Sailing to Mars (Or Something Like It)
Space, as we all know by now, is the final frontier. Hence, billion-dollar programs built to go and see and, perhaps one day, conquer. So what do the rest of us do when we want to help, to make some kind of impact on professional exploration thereof, but don't quite have the means or education to work at NASA? Most of us write, I suppose, or stargaze or watch lots of episodes of NOVA.
What we don't do is plan and save for twenty years, and then sail away to the South Seas with a cute first mate to study the effects of a thousand-day manned mission with no land in sight, in the hopes of offering constructive insight on the concerns of a mission to Mars. This is, of course, because we aren't all Reid Stowe, who (as Wired reports in what is either the feel-good story of the week or the story that will break your back under the crushing weight of jealousy) is doing exactly that.
The 55-year-old Stowe, a sailor and professional adventurer, is currently sailing the 70-foot schooner Anne through the South Atlantic. He's attempting to stay at sea, beyond the sight of land, for 1,000 days. Stowe calls his project the Mars Ocean Odyssey, because he thinks the journey will provide valuable lessons for a manned flight to Mars, when astronauts would be confined to a small vessel for two to three years, separated from terra firma and most of humanity.
All right, first of all: can someone please tell me how one gets to become a "professional adventurer," and does being, if not a sailor oneself, at least the daughter of a sailor count for anything?
It probably has something to do with Stowe's previous experience: Stowe's legend tells of Antarctic voyages, trips down the Amazon in a catamaran, and a year in the South Pacific. Still, even with all this experience under the belt, it hardly seems preparation enough for such a heavy undertaking as he as now embarked on. The vow not to touch dry land until 2010, communicating with civilization solely via satellite phone (and satellite-uploaded blog, natch), seems almost abstract in its vastness.
The good ship Anne has been sea bound since April, and is already dispensing with a lot of insight into the possible hardships and undertakings of space travel.
Space (or psychology) enthusiasts can follow the 1,000 Days at Sea project through its website, checking daily blog posts e-mailed in by satellite phone. Stowe thinks they can draw one conclusion already: It's clear, more than a hundred days into the adventure, that personality type is a crucial criterion when selecting a crew.
For a long journey to Mars, Stowe says, you don't want an aggressive, overachieving jet pilot. In this case, an astronaut with "the right stuff" would be quiet and meditative -- someone who would take satisfaction from small daily tasks, and who could while away the hours staring at the stars.
Interestingly enough, space enthusiasts -- and, more importantly, experts and professionals -- have actually been following the project, and are reacting quite favorably to the whole endeavor. In fact, Stowe may be light years ahead of NASA in his mission training. The organization (who claims not to be following the 1,000 Days project), with the help of some contemporaries, recently ran a four-month crew isolation study -- the current leading expectations of future Mars missions, however, are said to place a timeline at closer to 900 days. In addition, as elucidated by Robert Zubrin (president and founder of the Mars Society) prolonged isolation isn't exactly the only (or even most important) factor in space travel.
Zubrin says he's skeptical of Mars simulations that primarily test the effect of long isolation on human beings. "It's not at all unknown for people to be isolated for that length of time, and in far worse conditions," he says. "Ann Frank and her family were in an attic for two years, and not sailing the South Seas, but hiding from Nazis prowling around on the outside with listening devices." For most people, Zubrin says, isolation may be difficult to endure, but it's not likely to drive them insane.
The "human factor" that should be tested in simulations is how to create an efficient, cooperative team, says Zubrin. In that regard, he says, Stowe's mission is a better simulation than the European Space Agency's planned experiment, which will be conducted at a research institute in Moscow.
"At least they're doing something: They're managing a sailboat," Zubrin says. "These other people are sitting in a can in Moscow, playing chess. It has nothing to do with a Mars mission."
Building an efficient, cooperative team has certainly been a priority for Stowe, and has packed it all into a two-man crew, which is good thinking on several parts. For one thing, space flight crews are necessarily quite small, and cooperation and compromise between such a crew is paramount; for another, it can't help but amplify morale if you have an agreeable cohort on your mission. On that note, if space geeks don't get all the girls, then space geek "adventurers" surely must pick up the slack.
Stowe's only companion and crew is 24-year-old Soanya Ahmad, his girlfriend, who says she had never stepped foot on a boat before meeting Stowe four years ago.
"Being away from people is not as traumatic as you might think," she tells Wired News by satellite phone. "You're also away from the bustle of the city, from the commercialism, from pop culture telling you what to think and what to wear and how to be." Out at sea, she says, "You're free to find your own style."
I want to high-five Stowe for his deft move in securing a Trillian for his crazy-awesome space pirate adventurer voyage, but really, the advantage clearly goes to Ahmad here. Today is the last day of summer, and so far she has spent it sailing the high seas. She has already seen countless wondrous sights of nature and has befriended a wild parrot for a pet, and she still has two more crazy summers ahead of her. What have you done lately?
_DictionaryGirl_ wants to be a professional adventurer.
PAGE:
1 | 2 | 3
Comments
Formus
Milwaukee, WI
May 2007
SEP 22, 2007 12:13 PM
ButtBoi
Boulder, CO
August 2006
SEP 22, 2007 12:23 PM
_DictionaryGirl_
NEWSWIRE
San Diego, CA
SEP 22, 2007 12:35 PM
_DictionaryGirl_
NEWSWIRE
San Diego, CA
SEP 22, 2007 12:45 PM
meatpieboy
Korea, D.P.R.
June 2004
SEP 22, 2007 12:53 PM
Admiral_Pants
Austin, TX
May 2004
SEP 22, 2007 12:55 PM
The_Reverend
United Kingdom
September 2004
SEP 22, 2007 12:57 PM
Agincourtdb
I'm lost
November 2005
SEP 22, 2007 12:58 PM
spyder13
San Francisco, CA
October 2006
SEP 22, 2007 12:59 PM
Metaverse
USA
March 2005
SEP 22, 2007 01:27 PM
Allegro
Yonkers, NY
February 2007
SEP 22, 2007 02:11 PM
Lockeblade
Australia
May 2007
SEP 22, 2007 03:12 PM
XamaX_is_Dead
La Mesa, CA
March 2007
SEP 22, 2007 03:34 PM
Tiger_Fodder
Braintree, MA
June 2007
SEP 22, 2007 07:54 PM
RudieCantFail
Baton Rouge, LA
January 2006
SEP 22, 2007 08:05 PM
PAGE:
1 | 2 | 3