Isolation Insights From Sheyna Gifford, Who Spent A Year In A Mars Simulation

Nerdette

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4.7 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2020

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sheyna Gifford spent a year living on a volcano in Hawaii with just five other people as part of a NASA project to simulate life on Mars. Living in a biodome the size of a two-bedroom apartment, the crew studied the psychological effects and group dynamics that could be at play when astronauts eventually make it to Mars.

This interview — about relationships, food and free time while in isolation — originally aired on Nerdette back in 2017, but it also has a few interesting parallels to our collective situation during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Plus, Sheyna assigns us some truly excellent homework, about why you should think very carefully about who and what you want on your spaceship.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This fall, W bez invites you to our upcoming live events.
0:05.0	Join us in person for smart discussions, heartfelt storytelling, and more.
0:09.0	Check out the full calendar now at W be easy.org slash events.
0:15.0	From W be easy Chicago.
0:19.0	This is Nernet. I'm Greta Johnson.
0:21.0	It is summertime and the living sure is strange. Now that we're
0:27.2	getting into the dog days of summer, odds are you've probably spent some time
0:30.9	outside lately. Maybe you've been having some socially
0:33.9	distant hangs with friends and family and maybe you've been spending more
0:39.2	time than usual looking up.
0:55.0	Over the holiday weekend, the moon was full. Jupiter and Saturn are actually visible in the night sky even in super bright cities like Chicago.
1:01.0	And... cities like Chicago. And if you stayed up late enough, I hear that you can even see Mars.
1:13.2	Mars is featured in so much pop culture in so many movies
1:21.9	that sometimes it can feel like humans have actually already
1:25.0	been there, but we haven't, though we're definitely planning on it.
1:30.3	Did you know that a trip to Mars would take seven months?
1:33.0	At seven months, in like a super confined space with a stockpile of food and just a couple other people and only stuff in arms reach to keep you occupied?
1:42.0	Doesn't it actually kind of sound like pandemic-induced quarantine?
1:46.6	I mean, okay, maybe that's a little bit of a stretch, but like maybe not because it turns
1:51.0	out the idea of extended isolation is actually super interesting to
1:56.4	NASA. It's something they've been studying for years and that brings us to today's guest.
2:04.0	Shaina Gifford is a scientist who back in 2016 spent a full year
	...

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