Astronaut for Hire

Do you dream of being an astronaut and exploring Mars? Have you always wanted to visit Hawaiʻi, or do you live in Hawaiʻi but just want to get away from your regular life for a while? Do you have a burning desire to carry out research to advance our understanding of long duration space missions? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then I highly recommend you apply to be a crewmember on an upcoming HI-SEAS mission! HI-SEAS stands for "Hawaiʻi Space Exploration Analog and Simulation." It's a NASA-funded study led by researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. The goal of the program is to study aspects of crew cohesion and performance in the context of three simulated Mars surface missions of 4, 8, and 12 month durations in 2014-2016.  You can read all about it and learn about the application details on the HI-SEAS website or in the UH press release . The application deadline is November 1, 2013 . While the study pertains primarily to hum...

Last week I had the honor of representing HI-SEAS at the 43rd International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES) in Vail, Colorado. With over 260 attendees, the meeting featured more than 200 technical presentations on topics related to human spaceflight, including environmental control and life support systems, thermal control systems, EVA systems, habitats, terrestrial analogs, and aerospace human factors. As a non-engineer, I found myself a bit out of my element, which made everything I learned all that more exciting. This post provides short summaries of the talks I found most interesting at the conference, as well as the poster I presented there. ICES began with a keynote address by John Curry of Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) on "Dream Chaser: The Future of Human Spaceflight." The Dream Chaser traces its heritage back to several lifting body craft such as the X-24A, M2-F3, and HL-10 vehicles which were developed in the 1960s. After Russia successfully...

What would you do in your last week on Earth before embarking on an extended voyage to Mars? You would probably spend it taking care of last minute packing, studying up on your destination, eating good meals, and enjoying your remaining time with family and friends. That’s exactly what the crew of the 2013 HI-SEAS mission did during the past week, which I had privilege of sharing with them. Today they locked themselves away in a remote habitat on Mauna Loa to simulate a four-month stay on Mars. As I’ve mentioned before , HI-SEAS stands for Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation . That mouthful just means that Hawaii offers an environment analogous to that found on Mars or the Moon. HI-SEAS is the brainchild of fellow Hawaii resident and FMARS + MDRS alumnus, Dr. Kim Binsted . On her 2007 FMARS mission in the Arctic, she became interested in questions surrounding the culinary and psychological aspects of locking a crew away for months at a time. Teaming up with Cor...

I had the distinct privilege of participating in the 2012 PISCES Forum  last week on the Island of Hawaii.  Like the  2011 and 2010 meetings that I attended, this year's gathering focused on developing a research park in Hawaii devoted to planetary analog research in the context of sustainable space exploration . Dr. Buzz Aldrin was among the delegates participating in this year's PISCES conference, where he gave a keynote presentation on colonizing Mars through a sustainable strategy based upon Aldrin cyclers . With only about 50 people at the conference, there were many opportunities to interact with him closely. We spoke about how his father contributed to the early days of rocketry, what architecture is best suited for establishing a permanent Mars settlement, and what it takes to be an astronaut. He encouraged me to keep pursuing my goal of being an astronaut. Having met Neil Armstrong earlier this year, I am profoundly humbled to have met both Ap...

Humans history is a story of exploration and expansion, whereby we have used our resourcefulness to settle nearly every environment on Earth. To accomplish these migrations, people have had to live off the land by hunting for food, gathering building materials, and mining resources needed for survival. It just wouldn't be practical or economical to bring everything you need with you. Space is the same way. Like on Earth, we will have to learn to use materials found in the space environment to become permanent residents of the extraterrestrial realm, rather than temporary campers . As I mentioned in the last post , I went to Hawai'i Island last week to take part in NASA's in situ resource utilization (ISRU) lunar rover field testing, facilitated by the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems ( PISCES ) on the flank of Mauna Kea . The mission simulation successfully showed that a rover arriving on the surface of the Moon can find and verify the exi...