To say that Simon Engler has an adventuresome spirit is putting it mildly. The computer scientist, who specializes in robotics and artificial intelligence, continually pushes his physical and intellectual limits, a mindset that makes him a natural for the Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation.
Engler was a crewmember of the first HI-SEAS mission, living and working for four months aboard a simulated spaceship high atop Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii, and continues in the role of mission support on subsequent missions, living outside the habitat but remaining committed to advancing research that supports NASA’s intent to eventually launch a long-term manned mission to Mars.
The 37-year-old Canadian first came to HI-SEAS from the University of Calgary and was asked to stay on as a graduate student by the project’s principal investigator, a supporting role he served during the mission that ended last month and will continue on future missions as he works toward his doctorate at the University of Hawaii. The research he began in the simulator will continue during future missions.
Life in the 13,570-cubic-foot geodesic dome is both challenging and liberating, Engler explains, with each of the six-member crews coping with their own special challenges. The project, overseen by UH researchers and funded by NASA, aims to answer essential questions in a safe setting before a Mars crew blasts off. The first HI-SEAS mission was completed last year, the second finished last month and the third begins in October.
"I think the questions that are being asked are the important ones that we should answer before we go to Mars," said Engler, who lives on a sailboat off Ko Olina. "Even with the obvious limitations of a simulation, we’re getting really valuable research done. It’s great to be a part of it."
QUESTION: The first mission focused on food and this second looked at psychological factors, right?
ANSWER: Yes, the crewmembers were involved in a tremendous amount of surveys and tests … They wore armbands that would monitor heart rate and blood pressure, and they were monitoring saliva samples for stress levels, monitoring hormone levels and that sort of thing … They had proximity badges too …
Q: Keeping track of how well people got along by measuring their physical proximity during the day?
A: Yes, that’s all being analyzed by NASA’s research team. For myself, what I’m also doing when I’m not physically on the Big Island as support staff, is I’m bringing in additional experiments and also creating a couple of my own in there. So on the first mission I did a robotic companion study and I’m making modifications to that study … and I’ll reintegrate it in the next mission, the HI-SEAS III …
Q: Robotic companion? As in friend?
A: Yes. It’s very well documented that pets reduce stress, and even on my research team I have a doctor who uses pets for veterans with post-traumatic stress to reduce their stress levels. So they’ll have a service dog come out with them because it keeps them calm. And in a space environment, stress is an issue, especially on the longer-duration missions.
Q: So the idea is that in the isolation of space, it would stress-relieving to have a friendly companion like a pet, as opposed to simply a co-worker or a colleague?
A: Yes. It’s partially something that is cute and fun to play with, but it’s also something to take care of. I think that is also a human need that currently can’t be met. You can’t take a pet into space.
Q: What kind of form would the robotic companion take?
A: That’s generally a cultural thing, but predominantly something furry, cute and vulnerable is a good … but it also has to have a certain level of sophistication. What I found on the first mission is that it has to have a purpose for being there. … It’s really easy to take an intelligent toy and put it in front of a 5-year-old and keep them insanely happy for hours or days. But you give that to an adult and it’s minutes and they’re bored. It’s just not real to them. My theory is that if I give the robotic companion a function within the ship, then it will have a reason to be there and it will be more accepted. So on the next mission I’m giving it the job of cleaning the floors once a day … I’m attaching it to a little Roomba intelligent vacuum cleaner and it’s going to be a big fuzzy object and once it’s done cleaning the floors it will want to (interact with the crewmates) … They have to take care of it. … I have a feeling they’ll be able to bond with it much better that way.
Q: Will you go back into the HI-SEAS or will you just send in your research?
A: I’ll just send in the research project. … I’m excluded from at least the next three missions because I’ve been there before and they need people who have never does this before, for the psychological testing. …
Q: Your mission was four months long, right?
A: Yes, just like this second mission. They were both four months.
Q: What was your experience like, living in the habitat?
A: I adapted really well to the environment and got into the routine. Because I have a military background, I adapted probably quicker than anybody else. …
Q: You were stationed in Afghanistan, with the Canadian Army?
A: Yes, I was there in 2009.
Q: So deprivation was not new to you?
A: Right, and the lack of personal space. … The habitat in many respects was a lot nicer than environments I stayed in in 2009. … It was harder for others who had never experienced living in a space that small before. … It’s a real adaptation … The stress level goes up and you have to adjust. …
Q: Did you know each other before you went in? Did you train together?
A: We had a weeklong session and kind of a team-building session during the last part of the selection process, which helped a lot, I think. And then we had two weeks at the Mars desert research station in Utah and that was really, really good — really important for our mission, I think. This past mission they didn’t get any of that, but I think that might be part of the (research) comparison.
Q: I read that you got two minutes to shower? Is that right?
A: It was actually eight minutes in total per week. But I didn’t shower at all for the entire four months.
Q: (Laughter) How did your roommates feel about that?
A: Well, at first they were all alarmed. But I wanted to show that it was possible to remain hygienic and not use water; that we’re just culturally conditioned to it. Basically what I was using was that alcohol-based sanitary gel that you use to wash your hands with, but I was bathing in that once a day. Washing head to toe. Washing my hair and everything … .
Q: No health effects from that?
A: No. It was great. I felt great. Have you ever gone swimming in a public pool that’s really high in chlorine? You get out and you have that chlorine feeling? That’s how I felt every day. … We were even doing some testing with clothing and I was actually showing less bacteria on my clothing and so forth than other people, so I think I was more hygienic than average.
Q: So talking about HI-SEAS a little bit more broadly: The idea is that this research supports an eventual manned mission to Mars. How useful do you think it is for that purpose? Are there just too many limitations to being on Earth?
A: It’s very useful. The isolation, the close quarters, all that is real. I think the big red-flag questions that NASA is asking are the important ones that we should answer before we go. … The thing about the Mars mission is that we’ve never done anything quite like this, where we’ve taken a number of people and sent them all off together for a very long period of time. … It’s hard to get people to work together for that long in that type of environment without things breaking down. … The longer you are cooped up with these people the worse things get. It progressively destabilizes.
Q: But don’t people stay for months at a time in the International Space Station?
A: Yes, and things destabilize over time. … People get frustrated with each other.
Q: What are NASA’s big questions?
A: Well, one is about psychological adaptation; that’s what this latest mission was focused on. … Another one was the food issue, which we dealt with in the first mission. Are we going to be able to cook on Mars, or how can we improve food? That’s really important, because astronauts over time will get food fatigue. They don’t like to eat after a while and then they have health problems; they lose energy and it’s just really bad overall. So I think HI-SEAS was successful in showing that just by being able to do some basic cooking you can make so many types of meals that are really good and food fatigue’s not going to be an issue. …
Q: … We’ve talked about living in HI-SEAS. What about coming out? Any re-adjustment issues?
A: … When you are in this isolated environment the outside world disappears. Life in the habitat is really simple. You get up. You roll out of bed. You eat your food. You do your science all day. You roll back in bed. No problems. In the real world you roll out of bed, you gotta take the kids to school, you gotta do this, you gotta run this errand, you gotta go to work. There are so many other variables. …
Q: That was one of my questions: Did you find that your research was more productive in isolation because you could spend all your time on it?
A: Oh, man, absolutely. It’s the most efficient world I ever lived in. It’s beautiful. You get down to your routine and nothing bugs you. Simplicity.
Q: How did everybody get along?
A: I found that this past mission was really quite good. The crew was, on average, 10 years younger than our crew, so they were way more energetic. They got along fantastic for the most part inside. They had different frustrations than we did on my mission. … A really sore point for them one time was about outside communication.
Q: There’s a communications delay, right?
A: A filter. It’s 20 minutes one way and back. Communication is filtered through a NASA computer … One time it went down on a Friday and it wasn’t fixed until Monday. So they had three days with no communication, no Internet, and they were just seethingly upset about that.
There was a similar outage experience (on the first mission), but we were like, "Oh well, good, go away for a little bit and we’ll go back to work." But … this younger group has had Internet their entire life and cutting off the Internet was just not acceptable …
Q: But would you have Internet on Mars?
A: Yes, not real-time kind of Internet, but you would have access to information fairly quickly because it would all be uploaded to a database for them … I personally think we should get even tighter on the accessibility to information on future missions. … The people going to Mars are going to be of the generation that they always had computers, so they have to be able to function and work and do everything they have to do even if they are cut off. …
Q: What’s next for the HI-SEAS?
A: The next mission will kick off in the middle of October and it’s actually double the length, it’s going to be eight months long. Then the one after that will be one full year long. So we’re looking forward to all of that … We learn more each time out.
