commander of the longest NASA funded
space simulation the Hawaii space
exploration analog and simulation also
known as high seas is a series of space
simulation studying the effects of
isolation and confinement on human
beings this is so we can better prepare
ourselves for future missions into deep
space the first two missions were to
over four months each
the third was eight months and my
mission was 366 days thanks to a leap
year the dome we lived in was very small
my bedroom was half the size of this
circle the rest of the dome began here
we had a bathroom a bio lab a kitchen a
telemetry room a comma space and then a
wall nothing was ever further than five
steps away from a wall all the time we
joked that our bedrooms were five steps
away from the kitchen I shared this
space with five other people for an
entire year yes we all volunteered to do
this
and to spoil the ending we all came out
alive so this is what the dome looks
like in the front we have a solar panel
array this is able to generate all the
power that we’re going to need for the
entire day some of that power is stored
in batteries which we use during the
night time to get us through the evening
and to the next day when hopefully we
have sunshine again on the side of the
dome we also have a shipping container
this is what houses all of our food the
way a food resupply worked for us was
that mission support would send us food
once every four months this required us
to plan months in advance what we would
need for Thanksgiving and Christmas and
then once we got that food we would have
to allocate it appropriately so that it
would last us that entire time until we
got another resupply on many occasions
our favorite tasty goodies disappeared
rather quickly because we were so
excited to eat them also in the
background we have Mauna Kea volcano now
this was a really important part for me
a feeling like we were in isolation in
order to study the social and
psychological aspects of it you have to
be both in total and complete isolation
from human beings of any kind no contact
at all for the entire year and you have
to live in a place that looks like Mars
this landscape looks like Mars and in
the background looking at Mauna Kea
volcano every morning out a tiny little
window it felt like I was looking at
Olympus Mons the largest volcano on Mars
this was just every day you are on Mars
and that was exciting it was so cool
there are a lot of restrictions to
living on Mars for one you can’t go
outside and breathe the atmosphere
figure out there it doesn’t have the
right pressure and there’s other aspects
to that for why you can’t breathe it so
in order to go outside you get to wear a
spacesuit now walking on this terrain is
difficult enough as it is but walking
with a 50-pound spacesuit adds a whole
new level of challenge what did we do
what we were here we weren’t just
reading books and playing video games as
much as a lot of people thought we were
doing that we were doing research active
search on us and we’re doing our own
research projects as well one of the
things that the researchers wanted to
find out is how do we interact with each
other this is an image of the crew
wearing a badge and essentially we wore
these badges every day and they’re a
proximity sensor there’s telling the
researchers and the mission support team
who’s interacting with who at any given
time what our heart rate is doing and
what are the environmental conditions
around us what is the temperature and
the light and the sound doing and the
goal of this is that when we send humans
to deep space mission support can look
at data and they can say oh these two
people aren’t interacting any longer why
is that is that because they had a fight
and they’re not talking to each other
anymore or is it because it’s four
o’clock and they’re all exercising or is
it because it’s really really cold
outside and everybody is underneath the
blanket trying to stay warm these are
things that happen in real life
so everything that happened to us during
the year is data and that’s really
exciting the amount of data is
incredible we each did over 3,000
surveys in the year we spend a lot of
time doing surveys we also spend a lot
of time doing research tasks similar to
the tasks that’ll be done for future
Mars astronauts we got to go outside on
that beautiful landscape and discover
what it was like we got to map the
geology take rock samples and explore
skylights and lava tubes that future
astronauts will have to explore in order
to determine if it’s a safe place to
live all this is so exciting but we have
a lot of lessons that we learn from it
we can’t reveal the bhp research lessons
but I have a lot of lessons to share
with you and most of them revolve around
natural resources communication and
relationships so the first lesson is
that resource conservation is absolutely
essential towards living sustainably
both here on earth and on Mars this is
key to our survival we know that on
earth we have highs and lows we have
terrible terrible droughts and epic
flooding occurring at the same time we
have wonderful
snowpacks one year and then terrible
snows the next what Mother Nature throws
at us we don’t really get to choose but
how we react to that is really important
a fellow Montanan named scott buker says
that nature creates dry periods but man
creates water shortages and I really
believe that how we react to what Mother
Nature throws at us determines whether
we’re in a dry period or were in a
complete water shortage our actions have
ramifications both downstream and later
in time now during the year we were in a
bit of an unofficial competition to see
who could take the shortest shower this
is what the shower looks like I’m
certain it was designed specifically to
not encourage us to spend time in there
you want to get in and get out as quick
as you can and that’s the easiest way to
conserve water and to reduce your water
bills to take a short shower so most of
us were living with a shower of about 20
seconds to a minute once a week you get
in you lather up you get out that’s fine
and we held this for the entire year but
on one occasion somebody took a 20
minute shower now we’ve all enjoyed that
on earth it isn’t quite the luxury and
if you really love that especially after
a hard day of work nice hot shower
there’s nothing better but in a resource
limited environment that is not possible
and what had happened was this person
had taken five weeks worth of shower
water for everybody and let it go down
the drain this was unrecoverable water
how does that relate to Earth we live in
this beautiful place where we have all
the food water shelter and atmosphere
that we need we’re here because we have
the resources to sustain us but if we’re
going to go to a place where we have to
live in where we don’t have food we have
to grow our own food we have to harvest
our own water and produce our own
atmosphere to breathe how are we going
to live sustainably doing that we can’t
just keep sending shipments from Earth
to Mars we’re going to have to figure
out how to do that the good news is we
live in a place where we already have it
all figured out we can work on running
tests and trials and simulations right
now in order to figure out what is
best method of going to anywhere beyond
Earth and live completely sustainable
based on the resources that you have
there how do we get on the same page
about natural resources this is this is
a topic that’s close to my heart but
this is something that’s important to
all of us how do we get on the same page
about natural resources it begins with
our relationships to one another and my
lesson too is that relationships are the
backbone of moving forward how we treat
each other who can get along and how we
get along how we move past differences
is absolutely essential for us getting
along in this planet so this is an image
of two of the crew members working on a
construction project together and I
think it really brings home the point of
does the person with the nail trust the
person with the hammer and if these two
people didn’t have the positive
effective working relationship and also
a friendship that they did I don’t
believe that that nail portion would be
trusting the hammer at all what we
disagree about how we how we move past
that is is more important than any
reason why we would disagree in the
first place the number one question we
get asked as crew members is did you
have any disagreements during the year
yes we did I don’t know of six people
that don’t go through an entire year
with having a disagreement with anybody
if you know of six people
you should tell NASA because they really
really want to know how we move past
that how we are able to work together
and speak to each other the next day is
so important and I think that the one
thing more than anything else that got
us through this year was the fact that
we had one common goal we had one thing
that we are working towards every single
day and that was that we wanted to get
all six of us out the door at the end of
the year anything that happened did not
matter because our goal was to get out
the door but what is our goal on earth
what is the one thing we all have in
common that we all do here we all live
on the same planet we
all live here together it doesn’t matter
for 50 states or 196 countries we are
one planet and if we don’t take care of
this one beautiful place that we have
it’s not going to take care of us later
on how do we work together how do we
take countries that are at odds with one
another and start working together
it starts with communication
communication is the fundamental basis
of everything on earth this sounds
extreme but every disagreement argument
fight that I can think of begins with a
miscommunication of some kind whether
that’s not passing on a piece of
information to somebody that was
actually really important to them or it
is um two people coming from the same
kind at the same point on an argument
but not even realizing that they
actually agree about something now
during the year we also had water
resupplies that would go along with our
food resupplies and the way this worked
with mission support would tell a water
resupply bot that we needed water by a
certain day and they say cool you’re
going to get water on that day and we
said great water is the best we love
water um so the day of one of our watery
supplies came and went and we checked
our telemetry and said ah there’s no
water what what’s going on so we went
outside first maybe the tomah shoot on
okay we’ll go outside to see this is
what we saw and on the right hand side
there is a little outlet there and
that’s a litter our typing system so
we’re out of water this is a half an
inch below the water level of our water
we are cut off so we ran back inside the
hab contact a mission support said hey
you know we don’t have any water can you
tell us what’s going on so on Mars
communications a little different it
takes 20 minutes for a message to get
from Mars Earth and then a person on the
other end has to decide to respond to
you and then it takes 20 minutes to get
back to you so while mission supports
trying to figure out what’s going on we
think okay you know what do what can we
do here like we’re we’re cut off from
our tanks but what else can we do
luckily we had been storing water in
random places around the dome during the
year and we had a bit of a storage
inside the dome we had been practicing
water conservation days water
striction days the entire year so we
knew that we needed one gallon of water
per person per day as a minimum amount
of water we also had been doing things
like extracting water out of rocks and a
place that has such low humidity we were
able to extract water and be able to
drink it and at our very very last kiss
scenario we could distill our own urine
this was the bottom of our line so
luckily we had hoarded away enough water
in the dome
in order to be able to get by and
mission support contacted the the water
boss and they said oh my gosh we forgot
to tell you that the truck broke down
like quite so they had forgotten to pass
the message on to missing support pass
it to us that we could have several days
earlier started conserving water at some
point and you know we just didn’t get
the message and they didn’t realize how
important that message was to us that
was literally life or death for us so
communication is very very important
sometimes when you live on Mars sending
an email is just too difficult we had
lots of family and friends that said we
love getting your emails and they were
still linking we felt like we were with
you but writing an email is just too
hard and like okay that’s how we do
every day but there are other options so
one of the things we can do is invest in
technology that is different than email
we can work towards virtual reality or
who knows what else is out there right
now that somebody has some great idea
about the technology is advancing so
quickly
I have no idea what it’s going to look
like in 50 years and I’m excited to see
what happens so how do we bring this all
together how do we take the lessons we
learned on Mars and work towards
building a better earth it starts with
one person having an experience taking
that experience to form an idea and they
take that idea to their home community
now maybe that is you guys having an
idea about changing all the light bulbs
at home or turning all your toilets to
low-flow toilets the simple thing is
really they don’t even have to be big
they can be tiny but they make a big
difference when they’re all compounded
now we work on this
everybody here we’re all going to
different places when we get out of here
we’re not going to be all going to
Charlottesville I’m going back to
Montana who knows where everybody else
is going back to we all have a different
community we can take an idea that we
learn to we spread it across our
communities and really what we’re doing
is we’re building one earth we’re
building one community on the entire
planet and it doesn’t matter that we’re
196 countries we are one earth and we’re
building a place where we’re all
invested and we want to work together
everybody feels like they belong because
we do all belong we need every person
here each one of us is a piece of the
puzzle we may not know what the image at
the end is we don’t have the box that
tells us what this images were supposed
to be constructing we just have all the
pieces and so we’re going to work
together towards this fuzzy image and as
we get closer it’s going to start to
take shape and we’re going to see what
it actually looks like once we build a
better earth we’re building a better
humanity and once we have that better
humanity we can go to Mars we can go
anywhere beyond Mars the opportunities
are endless we can go anywhere we want
to because we’ll have it all figured out
here first we’ll have found a way to be
completely sustainable on earth we’ll be
working together in positive effective
working relationships we will be
communicating effectively and once we do
that man this is going to be such an
amazing place so what are the things
that we can do you know this is a great
idea what are the things that you which
each can individually take home with us
the first thing I want to propose is
that we start with kindness and respect
in the home if you can’t treat your
family members and your fan trends with
love and respect
you’re going to have a very difficult
time being able to do that to someone
you have any kind of difference with it
starts with us treating each other
kindly and respecting each other with
the people we love
next is giving back to our community
human beings don’t like to be outdone by
other human beings we like to be
competitive so if we start volunteering
donating our clothes doing any of the
other options we have to make our
community a better place others will
follow and we’ll all be working together
it starts with choosing to make good
choices choose to conserve resources
and whether that’s conserving water or
any of the other number of resources you
have there are tons of programs out
there and we can help you find programs
that if you don’t know of them to help
you make good choices out there and then
be annoying tell your friends and family
about it and then teach them why you’re
doing what you’re doing because once you
teach them then they will understand
better it’s not just telling them it’s
teaching them invest in the future
invest in the technology and I’m so
excited to see what this technology goes
towards but invest in the kids you kids
in the audience you guys are our future
you guys are the ones that are going to
one decide what retirement home we go to
but also you guys are making all the
decisions for us after we are gone and
your kids and your grandkids everybody
out there is the future and our job as
adults is to give you all of the skills
and the training you need to make the
world a better place so let allow us to
help you to give you the skills you need
because we want to do that once we start
doing these things we are building a
better earth we’re building a better
community on earth it’s so exciting and
I I mean I can’t wait to see what we do
this is good this is such potential so I
have to thank our entire mission support
team because without them I would not be
here this is researchers pea eyes
mission support people that volunteer
all around the world and my crew because
without them we would have made it
through and so with that with this team
working together I’m I’m putting it on
you guys let’s go home and make this world a better place