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A pseudo-astronaut works on getting her feet back on—and off—the ground

16 November 2016

Christiane Heinicke, fresh off an extended stay on a simulated Mars, wants to help humanity become a multiplanet species.

Christiane Heinicke gobbled up a bowl of fresh raspberries and hesitated to jump in and dirty the clear water of a swimming pool. It was 28 August, the day she had finally returned to civilization after a year in a simulated Mars habitat.

Christiane Heinicke. Credit: Cyprien Verseux
Christiane Heinicke. Credit: Cyprien Verseux

A physicist and engineer from Germany, Heinicke was one of six crewmembers in the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS). The pseudo-astronauts were isolated in a 100 m2 dome in Mauna Loa but lived as though on Mars: They wore space suits to go outside, ate freeze-dried foods, rationed fresh water, and had a delay built into their email communications. The experiment, run by the University of Hawaii and funded by NASA, aims to optimize sociological and other conditions in preparation for extended space travel (see Physics Today, December 2015, page 29). The expedition was the longest to date. A mission to Mars would last about three years.

Heinicke was actually aiming much farther north when she landed in Hawaii. Heinicke was in Finland studying how sea ice fractures and responded to a call for a different Mars simulation, in the Arctic. That expedition fell through, but it led her to HI-SEAS. “So my aim is pretty bad,” she says. And now she’s aiming to fly on a real space mission.

Heinicke grew up in a small town south of Berlin. She studied physics at the Ilmenau University of Technology, earned a master’s degree in geophysics in Uppsala, Sweden, and then returned to Ilmenau to do an engineering PhD.

About a month after Heinicke’s reentry to life on Earth, Physics Today’s Toni Feder spoke with her about her time in HI-SEAS, her plans for the future, and why she favors sending humans to Mars.

PT: What were the topics of your PhD and postdoctoral research?

HEINICKE: My work was in magnetohydrodynamics—looking at molten metals or anything else that flows and has electrical charges and magnetic fields. They interact and you have some cool effects that [don’t happen] if you only have fluids.

After my PhD, I worked in the field for another year and then moved to Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, to work on sea ice—specifically, how sea ice fractures when it hits an obstacle like a ship or a harbor. I developed a 3D FEM [finite element method] model that incorporated deformations in the ice, like bending or fractures.

PT: Describe some of the lasting impressions of your HI-SEAS experience.

HEINICKE: Generally, I think the simulation was pretty close to what it would be like on real Mars. When you looked out the window, the sky was still blue and you could see clouds. That part was not realistic. But Mars has shield volcanoes, and Mauna Loa happens to be a shield volcano. And the terrain—the rocks were red and brown and black, pretty close to the colors you would find on Mars. The landscape is dry and empty. There is almost no vegetation and practically no animals—occasionally you would come across a fly. But it’s pretty barren landscape, as on Mars.

I think the most important effect was the isolation. We really did not see any other person besides the six of us for the whole year. And with the 20-minute email delay, our psychological isolation from the rest of humanity was about as real as it would be on Mars.

Of course, we didn’t have to fear about a leak in our habitat. We wouldn’t die if our space suits leaked, and when we flew home, it was pretty unlikely that we would have a plane crash and die. In comparison to a real Mars trip, there was little danger.

PT: What were some of the challenges?

HEINICKE: A physical challenge was to be inside the whole time. The dome was only about 11 meters across. You were always confined to the small space. I went on EVAs [extravehicular activities] to compensate.

PT: Describe the experiments you did during the HI-SEAS mission.

HEINICKE: My main experiment was to extract water from the ground. I built a sort of greenhouse. Basically, it was using solar radiation to evaporate water from below, and the greenhouse would collect the water vapor.

It didn’t work on the first try; not on the second try either, but eventually I made it work. From a square meter, over the whole year, I got about 100 liters. It’s not that much, but if you were on Mars, you have tons of space, and you could build a big one, or several of them, and collect quite a lot of water from the ground. The solar radiation is weaker on Mars than on Earth, so you’d probably need more patience, but the physics approach should still work.

PT: How was it being confined in a small space with five other people for so long?

HEINICKE: We had some bad times, and we had good times. We had conflicts. I think that was expected. And now, coming out, I have three very close friends.

PT: How long did it take for you to know who you would get along with and who you would have more difficulties with?

HEINICKE: It’s hard to tell. But looking back, the mission intensified the feelings that were there beforehand.

PT: Did you learn anything about getting along with people that will be useful to you in normal life?

HEINICKE: When you are in isolation, you cannot slam the door. You have to deal with conflicts, you have to face them, and you have to face them as early as possible, and in a very rational way. Now, being “back on Earth,” I still have this attitude.

One thing I noticed is that I am more relaxed now. I take the train in the morning, and Germans complain if the train is five minutes late. One person was very articulate about it, and was complaining loudly. The next day, it happened again, with other random people. I was just standing there like, “Who cares?” Right now it’s very hard to stress me out. I have shifted my priorities.

PT: What was the actual reentry like?

HEINICKE: It was weird. It almost felt wrong to be outside without a space suit. And the very first time I went to a pool, which was the first afternoon, it looked clean. The whole year we were treating water like a very valuable, scarce resource. I was sweaty and dirty from the day, and I was supposed to get into the pool and make the water dirty. I felt guilty and had to force myself to go into the pool.

There were plenty of things that were better than I thought. When you walk in a space suit, you don’t hear what happens around you. When I heard the rocks crunching under my feet, it was like music to my ears.

PT: Did the University of Hawaii researchers in charge of HI-SEAS debrief you extensively?

HEINICKE: Yes, for several days. They asked about the mission, about the project, how they could improve the project—like for the programs on stress and conflict management. They asked which parts we liked and didn’t like. It was largely about group dynamics, how relationships had developed over the course of the mission.

PT: What are your plans?

HEINICKE: For now, I am enjoying some freedom. I am also writing a book about the HI-SEAS mission.

PT: A memoir?

HEINICKE: Yes, like a memoir. It’s really about the mission, including simple things, like what did we eat, and how did our toilets work, what we did all day, a bit about relationships, a bit about conflicts, and about the EVAs. Stuff like that. It is due in January and will come out sometime next spring.

PT: And beyond the book?

In April I applied to die Astronautin [“the female astronaut”], an initiative by a private German company to send the first German woman into space. Eleven German men have gone to space, but no women yet. The plan is to send a German woman to the ISS [International Space Station] in 2020.

The initiators are estimating that they will need between €30 and €40 million [$33 million to $44 million], with the bulk of the money for the flight itself. The money is being raised partly through crowd funding.

As of mid-October, there are 90 candidates left, and I am one of them. The next selection [round], to 30 candidates, will be done in mid-November. I think the final selections will be presented in March.

PT: Even if you do fly as die Astronautin, that will be for a week or so. What are your plans more generally?

HEINICKE: I want to do research in space science and hopefully make use of the experiences that I gathered in the last year. I have submitted research proposals with ESA [the European Space Agency]. One of them contains a habitat, not for Mars but for the Moon, and the idea is to test technology, not people. The habitat is supposed to be underground to shield against radiation. This work would be either directly with ESA or in collaboration with ESA.

PT: Do you think it’s a good idea to send people to Mars? Why?

HEINICKE: Yes. Rovers are great for performing preplanned tasks repeatedly. If you tell a rover which analysis to perform on what rocks, it will do just that, with infinite patience. However, that is not how science typically works. Discoveries are usually made when someone notices something that is different from the expected. I am sure that if life ever existed on Mars, its traces will be found by humans, not a robot.

Apart from this scientific aspect, I think it’s important for humans to start spreading out over multiple planets if we want to survive long term. It will require a lot of time in preparation if we want to become truly multiplanetary.

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