MAUNA LOA, HAWAII » The Aloha State’s unique and historic role in training for space exploration took another giant leap Tuesday.

After 120 challenging days in isolation, six crew members chosen for a new University of Hawaii and Cornell University study into the mental effects of a lengthy space trip to Mars emerged from their giant dome tent onto a desolate patch of volcanic rock, toward the summit of Mauna Loa.

Their stay atop the landmark Hawaii volcano is expected to offer new insights into how food choices might affect crew members’ moods during the grueling haul of a space flight to the red planet and back — a feat that scientists say could happen in the coming decades.

It was the first of four UH-Cornell "Hawai‘i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation" missions planned at Mauna Loa. A new $1.2 million grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will ensure those missions last through 2015, the proj­ect’s coordinators say.

It’s not the first time Hawaii island has played a role in taking manned space exploration to the next level. In the 1960s, astronauts with the Apollo lunar missions visited the island’s volcanic sites to train for their eventual geological surveys of rocks on the moon, officials say.

Other Mars simulations not connected to HI-SEAS are occurring in rocky and remote sites across the world, including in Utah, Arizona, Canada and Antarctica, said Brian Shiro, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration geophysicist working on HI-SEAS.

But the work at Mauna Loa is unique for being so intensive, Shiro added. Crew members spend months there simulating a Mars mission, compared with several weeks in the other locales. "There’s no other thing extended like this," he said.

On Tuesday the freshly liberated HI-SEAS crew, whose members hail from the mainland, Canada, Belgium and Puerto Rico, marveled at the cool breeze hitting Mauna Loa’s northern slope and how vivid its jagged, igneous rocks appeared without having to wear a space helmet.

And for the first time in months, they tasted fresh food that hadn’t been freeze-dried.

The goal of this first mission was to study the effects of different food menus on mood. It would be expensive to make cooking possible on a manned space flight to Mars, so menus tend to consist of pre-prepared, "just-add-water" dishes, HI-SEAS officials said.

However, eating such simple meals over prolonged periods can lead to so-called "food boredom" — which can affect mood, morale and work performance, they added. On a fragile mission through space, such negatives could have disastrous effects.

Throughout the four months, the six crew members alternated every two days from eating pre-prepared meals to cooking their own meals and recipes sent by members of the public following the program.

They filled out surveys on the dishes and how they felt. Each meal was weighed and evaluated. The ingredients were mostly freeze-dried and had a five-year shelf life. Any leftovers during the two-day "cooking" periods could be stored in a small kitchen refrigerator.

Most of the crew members singled out a pasty, mushy medley called "Kung-Fu chicken," one of the pre-prepared foods, as the worst meal of their stay.

But they also raved about the cooked foods and crew member Sian Proctor’s knack for preparing creative meals with the habitat’s limited ingredients.

The crew stayed busy with other projects, too. Members studied how long they could wear clothes made with special antimicrobial fabrics before the garments grew too uncomfortable — or smelly — without the benefit of a washing machine.

They also used a cat-size dinosaur robot named "Pleu" to study whether robots would make good pets on long space expeditions. Crew engineer Simon Engler explained Tuesday that Pleu could be programmed to demand different levels of attention, and about half the crew bonded with the miniature dinosaur — as he cradled and petted the squirming robot to appease it.

The "habitat," a 36-foot-diameter vinyl tent, included games such as Yahtzee and Star Wars Mad Libs, yoga mats, a treadmill and exercise bike, and a single, sealed porthole window offering a view of Mauna Kea. Any time someone ventured outside — usually once a week — he or she had to wear a spacesuit.

Each member played a different role — commander, chief science officer, geologist, engineer. "We were not bored at all," mission Commander Angelo Vermeulen said. "Every single day was too short."

Each person quickly became consumed by his or her tasks and experiments.

Crew members kept an eye on each other to ensure no one burned out. Vermeulen held weekly therapy sessions to discuss how the group was relating and to make sure no issues festered.

To help shake things up the crew threw a party each month — and no surveys were filled out. "There was a lot of laughter," said Yajaira Sierra-Sastre, the mission’s chief science officer.

Overall everyone got along. "We are a low-drama crew," Vermeulen said.

The Mauna Loa site, on state Department of Land and Natural Resources land 8,200 feet above sea level, works particularly well, HI-SEAS officials say.

It’s mostly out of view, in an abandoned road quarry that’s already been disturbed, so it’s not culturally sensitive. Temperatures rarely if ever fall below freezing, so the weather is more cooperative than other places, said Kim Bin­sted, one of the project leaders.

Scientists typically think a Mars expedition would involve about six months of travel there and back, and 18 months spent on the planet’s surface, Binsted said.

Hawaii entrepreneur Henk Rogers, a space-travel enthusiast, provided the dome habitat and rents it out to the HI-SEAS project. On Tuesday, speaking inside the dome, Rogers reflected on the first Polynesian explorers to land in Hawaii more than 1,000 years ago.

"It’s the same kind of leap of faith it takes to get to Mars," he said.

The focuses of the three remaining missions have not been determined, but they’ll also likely look at the psychological effects of long space voyages. The next one is tentatively planned for January, HI-SEAS officials said.