Six Astronauts Spend a Year on Mars — in Hawaii

There’s no such thing as raspberries on Mars. That’s not likely to be a problem for you unless, a) you really like raspberries, and b) you just spent a year on Mars. Which brings us to Christiane Heinicke. Heinicke did just return from Mars, on Aug. 28, along with her five crewmates, and all of them were immediately given a chance for a quick snack of their first fresh fruits and vegetables in a year before having to meet the press. Heinicke grabbed as many of the raspberries as she could — the better part of a supermarket-sized container — and worked happily through them during the question and answer session that followed. You earn a few indulgences when you’ve just spent a year like she did. Strictly speaking, the three-woman, three-man crew did not actually go to Mars, but you wouldn’t know it from the look of the place they spent the last 365 days — in a dome-shaped habitat (known as the hab) on a red-brown lava plain 8,200 feet (2,500 m) up on the flank of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. They saw no human being other than each other and communicated with the outside world only by audio, video and Internet (all with a 20-minute one-way time delay, to simulate the 20-second light lag between Earth and Mars.) Cassandra Klos for TIMEThe HI-SEAS Mission 4 crew after returning from 365 days in isolation on Aug. 28, 2016. From left to right: Andrzej Stewart, Christiane Heinicke, Carmel Johnston, Tristan Bassingthwaighte, Cyprien Verseux, Sheyna ...
Source: TIME: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized astronauts hawaii HI-SEAS Mars NASA space survival University of Hawaii Source Type: news