Dr. Michaela Musilova is the Director of Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI SEASONS) program, which undertakes analogous missions to the moon and Mars for scientific research in a habitat on the volcano Mauna Loa. She is currently the commander of the two-week lunar mission Selene III and contributed his report to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
Commander’s Report for the Selene III Moon Mission at HI-SEAS
Lunar Day 8 (March 1, 2021)
Gray and more gray. That’s all we could see outside the window – endless gray “dust clouds” on the moon (also fog and storm clouds on the volcano Mauna Loa in Hawaii where the HI-SEAS analog-space habitat is located). Today was the eighth day of complete incarceration for the Selene III crew inside the habitat. The crew cannot go outside the habitat on lunar walks unless the atmosphere is safe for them. Any form of storm poses a major safety hazard to crew members on both the simulated moon and the actual volcanic site in which HI-SEAS is located.
Day by day, more hope began to flow from each crew member. Initially, they would look out the main habitat window every few minutes, hoping for a different view. Slowly it looked out the window every few hours. When someone notices that they can see new topographical features appearing in the gray dust, the whole crew rushes to the window full of hope. Some crew members prefer that the window be covered so that the greyness outside of us does not further suppress.
Related: Selene III: Start with an analogous lunar mission with exploding bombs – Commander’s report: sol 3
Not being able to go outside to conduct research experiments and explore the lunar surface is only part of the problem. On bad weather days, we can not recharge the batteries of our habitat properly because it is powered by solar power. During dust storms, very little solar energy reaches the solar panels outside the habitat. This means that we have to live in the so-called low power mode to get through every day. One of the first things we do is disconnect all appliances that are not essential for our survival, and we turn the heating down dramatically (to about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, or 13 degrees Celsius).
The crew of Selene III, cold and discouraged, had their first day with a low spirit today. They tried hard to find the silver lining in our situation and to encourage themselves with various fun activities. However, another gray day seems to have done the trick. Even crew members of the Valoria 1 crew reached out to us with words of encouragement and privately exclaimed to me, “not again!” They themselves suffered through a series of days with very low power and endless lunar walks.
Related: The crew of Valoria 1 fights to survive the night – report of the commander: sol 8
Another negative aspect of this situation is that the crew is starting to distrust our Mission Support team and CAPCOM (capsule communicator, who is the main person communicating with the crew of the Mission Control Center on Earth). We have a large team of volunteers who perform mission support and CAPCOM duties during each mission at HI-SEAS. One of their many roles is to provide daily weather reports and forecasts to the crew, or even more frequently.
Their predictions have not been very accurate over the past week, so my crew members have become very skeptical about the information given to them regarding the weather. This kind of decoupling from the crew ground is a kind of mutiny, which is not uncommon in analog as well as real space missions. This can develop for a variety of reasons, for example when staff on earth make too many demands on the crew in space, or in this case, when Mission Support provides the crew with inaccurate information. I therefore had to remind the crew that this difference in information is caused by incomplete data of our location on the moon and not of the bad will of our Mission Support team.
It was time for a change before my crew would get grumpier and more depressed. We all need to practice at least 30 minutes every day, so I suggested we have a dance party as our workout for today. In this way, we complied with our exercise quota for the day and revived ourselves. I had each crew member opt for their favorite song to dance to, and I started us off with some 90s techno music. The next thing I knew, there were smiles on my team faces again and we all felt much warmer too.
Filled with more positive energy, we decided to continue with fun and creative activities to keep our spirits high. Most crew members are big fans of the Star Wars movies, which is why we decided to introduce them to the others who have not yet appeared. Soon the crew members will exchange jokes about ‘Dark Father’ and ‘lovely’ Skywalker family traditions to cut off each other’s hands with lights. We even posed for a fun team photo with a simulated lightsaber. Taking into account my jokes in the past about favoring the dark side, based on my experiences with the Valoria 2 crew, I chose a red light saber.
These challenging times on the Selene III mission were a major source of inspiration for the outreach project of science communications officer Brooke Edwards. Brooke records her experience as an analog astronaut to analyze what she believes will be important factors for the mental well-being of future astronauts. Her experience has shown that good crew relationships and a positive attitude are essential to the success of a simulated space mission.
Our operations officer, Eboni Brown, was also able to gather interesting data for her study on chronic stress and human connectivity through anonymous survey questions. The results of her research will help determine what impact chronic stress, such as the global pandemic, has had on the Selene III crew and their ability to communicate with each other.
However, the rest of the crew received further negative news on mission because their projects were not going as well as they had hoped. Bioengineer Zoe Maxwell’s reduction of perchlorate and nitrate using bacteria and aquaponics started well and showed signs of initial success. However, one of the fish in the aquaponics section of the experiment died and the plants she tried to grow never adapted to the challenging environment in the habitat and eventually withered.
The project of crew engineer Oscar Ojeda, which focuses on the characterization of communication and dangers during an analog space mission, is gradually progressing. Nevertheless, he could not evaluate anything regarding lunar walks, as the crew was confined to the inside of the habitat due to the dust storms. Instead, he focused on new projects, such as the operation and testing of the Slovak RoboTech Vision company Androver that we have at HI-SEAS.
At least part of the project of Jason Fischer, life sciences officer, is going well. He is trying to determine the effectiveness of simulated wastewater permeate as a nutrient source for growing micro-greens. Jason compares it to a hydroponic nutrient solution in the industry. So far, the wastewater permit is not conducive to the growth of micro-green plants, and it must be treated with a nutrient modification to succeed in this endeavor.
Commandant Musilova signs off and hopes that the force will be with us and that tomorrow we will see more than just gray outside the window.
Follow Michaela Musilova on Twitter @astro_Michaela. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.