Martian Sunset: NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this stunning view as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev Crater on Mars.
Image: Flickr/NASA Solar System Exploration
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"Mutinous" is not a word frequently used to describe teams of NASA scientists and engineers.
But that's precisely the term employed by Harvard University sleep scientist Charles Czeisler to explain what happened when the group operating the Pathfinder mission's rover in 1997 was required to live indefinitely on Mars time.
"They didn't really have a plan for dealing with the Martian day before they went up, and the rover lasted a lot longer than it was supposed to, so they actually had a mutiny and wanted to shut the thing off because they were so exhausted," he says, drily adding the obvious: "NASA wasn't too happy with that notion."
The Mars day, called a sol, is 39 minutes and 35 seconds longer than an Earth day. Every time NASA lands a robot on the Red Planet, its operations team must adapt to that long Martian day for the first period of roving, to take full advantage of the hours between the data transmission at the end of the rover's day and the upload of new commands the following Mars morning.
Staying up for 40 minutes extra each day, as Harvard sleep scientist Laura Barger points out, doesn't sound like much. "When you first think about it, it even sounds like a good thing, having a little extra time," she says. But not for long: The team's work schedule floats through two time zones every three days, while its actual location merrily persists in its normal light-dark habits. The team creeps from day shifts to night shifts and back.
Living for long on this perpetual Mars lag has proved extraordinarily unpopular. Joy Crisp, now a principal scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, recalls the Pathfinder mission, which initially was expected to last seven days but ultimately endured 85. Nobody had planned for it. "I just remember getting to day 30 and thinking, 'I can't keep this up,'" Crisp says. Neither could anyone else, and the disgruntled staff forced NASA leadership to drastically change the schedule.
The agency was more prepared for the Spirit and Opportunity rover missions in 2004 and asked Czeisler to chair an advisory panel about how to handle the Mars time adjustment. But such guidance lost its utility when the two rovers landed within three weeks of each other on opposite ends of Mars—the equivalent of Denver and New Delhi—resulting in hordes of enthusiastic but exhausted workers bouncing between three time zones on two planets.
NASA leaders claim they have become more sensitive to the issue over the years. Andrew Mishkin, who helped plan the Curiosity mission, says that for the first time NASA officials decided to put a definitive three-month cap on Mars time. They also scheduled people to work no more than four days in a row, encouraged employees to monitor their own and their colleagues' fatigue levels, and had Human Resources prowl the lab for zombied workers to send home. "But everybody was pretty tired of it by November," when the 90th sol finally set, Mishkin says. And when NASA officials wanted to extend the Mars schedule past the 90th sol because the rover was running behind schedule, they put it up to a democratic vote: The answer was a resounding "No."
Research indicates there is more NASA could do for these tired people. Barger led an experiment using volunteers from the Phoenix lander operations crew in 2008, providing them with education about circadian rhythms, specific sleep-wake and caffeine schedules to adhere to, and countermeasures such as blue-light boxes to place on their desks. The 19 volunteers were monitored with medical tests, and their progress was tracked with wristwatch-size detectors. The experiment was limited by a small sample size and no control group, but 87 percent of participants reported they were able to adjust to the sol.
One might imagine that NASA would have leapt on research like this and provided the same countermeasures for its Curiosity mission, but it did not. Harvard sleep scientist Steven Lockley says NASA simply doesn't take human factors as seriously as it should, adopting our culture's flippant "I'll sleep when I'm dead" attitude about getting rest. To make matters worse, NASA's ranks are filled, he says, with "highly motivated A types who think they can overcome anything—but that's not true, because biology is there for everyone."
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16 Comments
Add CommentLast I read, most people's natural circadian rhythms are closer to 25 hours than 24. (Those experiments were done with the people being isolated from natural light.) The problem in the cases sited here were that the people were still having their clocks reset by daylight. If people ever actually lived on Mars, I would expect there not to be any serious problems with this issue since day/night timing would still be in sync with their active and sleeping times.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIndeed. The average human's circadian rhythm is actually closer to a Martian day than an Earth day. I would expect most people would actually be happier with a Martian photoperiod.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA word from the cynic:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's get real. I haven't seen any scheme for a manned Mars mission that is not held aloft by childish wishful thinking and laughably unrealistic hazard assessment. If anything goes even slightly wrong, at any stage, they're dead. Any person foolish enough to volunteer for a vastly expensive, completely pointless, trip to Mars, is not sane enough to be selected. (Convicted murderers may rationallly prefer it to a cell on death row [to which it would be identical], only because of the increased odds of escape prior to lift-off.) Even if they somehow touch-down on the planet mostly alive, what would they do? Stumble around a few yards from their prison into a virtual vacuum of dusty waste while their internal organs are slowly fried by radiation? You call that "exporation?" Rovers already there have completed 20x the amount of useful science that a desperate person on the edge of insanity could do.
I understand that there is a legion of scientists who must protect their income by making out that a manned Mars mission is some high-minded objective. That's baloney. At some point people are going to die horribly, and pointlessly, from this whole "Manned exploration of Mars" hoax.
We need to be vastly more advanced technologically, and then, find some useful purpose, before we try to send a person safely to Mars.
Ah, I see, SteveinOG. So, we should never try, because we can never make the trip completely safe, eh? And for that matter, the science generated regarding long-term human survival in both free-fall and the Martian environment is utterly useless too. I see.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, but no. Just because YOU are too short-sighted to see the real science that can be accomplished by a manned Mars mission, doesn't mean the science isn't there. I advise you to do some actual research, rather than engage in self-satisfied assumptions that don't actually reflect reality. You'll look far less like a fool.
Listening to people like you is exactly what will doom our race.
SteveinOG I agree that getting to and living in a Martin environment is going to be incredibly challenging. We're not ready yet. However I think founding a self sustaining Martian colony is a valid objective, if only as an insurance policy against a catastrophic event on earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaving a group of people on mars would be both crazy and amazing. Whoever went to mars, would have to know its a one way trip. End of story. And be happy with this. That would be the hardest part. Being content with your decision to never return to your home. It would be like the pioneers crossing america, only on a much crazier and scary level. I personally couldn't do this. But I know a couple people that probably would see this as an amazing opportunity, and a way to enter the record books. All i can say to those who would/will do this. YOU GO GIRL/BOY!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSteve claims: "...seen any scheme for a manned Mars mission that is not held aloft by childish wishful thinking..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen you haven't looked at too many, or any of these projects, developed by very competent people who would easily prove everything you said to be BELOW childish & wishful thinking.
Steve claims: "...anything goes even slightly wrong, at any stage, they're dead...
Nonsense. Things go wrong all the time on in all kinds of missions of equal danger or worse. Usually there are fixes or workarounds. Take a look at Apollo 13. Nobody died and that is a VERY, VERY wrong, indeed disastrous event. So no, your claim is obviously ridiculous, and shows your post to have no credibility.
Steve claims "..Any person foolish enough to volunteer for a vastly expensive, completely pointless, trip to Mars, is not sane enough to be selected.."
Another ridiculous statement. There would be and already are volunteers of the highest qualifications and character, far beyond your own. Many of the best & brightest give up their lives climbing some mountain for dubious reasons, nothing at all as important as being the first humans to COLONIZE another world.
The rest of your claims are beneath ridiculous. Let's just take one that you have staked your reputation on:
Steve claims "...Stumble around a few yards from their prison ... their internal organs are slowly fried by radiation..."
Wrong.
"...A person ambling around the Red Planet would receive an average dose of about 0.7 millisieverts per day, while astronauts aboard the International Space Station experience an average daily dose between 0.4 and 1.0 millisieverts..."
cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57557075/nasa-astronauts-could-survive-mars-radiation/
The World's foremost authorities on Radiation Health Physics have determined anything less than 3 mSv/day exposure is harmless and natural environments on Earth do expose people to those levels with no observed ill effects.
They should have hired me. I'd love Mars time. What other people I'm not needing to have consistently at hand are up to, or whether it is light or dark, is of no concern to me, but my body naturally stays awake longer than will fit into a 24 hour day and also provide me 7 1/2 hours of sleep. A 26-28 hour day would suite me much better; 24 and 29/60ths hours would be a step in my direction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course most people, whether they spend more time working than anything else and/or more time acting as if daylight is not a factor, like I do, or not, ARE on a natural cycle closer to 24 hours than I am, or at least BELIEVE that they ought to be, although I can't imagine why a person would want to be other than as they in fact are, I'm told people commonly do.
I wonder what would happen if they put some people on ISS on martian time for an extended period of time and used them to work with some of these martian probes?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProof that we came from Mars! :-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@dwbd, well there were the Thresher and Scorpion expeditions by the US Navy. Things went wrong. Things went badly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEVERYBODY DIED.
Steve I happen to agree with you. There are just too many insurmountable obstacles to be overcome for a permanent settlement on Mars to be successful. Although I love Star Trek (and other similar shows) I believe that it has caused many people to have unrealistic (pie in the sky) expectations of what is achievable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI meant to add that I agree with SteveinOG's opinion on the relative safety and practicality of the trip to and from Mars as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would much prefer to see meaningful exploitation of the moon before going to mars with a manned mission.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting, but that would not cancel the time lag needed for signals to travel between ISS and Mars. That could be done on Earth, with far more access to equipment and replacement crew. The ISS crew is small and quite busy with other efforts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNatural circadian rhythms come close to mars time. However, the time children go to school and a spouse goes to work does not match such a schedule. The problem could be solved by putting the entire community on Mars time. OK kids it is 1 am. Time to get up and go to school.
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