An international team of volunteers has just started a 240-day isolation experiment in Russia to simulate long-duration space flight, such as a trip to Mars. A new virtual reality program developed in Canada will be part of the experiment to help combat the effects of isolation.
A single installation called “NEK“at the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, has been used since the 1960s to study the psychological and physical effects of long-duration space flights. A series of simulated missions of different durations took place , the most famous, March 500 mission in 2010/2011 during which an all-male crew spent 520 days in isolation.
This latest eight-month mission, which includes three men and three women, will include a new virtual reality tool developed at Simon Fraser University’s iSpace Lab, in collaboration with the Center for Space Medicine and Extreme Environments in Berlin, to help combat the effects of extreme isolation.
Users will wear 3D glasses and experience flyover views of Earth both from space and through beautiful environments such as mountain forests. Researchers believe that the meditative experience will simulate what astronauts call the “big picture effect” that results from gazing at Earth from space, as well as a sense of wonder when they visit. beautiful places.
Immersive technology will make it possible to escape the confines of isolated habitat and, hopefully, ease the psychological pressures of living in isolation.
A trip to Mars takes more than six months. Meanwhile, a crew will become increasingly isolated from Earth as their distance from their home increases to 480 million kilometers, creating a delay of up to 20 minutes for their communications signals to travel between the two. planets. They will be isolated in space and time.
And Martian explorers will have a different experience from longtime residents of orbital space stations, like Canadian astronauts Robert Thirsk or David St. Jaques, who spent six months in space on the International Space Station, or Russian cosmonaut Valeri. Polyakov who spent 437 days on the Mir space station in the 1990s.
They could look out the window at any time and see the beauty of the Earth passing 400 kilometers below, and had more direct access to family and friends.
But on a spacecraft heading to Mars, Earth is out of sight during the trip, and communication will be more delayed as the distance increases. The crew will also be fully self-sufficient if something goes wrong, as a rescue mission would also take months to reach them. It will literally be life in a dead end can. This could create a deep sense of isolation and potentially interfere with crew responsibilities or lead to personality clashes.
The psychological challenges of isolation can be daunting, not only for Mars explorers but also, as we have seen, for those cut off from their families during COVID lockdowns. A virtual experience can help calm the nerves of astronauts in deep space, but it’s also a lesson for those of us on Earth who can appreciate the value of a real walk in the woods, on a beach or any other place where the power of nature provides a sense of peace.
So when you are done reading this blog, step away from your computer and take a walk outside. It will be good for you.
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