Six Nasa scientists, who were living in isolation on a Mars-like habitat in Hawaii since January to determine astronauts\u2019 psychology and requirements during manned space missions, will return to civilization on Sunday.In January, the crew of four men and two women were quarantined on a vast plain below the summit of the giant volcano Mauna Loa\u2014one of Hawaii\u2019s five volcanoes and the world\u2019s largest.<\/p>\n
They remained there for an eight-month simulation activity to gain a better understanding and to get a bit of a feel for how astronauts would respond mentally, physically, and most important, psychologically to a long-term on a manned space mission as well as in an inhospitable environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cLong term space travel is absolutely possible,\u201d Laura Lark, specialist at the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) project, led by the University of Hawaii at Manoa, was quoted as saying to the inquisitr.com on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are certainly technical challenges to be overcome. There are certainly human factors to be figured out, that\u2019s part of what HI-SEAS is for. But I think that overcoming those challenges is just a matter of effort. We are absolutely capable of it,\u201d Lark added.<\/p>\n
Their experiment included everything from being forced to live in the cramped habitat of the dome to having to rely solely on packaged food – and virtually no contact with another living soul.<\/p>\n
The atmosphere was as similar as possible to what life on Mars would be. All of the communications the crew could have with the outside world was subjected to a 20-minute delay\u2014the time it takes for signals to get from Mars to the Earth.<\/p>\n
The data gathered during this mission can better help in choosing crews that have certain traits and a better chance of doing well during a potential two-to-three year Mars expedition, which would then pave the way for human settlement in the red planet by around 2030.<\/p>\n
IANS<\/strong><\/p>\n Picture courtesy: Alamy<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Six Nasa scientists, who were living in isolation on a Mars-like habitat in Hawaii since January to determine astronauts\u2019 psychology and requirements during manned space missions, will return to civilization on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31,103],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4880,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4878\/revisions\/4880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}