that 0.38 gee on the surface of Mars is therapeutic enough to overcome the microgravity disease accumulation from the 6 to 9 month voyage to Mars. That means the crew is in terrible physical shape even before they embark on the 6-to-9 month voyage home.

For most mission designs, there is a free return entry upon arrival at Earth. This is a 12 to 15 gee reentry ride. Even the mission designs postulating a recovery in LEO use the free return as an emergency bailout mode, if arrival propulsion fails. What that means is that your returning crew must be fit enough to tolerate a 12-15 gee ride for ~5 minutes, no matter what design you choose!

Crew debilitated with microgravity disease are very unlikely to survive those ~5 minutes near 12-15 gee. Which is why I keep saying that spin gravity is required for all missions beyond a very few months. Essentially, all missions beyond a very few months or so on the moon.

NASA still insists on denying this artificial gravity requirement, at the top management levels. Which is why I view most of their Mars mission proposals over the last few decades as utter nonsense, completely exclusive of the half-trillion-$ costs their favored contractors insist will obtain. (That cost thing is just egregiously-obvious giant corporate welfare state effects.)

That last sentiment (NASA's Mars mission plans = nonsense) is independent of the nonsense I think their SLS and Orion designs make. Little of that hardware will ever be useful for anything but a moon shot, and there are better designs, even for a moon shot.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-08-30 18:03:13)

elderflower · 2016-10-04 06:18:04

Musk's recent presentation showed no consideration for artificial gravity, either. I don't see this as realistic. There is no point in shipping people to Mars if they are seriously incapacitated when they get there. Even with 38% g objects still have the same inertia as they would on earth.

Mark Friedenbach · 2016-10-04 06:46:13

Add a zero-G treadmill or two. Problem solved. Experience with ISS shows that when actually used, astronauts can go six months without exposure to gravity and return to Earth gravity without significant loss of function, and recover nearly completely in a few days. Transition to 1/3 G should be easier.

GW Johnson · 2016-10-05 12:28:21

Mark Friedenbach is quite correct. A couple of decades results from ISS show that 6 months' zero-gee exposure is quite tolerable given vigorous exercise. Musk's plan calls for 6 or fewer months' flight time one way. It would seem from the two twin brothers that a year might be feasible with exercise, but the recovery is much longer and more difficult. Typical ride home from orbit peaks about 4 gees.

Now, no one knows whether long exposure to 0.38 gee on Mars (or 0.16 gee on the moon) is enough to be therapeutic, meaning enough fitness to survive a really high speed reentry at Earth, but an unspported gut feel says it is, given enough exercise. Free return from the moon was 11 gees in Apollo, at about 11 km/s and a narrow, shallow feasible angle window.

Something similar but worse obtains for a free return from Mars, at around 16-17 km/s. I'd hazard the guess that's a 12-15 gee ride. It's the emergency bailout mode for almost any conceivable Earth return scenario, even those that are nominally braked into LEO.

Fitness for high gee is crucial.

GW

Dave_Duca · 2017-05-06 07:22:56

HI-SEAS
Have you thoroughly absorbed their "reality of awareness"? (IE - Full Description)

"Team Processes" - "Effectiveness" - "Stress Management"
"Resilience Training" - "Mental Block" - "Shared Social Behavior"
"Psychological Effects - "Team Building"

- James S. Martin Jr., re birthed as Zeus would, would seriously smite something.
( rest his soul )
- Kim Stanley Robinson would have no problems writing a new book titled:
"Beyond Aurora - Return to the Planet of the Political Social Apes"
- Scott Adams would profit from another Comic Strip of Animal Husbandry in the Work Place.

The nasa peeples (spelled the way you see it) have "issues"
Intellectualization is not eight words (counting syllables).

Their description of the Habitat (as per April 29, 2013)....
"We will be providing more detailed information on the Hab,
including updated photos and the various systems,
as the crew settles in for the mission ahead." [ seen today" May 6 2017 ]
OK... where is it?

Some of the most educated / collegiate minds, all happily certified by nasa to embark
into the dark world of isolationism (6 words). I'm hoping Mensa wasn't onboard.

The "media coverage" of this outweighed the actual off-world experiments achieved.
This is pathetic - is this the best nasa can do?
Countless youtubes and facebook blah blah blahs of "their experience".

Where are the instruments to aid discovery?
They have an entire scientific arsenal of paid-for devices, and
they're armed with wi-fi work stations.
No one goes to another planet without the instruments of their trade.

This is me, pointing out what's missing. This is not a ranting post for derisive replies from others.

Ask yourselves - what would you do while on the surface of Mars?

SpaceNut · 2017-05-06 07:40:21

Dave_Duca wrote:

Ask yourselves - what would you do while on the surface of Mars?

Some would say science, others exploration, settlement/colonization, to prove that we can because its there to go survive, live and return home, of course then there is the corporate greed for what is there for a buck....while its a step outside of our earthly birth place outward to be more for man kind.

Your opening passage says why we are doing the analog station quite well...

Dave_Duca wrote:

HI-SEAS
Have you thoroughly absorbed their "reality of awareness"? (IE - Full Description)
"Team Processes" - "Effectiveness" - "Stress Management"
"Resilience Training" - "Mental Block" - "Shared Social Behavior"
"Psychological Effects - "Team Building"

There are more but there as site dependant with regards to the means moving forward once there, for developing independance from supply from earth that still need to be worked.

Dave_Duca · 2017-05-06 08:43:34

nasa's Clever Social Media Exceeded the "What To Do" purpose on another world.

Our evolved species can not shake off the primeval instincts
of sexual fight-flight - as proven several times daily on our precious media.

If people are confined within spaces of "controlled control"... death will follow.

This has been a waste of time, just to re-discover psychological-isolationism.
Emphasis on" "re-discover"

Humans' better be better than Mark Watney and keep busy staying on mission.

Where's James S. Martin Jr. when we need him.
God, I miss him.

SpaceNut · 2017-05-06 20:56:35

The first post image shows how to defeat the confined space of controlled control which works on the surface of mars but not so much in transit....

SpaceNut · 2017-09-20 18:40:46

Four men and two women emerged from 8-mo Mars experiment in Hawaii dome on a mock Mars mission, living in close quarters, eating dried foods and trying to get along.

The 6 emerged from their dome on Sunday, eager for a taste of fresh fruit, home-cooked dinners and the feeling of fresh air on their faces.
The program is funded by NASA, which hopes to send the first astronauts to the Red Planet sometime in the 2030s.
"In a sense we are trying to put together a tool box for Mars and if you have a tool box you don't fill it up with hammers -- even if they are the best hammers in the solar system."
Binsted said that while conflict is inevitable, overall, the latest crew did well when it came to their key tasks.
Scientists monitored the team's face-to-face interactions for signs of emotional conflict, and gave them virtual reality headsets to manage stress.
To make the experiment more realistic to conditions in space, crew members had to don spacesuits anytime they exited the dome, located on a remote slope in Mauna Loa.
They were also able to email friends and family, but with a 20-minute delay.
The next eight-month long HI-SEAS experiment starts in January 2018.

8 months gets us to or from Mars but what about the stay which is 2 or more time longer....

SpaceNut · 2020-01-21 21:23:09

This a first in a two week mission that First All-Woman Mars Analog Crew Successful ‘Mission’

SpaceNut · 2020-11-29 19:34:32

Lunar Mission Day 7 (Nov. 24, 2020) Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) program, which conducts analog missions to the moon and Mars for scientific research at a habitat on the volcano Mauna Loa.

BB1bt35n.img?h=450&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f

Different in a dome design versus the tin can look of the others.

The Selene II crew has been confined to the inside of the HI-SEAS analog space station for over five days in a row due to so called "lunar dust storms" (rain storms or thick fog). Our habitat is located at 8,200 feet in altitude on Mons Hadley, the Moon (a.k.a on the volcano Mauna Loa in Hawaii). At this altitude, the storms can linger for days on end. We can’t leave our habitat during these storms, as we would risk getting injured and our EVA (Extra-Vehicular Activity) equipment would get damaged. On the moon, this would mean potentially dying.
During the Selene II mission, we are living and working at HI-SEAS as similarly as possible to what the first settlers on the moon would experience. Our life here and all of our activities are extremely limited. We are constantly monitored by Mission Control on Earth, we eat only freeze-dried food, we are limited in our water supply and our energy comes from solar power. During bad weather days, we risk running out of power if our solar panels don’t recharge our habitat's batteries.

Simulations are a good means to test and assure that you can follow directives....

The crew is comprised of
Operations Officer Fabio Teixeira, who is the Founder and CEO of Hypercubes, a startup with roots at the International Space University and Singularity University. He is a visionary space entrepreneur with a holistic approach to food security and sustainability. Our
Crew Journalist is the photographer Cassandra Klos. She is one of our three Mars analog veterans who has been working on a long duration project on space simulations.
Dr. Lindsay Rutter is another Mars analog veteran who currently holds a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Tsukuba. She is the Crew Bioengineer and she's using her bioinformatics and bioengineering background to study large space biology datasets. Our third Mars veteran is
Karen Rucker, who is a spacecraft radiofrequency engineer performing the role of Crew Systems Engineer for Selene II. Karen is passionate about STEM outreach, improving communication in space and in remote analog environments like at HI-SEAS.
Ben Greaves is a returned agricultural Peace Corps volunteer and our Crew Engineer, with a background in controlled environmental agricultural engineering. His research is deeply involved in hunger equity and designing off Earth greenhouse systems. Finally, my name is
Dr. Michaela Musilova and I’m the crew’s Commander. I am an astrobiologist and a lunar and Martian analog astronaut with experience in leading over 20 simulated space missions.

SpaceNut · 2020-12-09 20:57:59

Making hair fertilizer wraps up the Selene II lunar mission — Commander's Report: Lunar Day 14

We wrapped up everything that we could on this mission and we're even eating leftovers of leftovers for our last supper. The Selene II crew did an excellent job of saving at least a small amount of freeze-dried meat, fruits and vegetables so that our last meal wouldn't be composed of only carbohydrates. To be perfectly honest though, we did eat mashed potatoes, quinoa and bean curds for second-to-last supper as a compromise.
While the crew may not be very content with the selection of food that we're ending our mission with, they are actually efficient at portioning our different food supplies throughout the mission. Other crews that I have worked with were not as cautious. For instance, some used up all of our freeze-dried fruits or vegetables over the first few days of the mission and then they had to survive the rest of the mission with less varied meals.
Self-control and moderation were applied by most crewmembers during this mission, although there were some instances of "midnight munchies" when great quantities of our freeze-dried banana chips disappeared.

This is the act reason to ensure that we prestock any landing site with extra food making ingrediences.

tahanson43206 · 2020-12-10 07:19:14

Thanks for this update on the Selene II mission .... 14 days is quite a step up from the Apollo mission time frame ... Apollo 11 lasted 3 days and Apollo 17 lasted five days.

Pre-positioning supplies is worth considering if precision landing becomes possible, and it certainly appears that SpaceX is making excellent progress.

No other organization on Earth has demonstrated this capability (to the best of my knowledge). However, orbital rendezvous has now been demonstrated in Lunar orbit by automated equipment by the Chinese. Precision landing on the Moon would seem to be within their reach.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-12-10 17:34:06

Precise landing on the moon is easier as there is no atmospher to interfere with during the descent which also does not need a heatshield that mars does.
Getting landings to be more precise for mars will need some testing and that is difficult if they co not do it during the cycle or at the normal mars intervals via a beacon to aid in steering the craft closer to the descent profiles which would need to be timed very closely to the original...

SpaceNut · 2021-11-15 19:58:58

When a Mars Simulation Goes Wrong; A mission atop a Hawaiian volcano shows humans still have much to learn before they set foot on another world.

Mauna Loa, the “Long Mountain,” is a colossal volcano more than 8,000 feet above sea level where in 2013, small groups of people have made this drive and moved into the dome, known as a habitat.

In February 2018, [five months before this article was published,] the latest batch of pioneers, a crew of four, made the journey up the mountain. They settled in for an eight-month stay. Four days later, one of them was taken away on a stretcher and hospitalized.
The remaining crew members were evacuated by mission support. All four eventually returned to the habitat, not to continue their mission, but to pack up their stuff. Their simulation was over for good.

The sort of stress is to condition the responses to being isolated.

Meanwhile, the crew members live as much as possible like they are on Mars. They eat freeze-dried food, use a composting toilet, take 30-second showers to conserve water, and never step outside without a space suit and helmet. They don’t communicate with anyone in real time, not even family. An email to mission support or their loved ones takes 20 minutes to get there. Receiving a response takes another 20 minutes. They’re not allowed to see anyone outside of the mission.
The habitat is a tight squeeze. The ground floor, which includes a kitchen, bathroom, a lab, and exercise spaces, measures 993 square feet. The second floor, where the bedrooms are, spans 424 square feet.

tahanson43206 · 2021-11-15 20:57:23

For SpaceNut re #22

Thanks for the link to that well written, detailed report on the simulation in Hawaii, and several others mentioned as background.

The crew size of six means that a serious medical emergency (such as the electrocution discussed here) cannot be addressed because the medical staff are not present. This would appear to be an argument in favor of OF 1939's proposal of 17 people.

Unfortunately, 17 people would be difficult to fund, even if the participants are volunteers.

Never-the-less, I hope OF 1939 will resume work soon on the 17 person expedition concept.

A successful outcome ** could ** be a decision by some organization to provide the funds to run a simulation for an extended period, such as two years.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2022-06-02 08:39:43

Here is a snippet from Google about the Hawaii simulation ....

If anyone has access to the full article, please post an except here...

How lessons learned from space exploration could feed the world
Sustainable food systems developed for deep space could help mitigate the food crisis, says Angelo Vermeulen
SPACE | COMMENT 1 June 2022
By Angelo Vermeulen
New Scientist Default Image
Simone Rotella
IN 2013, I lived in Hawai’i on the side of the Mauna Loa volcano, locked in a habitat with five other engineers and scientists to act out life on Mars for 120 days. I was crew commander of HI- SEAS I, the first NASA-funded Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation mission.
Our main scientific work was a food study, investigating whether cooking with shelf-stable ingredients, such as freeze-dried meat and dehydrated vegetables, could combat a phenomenon called menu fatigue – which is a loss of appetite caused by repeated consumption of pre-prepared meals. Ours went down a treat.
The environment of …
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg … z7V45WBcMx

(th)

SpaceNut · 2022-06-02 22:09:04

Here is a bit more from other sources

Spatzle in space: Fellows Friday with Angelo Vermeulen

What horticulture and space exploration can learn from each other: The Mission to Mars initiative in the Netherlands

Horticulture and Space Travel can learn from each other

What the Food Industry Can Learn from Space — and Vice Versa

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2015-09-16 21:18:03

Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#2 2015-10-25 17:13:58

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#3 2016-08-28 17:36:06

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#4 2016-08-28 18:43:36

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#5 2016-08-28 21:23:21

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#6 2016-08-29 18:16:59

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#7 2016-08-29 20:15:01

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#8 2016-08-30 17:54:22

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#9 2016-10-04 06:18:04

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#10 2016-10-04 06:46:13

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#11 2016-10-05 12:28:21

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#12 2017-05-06 07:22:56

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#13 2017-05-06 07:40:21

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#14 2017-05-06 08:43:34

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#15 2017-05-06 20:56:35

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#16 2017-09-20 18:40:46

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#17 2020-01-21 21:23:09

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#18 2020-11-29 19:34:32

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#19 2020-12-09 20:57:59

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#20 2020-12-10 07:19:14

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#21 2020-12-10 17:34:06

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#22 2021-11-15 19:58:58

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#23 2021-11-15 20:57:23

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#24 2022-06-02 08:39:43

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

#25 2022-06-02 22:09:04

Re: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation station

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