
Speaking with a crew member from a NASA simulation of a long space mission - ax00x
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-astronaut-who-never-left-earth/
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symmitchry
The sleep deprivation thing is really surprising to me. Does anyone know why?
I would be able to sleep for probably 10-12 hours a day.

I wonder if they have research that shows that less sleep makes for healthier
crew?

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TangoTrotFox
There's a more interesting report from NASA on this mission here [1]. They
were specifically experimenting to see what would happen to this crew with
sleep deprivation. They were only sleep deprived during the week, though it's
unstated how much sleep they were allowed on the weekends.

On a long term mission there will be an immense number of things that need to
be done each and every day, and with the utmost precision. It's certainly
important to see if sleep can be sacrificed when necessary and, if so, for how
long before it starts to negatively effect their performance.

[1] - [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-final-hera-
campaign-4-cr...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-final-hera-
campaign-4-crew-lands-safely-back-on-earth-well-sort-of)

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huhtenberg
Another, far more grounded and cynical take on this experiment, from 2 weeks
ago -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17381025](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17381025)

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gwern
That's about a totally different simulation, isn't it?

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rory096
Yes, though HERA is mentioned briefly in that article (regarding the
evacuation during Hurricane Harvey) and HI-SEAS is mentioned briefly in this
one (as a similar program).

The main difference, from what I can tell, is that HI-SEAS simulates a Mars
surface habitat (with a 20-minute one-way radio delay) while HERA simulates a
crew inhabiting a spacecraft (with steadily increasing radio delays until the
'asteroid' 5 light-minutes away is reached, then decreasing as the
'spacecraft' heads home).

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themodelplumber
I love reading about experiments like this. As a general simulation buff, I
want to try making an abstract version of this mission to try out with my
astronaut candidate-kids this summer. Without the jars of pee of course...

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themodelplumber
I couldn't wait and just tried a simple version of this activity with my
daughter, using 440MHz mini-radios and an activity list. She decided she
wanted to be in an underwater simulator, something like Aquarius Reef Base[0].
Her bedroom served as the base in this simulation.

She made it halfway through the list of activities (lego building, drawing,
yoga, etc.) and we determined that the environment will require lots of
patience for a five-year-old. :) We simulated an emergency egress and she swam
back, hoping it was OK to continue playing with the radios.

My sons decided to take their simulation outdoors and are currently exploring
Mars with a stopwatch that times their radiation exposure. We'll see how they
do. Lots of interest so far. (Edit: They did "a lot of things" on the planet
and said they enjoyed the exploration)

0\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3qqO8yQswg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3qqO8yQswg)

