Ad Astra: An Illustrated Guide to Leaving the Planet

Below the mountains in the Abruzzo region of central Italy, amid the woodland, olive groves, junipers, and grazing sheep, sits a large rural farmhouse-cum-international-research-station called Pollinaria. Pollinaria explores the fertile intersections of art, poetry, science and traditional methods of agriculture. In 2011, the place became base camp to a very special astronaut training project. German artist Agnes Meyer-Brandis breathed life into Francis Godwin’s 1638 lunar adventure, by incubating and hand-rearing eleven of the forgotten species of migrating moon geese. Each of the geese was named after a space pioneer, the names written on their eggshells in pencil. On hatching, Agnes ‘imprinted’ the newly born astro-chicks’ behaviour using strong visual cues: she would wear a home-made silver spacesuit and yellow wellington boots, which the geese would follow as if she were their mother.

For nine months the flock followed Agnes everywhere she went as she conducted her own unique moon-goose astronaut training programme. The migration training period was followed by habituation to a lunar-surface analogue in a purpose-built facility (outhouse) preparing them for life on the surface of the moon. Perhaps next time you’re on holiday you could devise your own space mission. Or just lie back at night, and let your mind migrate to the stars. No one will ever leave the planet quite as beautifully as this.

Leaving the planet is a massive and expensive faff. An alternative is to go into space or visit another world, without the bother and expense of actually going into space or visiting another world. Space analogues recreate on earth, with varying degrees of fidelity, the physical and psychological conditions of a space mission, or of an extraterrestrial environment, like the surface of the moon or Mars.

If it’s just a quick snapshot view of the Martian landscape you’re after, many parts of the world have a physical geography or geology that closely resembles Mars. The flotilla of spacecraft sent to Mars have revealed a landscape as familiar as our own. We share many of the same geophysical-shaping processes as Mars and our planetary neighbours, and of course we share the same chemistry and laws of physics. Mars is a stone’s throw away from you: the sedimentary formations of the North Berwick coast, or the volcanic island of Lanzarote where ESA runs the PANGAEA programme training astronauts in the basics of planetary geology; the red deserts of central Australia, or the hyper-arid Atacama Desert in Chile. Other places are the Grand Canyon, or the famous Wadi Rum in Jordan where Ridley Scott filmed The Martian. If you can willingly suspend your disbelief, with the right photographic filter you’re as good as there. The famous Martian photograph of Carl Sagan standing next to a model of the Viking Lander was shot in Death Valley. As a child this image always confused me.*

If you want a deeper, more immersive experience then why not join an analogue mission. The next time find yourself in the American south-west, drive north-east across the rugged Martian-looking landscape from Las Vegas. Type ‘Cow Dung Road, Utah’ into the satnav and you will be taken far off the beaten track, to the Mars Desert Research Station. It’s a large white round metal spaceship-like building called The Hab, with orange landing legs sticking out of the side, which looks as if it has landed on the red planet. Next to it is a long cylindrical-shaped greenhouse facility, and a few yards away on a rocky escarpment is the Musk Mars Desert Observatory telescope. The rugged multi-hued landscape of orange and red is indistinguishable from the extraordinary photographs collected from the NASA Curiosity Rover currently inching its way around Mars’ Gale Crater, its wheels now cracked and worn from five years of Martian exploration.

Here, the primary aim is to explore and experience the interactive behaviour that crews will experience during long duration space missions. How can a group of people live together in a confined space isolated for months without going mad, becoming depressed or killing each other? What makes a good crew? What is the effect of food and its preparation on morale? How will sleep patterns develop without the natural earth day/night cycles? What would happen if you really hated someone? Or fell in love? Or became jealous of someone else in love?

Not all Mars analogue studies offer the chance of escape to wander the great outdoors. The daddy of them all was the Mars500 mission, which took place in a specially built facility of connecting sections resembling the International Space Station, located in a large hangar at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow. For 520 days (the length of time for a Mars mission) the crew consisting of three Russians, two from ESA and one Chinese – were locked away from the outside world. The mission, among many other things, highlighted the reality of international crews living and working together. Different cultural holidays were observed and shared between the group, like Chinese New Year, Christmas and Halloween. For seventeen months they ran experiments on themselves and each other. Artificially delayed communications were built in to replicate the time delay between Mars and earth. Using adapted spacesuits, emergency Mars surface EVAs were conducted in a specially controlled indoor Mars yard, along with studies on sleep patterns and depression. As much as anything it was a study on the effects of monotony, something you’re going to have to come to terms with if you’re planning on going anywhere past the immediate vicinity.

Of course, all these studies cannot recreate the absence or change of gravity and the effects of radiation that a genuine space mission will entail. Analogue facilities like NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations), off the Florida coast near Key Largo, in which astronauts live and train underwater, and the long-duration bed-rest studies like the Envihab laboratory in Cologne, try as closely as possible to replicate the gravitational effects of muscle and bone loss that have become the defining physiological effects of long-duration space flight.

Analogous comparisons between Antarctica and space exploration are many and useful. Humans have poked and prodded both realms and, while not yet fully adapted to either, we now have a continuous presence on the fringes of both – international settlements on the Antarctic coast and our international outpost in low earth orbit. The continent of ice and the realm of space are joined in spirit and in law by two legal treaties, the Outer Space Treaty and the Antarctic Treaty, which prevent colonization and exploitation.

The International Geophysical Year of 1957–8 didn’t just see the Soviet conquest of space with the launch of Sputnik 1, it also saw Soviet expeditions push into the high region of the Antarctic Plateau and the founding of the Vostok research station, which holds the record for the lowest reliably recorded temperature on earth at -89.2°C. The scientific research train of the third Soviet expedition, having travelled 2110 km from the coast, stopped at 82°06’ S 54°58’ E – the most remote point on earth, and the furthest point in Antarctica from the sea. There they set up a small research station. This is the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility. If you truly want to get away from it all, this place should be first on the list. In summer, these places are relatively accessible (cosmically speaking) by air and traverse, but the nine months of winter means permanent darkness, with temperatures similar to those on the surface of Mars, nudging -100°C. No aircraft could rescue you in these fuel-freezing temperatures. The winter conditions make being here the closest you might feel to standing on another world without getting off this one.

That said, if you had to pick the very best spot on earth for your space adventure, how about a trip to a place known only as Ridge A (81°30’ S, 73°30’ E)? Ridge A is where the ‘stratosphere comes to the ground’ and is about 90 miles south-west of Dome A (Dome Argus) on the Antarctic Plateau. Ridge A has been identified as the best place on earth for astronomical observations and is home to the remotely operated HEAT (High Elevation Antarctic Terahertz) far-infrared telescope. It is ultra-bone-dry, lifeless, completely calm and free from any sort of weather, sitting in the eye of the storm at the still centre of the polar winds that swirl around the plateau. Come here in the middle of winter, when the sun never rises, with twenty-four hours of blackness and no sound other than your quickening heart. Like a glass-bottomed boat, you can look out into the universe. Here, as in space, the stars won’t twinkle. Take it all in. It may be the last thing you ever do.

TRAVEL GUIDE: THE HIVERNAUT

Name:

Beth Healey

Profession:

European Space Agency Medical Doctor

Claim To Fame:

Winters over in Antarctica

You’ve overwintered in Antarctica? That’s a big deal.

I was working for the European Space Agency at Concordia, which is the space analogue programme at Antarctica. Concordia is specifically looking at long duration space flight. We’re really interested in the isolation you get there. For nine months of the year you’re completely alone, and that puts certain psychological and physiological pressures on the crew. That’s a lot like what we’re going to have to do for long duration space missions of the future.

Is Antarctica the closest thing to going to space that we can get on earth?

I believe so, yes. It’s the only place where we can truly and ethically isolate people. There are lots of analogue programmes like HI-SEAS, and Mars500. But the thing about a programme like that is essentially there is a door that you can walk through at any point and, after having been to Antarctica, I think I would have found that a lot harder. I would probably have spent 499 days of the 500 days wondering whether or not I should leave the programme. In a place like Concordia you really are truly isolated, so that’s not really a concern. Whether it’s harder or easier I’m not really sure, but it certainly put a different psychological pressure on you because you’re not really thinking about leaving.

Lots of people go to Antarctica to do science, but generally that’s in the summer.

Exactly. There’s a huge population of scientists going to Antarctica during the summer months that runs between November and February typically. And a lot of the stations are coastal stations. That’s the big difference – Concordia is one of only three inland stations, along with the Amundsen-Scott South Pole and Vostok stations.

Being there in winter makes you a hivernaut? How did this happen to begin with?

Officially I’m a hivernaut, yes! From a really early age I was going off and doing adventurous things with my dad. When I was three or four I had my own little kayak. It wasn’t an unusual thing for me to get involved in expeditions when I was growing up. I became very interested in remote medicine and working as part of medical logistical support teams in remote environments. I had already been to Greenland, Siberia and the North Pole, and so going to Antarctica was something that I was really interested in doing.

What happens if somebody gets ill? On the Space Station you have a Soyuz lifeboat attached to it so you could come back down to earth if the worst happens.

That’s why Concordia’s used. We had two medical doctors: the base medical doctor and myself. I was the ESA doctor. Between us we could do most surgeries. We also had a fairly sophisticated telemedicine, which is something we are looking at for long duration space flight. For the whole time we are down there, we have direct links to a hospital in Rome where we’ve got links to all the different specialists, so we are able to perform most different types of surgeries.

Let’s say if someone gets an aggressive form of cancer for example?

You wouldn’t get them out. There’s no chance. That happened at the South Pole and they air-dropped stuff in. With Concordia, it’s higher, it’s even colder and they have never done it.

Tell me about the psychological test that one has to take in order be a hivernaut.

It was all a huge blur… it was a three-hour interview talking about every aspect of my life, my family situation. We had to do the classic Rorschach test where you look at the cards and tell what you see. I tried to see happy thoughts!

Death? Murder?

I did say at one point I saw a dead animal, and I was like ‘Oh god! I wonder if that’s jeopardized my chances.’ It did look like a roadkill zebra so I think that was fair enough.

Is hivernaut training like training as an astronaut?

Yeah, there’s lots of similarities. Because you are in many ways like an astronaut – you’re doing in-the-field data collection for lots of other institutes. That’s exactly what they’re doing on the ISS – it’s the same kind of model. In addition to that we had other training. Because I’m a medical doctor I went out to Chamonix.

Skiing? Very important.

… skiing, and more importantly I did mountain rescue medical training. As the ESA doctor your primary role within the system is to go out and rescue the person, bring them in to the base doctor who’s going to be setting up the hospital, in terms of doing operations and such.

And then we also did human behavioural performance training as crew.

HIVERNAUTS AND LOVE You’re in Concordia, and it’s been summer and it’s all nice and it’s not too difficult. And then…

There’s loads of stories about what it’s going to be like, before you go, so it’s quite a weird time. That there’s just going to be people going crazy, committing suicide. No one’s actually committed suicide but people have attempted it. Nobody was like that in our crew, but it’s the isolation. And in that particular case I think it was a relationship issue between one of crew members and them. She ‘got’ with somebody else, basically.

Being a human is difficult, especially with things like relationships.

And being a girl, a lot of people thought I was an experiment, to see what would happen, by putting a young girl into the crew. Which is weird.

Did they tell you that?! They actually thought you were an experiment?

Yes, this one person in particular. He’d already done three overwinters and he actually wrote to ESA and the Italian Antarctic programme saying he thought I should be sent home because I’m too pretty.

You’re joking? Wow, that’s a backhanded compliment.

Yeah, I think he thought he was doing me a favour in terms of – it would destroy me, going to Antarctica and the overwintering experience, because I think he thought it was too hard and it would get too much… Not so much me, but he thought I would disrupt the crew. That it would cause problems for other people.

And were you in a relationship with anyone at this point?

No.

And was he one of the people who ended up wintering with you?

No, he’d just finished wintering. This was the same person who also had slugs as pets.

What? Slugs as pets?

The Antarctic treaty means that you’re not allowed to bring in any foreign animals. He’d been there fourteen months, and with all the fresh fruit and vegetables coming in you get some slugs, and he actually kept them as a pet as company. I certainly could appreciate why he did that after I’d overwintered, but when I’d just arrived I thought, this is just a crazy place.

But there was also a lot of weird stuff that happened when I first arrived, like people put my Ugg boots in the fridge and they tried to shrink all my washing.

How do you know that wasn’t you being paranoid? Why would someone put your Ugg boots in the fridge? At no point in my life would I consider putting someone’s Ugg boots in the freezer.

I know, it’s weird, isn’t it? I don’t think they did it by mistake.

But things become very precious in these environments. It’s a lot like space travel. Somewhere like Concordia, it’s the one true place where money doesn’t matter, everything is free, alcohol is free, you’re all given exactly the same clothes and it’s a true playing field. It’s a bit like prison in that respect and there’s no sort of social hierarchy. If anything, I would say scientists are almost looked down on because you’re not really essential in terms of survival within the crew. So somebody that perhaps organizes water, or does the power station, you know, the real kind of survival jobs in the hierarchy of the station are much more valued.

A lot of people were hostile about the idea of coming back out of the isolation phase because they were happy with how things were, and they didn’t want to go back home. We had people like submariners, for example, and they found the overwintering experience a lot easier than being in the real world.

In some ways it is easier – you’ve got a chef there, you’ve got your science to do, but you haven’t got the rest of the faff of real life to think about. You don’t have to cook for yourself, you don’t have to buy anything, you don’t have to think about what you are going to wear. You just have to do your job; it’s a very simple life.

It sounds like there were quite a lot of interpersonal problems.

It’s a tough environment. I think one of the big reasons is the language barrier, everyone speaks different languages and when you’re really knackered you kind of just want to speak your own. So I think that was one challenge. I think being a girl has different challenges.

How many women were there?

Three.

How do the agencies study or measure the psychology aspects?

We were wearing activity watches and they were obviously looking at activity levels and sleep/wake cycles but also crew interaction. My watch would interact with your watch and it would also know where I am on the base. With the activity watches it’s looking at how relationships are changing over time and also personal preferences, so – are you seeking social interaction, are you in a social zone on the base, or are you isolating yourself in your bedroom, are you choosing to not interact with other people, and also looking at how the group dynamic changes over time.

If you fancy someone? People fall in love, people fall out of love, get jealous. Relationships must happen.

It’s a funny thing. People would be actively… unfriendly to me, because otherwise they would get teased that they fancied me. It’s a minefield. If you were friends with someone, everyone would assume you’re sleeping together.

Presumably people were sleeping together. If there were thirteen people locked up for nine months.

Not so much. In the summer a lot more, but during the winter… I think because you are there as a crew, unless you really, really like somebody and you think it’s going to work for the whole winter I think it’s too high a risk.

SPACE WALKING

Did you have a worst day?

I had one or two. I remember one moment where it was the worst day. I think it was just a day where I was really, really tired. Obviously, with the winter you don’t sleep well. For 105 days we don’t have any sun. Permanently dark.

Do you go outside? Is it too cold? When you say dark, is it pitch-black? Can you see the stars the whole time?

For a month you could not tell if it was day or night. You see the stars clearly, the Milky Way is there all the time. You see the Aurora all the way through the day.

How far are you away from another human being?

Six hundred kilometres is Vostok Station.

Six hundred kilometres – so actually the six people on the space station are probably as close. If you went outside what would happen? How long can you go out?

Concordia is typically -70°C to -80°C. It’s really, really cold. You have to wear all the gear. They say it’s a lot like a spacewalk because you have to be totally covered up. You have to really think about going, you’re taking radios out and tell people where you’re going and you normally go with another person. It’s dangerous. You have limited dexterity; if you get cold it’s hard to open up doors. We have shelters outside which are heated, so you’re never far away from a safe place I suppose, but it is quite extreme.

How did the physical landscape affect you?

It’s a lot of sensory deprivation as well, you don’t have any smells, that’s one big thing. It’s like space in that respect. You don’t have any mud or dirt. You don’t have any human smells. Nothing smells of anything.

Did it change you and the way you think about the world and the way you think about life? You come with expectations and the expectations become reality.

I think I did change. Living without the sun really disconnects you from the real world. Having the sun in the sky always connects you to wherever you are. The one thing I really noticed when you didn’t have that sun is that you really did feel like you were on a different planet. It was strange and exhausting, because you didn’t have that stimulation of the sun to wake you up ever.

Did you ever go outside and just look up?

Yes. And you become deeply connected to the universe. The stars are everywhere. It’s beautiful. You’re much more aware of everything. You just feel much more connected with the outside, and with what’s going on, and the temperature. Things that I would never think about when I’m back here in civilization.

* Sagan had borrowed the Viking replica for his TV series Cosmos on the promise that he wouldn’t damage it. Filming in Death Valley seemed sensible, given that it’s one of the driest regions of the world. Ironically they were met by a heavy rainstorm – hence the orange anorak, which he hastily grabbed from the front seat of a crew car and then had to keep wearing for continuity. It went on to become one of the defining images of the series.