Can Humans Get to Mars Without Going Insane?

Humanity's first Martian explorers will face extreme confinement, isolation and disruption of all bodily rhythms. The psychological stress from all of this could lead to a breakdown of social order among those on the mission – even mutiny. How can future astronauts best prepare themselves to face these challenges? And are there lessons that can be learned about this from terrestrial explorers of the past?

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[Cudddlefish]

Humans can’t even get to Earth without going insane.

[AKrn]

The obvious solution is to bring plenty of cats.

[Iconoclasher]

The Hawaiian "Mars mission" should've continued after the loss of the two members. Two "deaths" on that kind of scenario is extremely likely. There could be more to learn, especially if only one member continued for the last year.

[alexroselle]

I was reading about the Soviet/Russian missions to Antarctica and apparently at their most isolated “Vostok” base, two scientists had an argument over a game of chess which escalated to one assaulting the other with an ice-axe… and now chess is banned at Russian Antarctic bases.

So to everyone suggesting sending games on long missions, I imagine selecting which games might be important

[Ganjor]

Maybe we are looking at this from the wrong angle. The obvious choice is to look for the "most social" humans. And sure, they will sing and cook together for 2 weeks but then they are burned out. What if insted you pick the biggest introverts and make sure everyone has a personal space to retreat to. Fill it with a Playstation, an E-Reader or whatever the person is into and I'm sure there are plenty people who could be stuck like that for months.

[Miikhiel]

“Can humans go to Mars without going insane—“

Hells no. We’re plenty insane as a species.

[shiroi_usagi]

“The good news is we landed on Mars; the bad news is the crew is holding the captain hostage & has a list of demands.” - NASA

[Benson_aka_devils_advocate_]

PBS just aired that episode _"Space: The Longest Goodbye"_ and it was really well done. Definitely a must watch if you're into this sort of thing.

[XDarkxSteel]

For every tragic story of a "heroic" explorer killed in a mutiny by his mad crew is a story of a tyrannical narcissist who would sacrifice anyone for his own glory who needed to be put down to save the crew's lives

[RainebowEvee]

every time i think of crazy things that could happen on a space trip, i think of of that time when NASA almost sent an astronaut 100 tampons for her week long trip 😂

[Gamble]

The real question should be can humans continue to co-exist on this planet without going insane....

[robchilders]

At 9:45. The perfect trigger for an entire breakdown of order. That's what happens when you have someone playing a ukulele in a closed system.

[scottn]

Maybe one day VR-like technology will help us with dealing with these kinds of issues. Imagine if it was super realistic, allowing each crew member to escape when they need time to themselves.

[andrewstringer]

Submariners: "hold my bug juice..."

[danielhooke]

The parallels of wintering in Antarctica seem to get overlooked by these stories.

[edbouhl]

Reminds me of Robert A. Heinlein’s book “Stranger in a Strange Land”. The crew is 4 married couples. The captain gets another wife pregnant. The wife dies giving birth, her husband is the surgeon. The surgeon immediately kills the captain with the bloody scalpel. We don’t find out what happens to the rest of the crew. The baby is raised by native Martians.

[deawinter]

I thought the ways that celebrating holidays, inventing traditions, and playing games helped keep crews healthy and cohesive is really interesting. As you said: people can’t just “tough it out”, they have to have their needs met to continue functioning well. So we need a good understanding of what those needs are, and openness to the idea that just because not everyone enjoys these things doesn’t mean we don’t need them.

[marksando]

Yeah let's just erase the fact that Hudson wanted to continue what had already proven to be a dangerous journey after being trapped for months by ice. Like dude would have survived if he'd been able to swallow his ego and concede to returning to England.

[christopherlikes]

One of the first things that would have to be fine for the screening process of people going on this mission would be to find those that are ambivert in personality social skills. An ambivert is just as fine being alone as a introvert but has the want to be around others. This tendency will allow for the extreme isolation that the crew members will have to deal with but the fact that there is a crew will keep them socially active. If you were to send a pure introvert they wouldn't want to work in a team if you sent an extrovert they'd be so lonely they die. This is why you need to find the best of both worlds someone who can deal with isolation and be perfectly fine but wants to work in a team and is capable of doing so.

[jacobedward]

Because our current society is so competetive and individualistic. We have the technology, but not the philosophy.