Four Scientists Sealed Themselves In A Mars Simulation In 2018, Then Something Went Very Wrong

Human spaceflight is a complex and hazardous endeavor that becomes exponentially harder beyond the confines of low Earth orbit. An expedition to Mars would mean months of travel, operating in harsh conditions, and being cut off from the rest of humanity for the duration of the trip. To understand how people would handle the rigors of space travel and what it would take to survive on Mars, scientists sealed themselves in a simulated Mars habitat. However, a few days after the start of the simulation, one scientist was injured and the simulated mission came to a screeching halt soon after.

In February 2018, four scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Slovakia walked into the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or Hi-SEAS, facility near Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Their mission was to live and work like astronauts on a Mars mission for eight months.

However, a few days after the start of the simulation one of the astronauts experienced an electric shock while the team brought a generator online. The injury was severe enough for the team and mission support to have an ambulance take the crew member to a nearby hospital. After discussing potential safety issues, an additional member of the crew decided to leave. This meant the mission no longer hand enough people to continue and thus the eight-month mission ended after only a few days.

The Hi-SEAS habitat was built on the rocky slopes of Mauna Loa because the remote locale somewhat resembles the Martian surface. The ill-fated 2018 expedition was the sixth Hi-SEAS mission. During these missions, participants spend most of their time inside a small building built to simulate a Mars habitat. The astronauts eat freeze-dried food, conserve and recycle water, and carry out maintenance tasks and experiments. Before setting foot outside, astronauts needed to put on space suits and helmets. To make the simulation more realistic, mission officials built a delay into any communications with the outside world. A message took 20 minutes to send and any reply took an additional 20 minutes to arrive. The delays in communications between Earth and astronauts on a mission to Mars mean the astronauts needed to make many of their own decisions.

While they lived and worked in the habitat, researchers collected data on participant health and well-being. The crew members wore devices to track their movement, sleep, and vital signs like heart rate and respiration. The participants also answered questionnaires about their behavior and interactions with the rest of the crew and wrote journal entries about their experience. Collecting this information is meant to clarify how people behave when stuck in a small space for a long time.

Previous Hi-SEAS missions gave insights into how people would operate on a trip to Mars, with expeditions lasting four months to a full year. Sealing people into an artificial ecosystem always has the risk of something going wrong. While none of the previous missions had been called short, on one expedition a crew member quit the simulation because of a health issue. Mission leaders decided to treat that crew member leaving like a death, which is something that is possible. However, that mission started with six members, leaving enough people to continue the simulation. After the early ending of the sixth Hi-SEAS mission, officials decided to forego a seventh mission. Instead they dug through all of the data collected during the previous missions in great detail.

However, this did not spell the end for the Hi-SEAS habitat. The European Space Agency, the International MoonBase Alliance, the International Lunar Exploration Working Group, and other research groups came together to form the EuroMoonMars campaign in 2019. Like the previous Hi-SEAS missions, the aim of this campaign was to study how humans might work in long-duration space missions, train future astronauts, and develop new technologies for missions to the moon and Mars.