The main problem for a manned Mars mission? Sleep deprivation
Research
reveals physical and psychological challenges of sending astronauts to
Red Planet
Getting sleep will be one of the biggest challenges facing astronauts
in any future manned mission to Mars, according to a study of six men
who spent 520 days and nights in a confined “spacecraft” during a
simulated trip to the planet.
 The Mars 500 project began on June 3 2009 when three Russians, an
Italian, a Frenchman and a Chinese man entered a sealed experimental
facility in Moscow without access to natural light, fresh air or direct
face-to-face contact with any other human being.
For the next 18 months they carried out a battery of daily duties to
simulate a return mission to Mars, with a 30-day interlude in the middle
where they were allowed to explore another enclosed area designed to
simulate the surface of the red planet. A study into how each man coped
with the psychological and physical constraints of the mission has found
that there were wide differences in their wake-sleep patterns.
One man's circadian rhythm shifted from a 24-hour period to a 25-hour
period, which meant that on every 12th day his body was telling him that
it was midnight at the same time that it was midday for everyone else.
And while most of the crew began to sleep for longer periods as the
mission progressed and boredom set it, one individual slept
progressively less, until towards the end of the mission he had become
chronically sleep-deprived.
“One of the biggest surprises was the huge individual differences in
how they coped with sleep,” said Mathias Basner, a sleep researcher at
the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “There was just one
member of the crew who was the sort of astronaut we would probably be
looking for in terms of sleeping behaviour. He was very active during
the day and slept well at night.”
Identifying bad sleepers could be important on a real Mars mission
that requires people to be constantly alert even when the days are
tediously similar, Dr Basner said. Sleep will be crucial to any future
mission to Mars because it will require people to spend a long time
together in a confined space without any natural cues for when it is day
or night.
“The success of human interplanetary spaceflight... will depend on
the ability of astronauts to remain confined and isolated from Earth
much longer than previous missions or simulations,” said David Dinges of
Pennsylvania University.“This is the first investigation to pinpoint the
crucial role that sleep-wake cycles will play in extended space
missions,” said Dr Dinges, a co-author of the study published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.The Mars500 project, run
by the Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow and partly funded by
the European Space Agency, attempted to address a range of psychological
and physical issues associated with extended space missions.
Prof Gro Sandal, a psychologist at the University of Bergen in Norway
who looked at relationships between the crew members, said there was an
overall harmony within the group despite some personal tensions. “There
are always going to be tensions when people live together in a confined
space for a long period of time,” Prof Sandal said. “In a mission like
this it is important to maintain motivation and concentration. Monotony
and boredom may be the biggest stressors on any mission to Mars,
exciting as it may seem.”
- The Independent
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