1 Year, 6 Humans, Billions of Microbes

Background: 

Do you think humans could be a multi-planetary species? What would need to happen to make that dream a reality? These questions have spurred scientific researchers to develop projects that explore logistics of human survival in outer space, especially in an isolated and confined environment (ICE) over time. One such project is the Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS). This is a NASA and University of Hawaii funded simulation that is set up to imitate a base camp on Mars or the Moon. Several crewed missions have been run at this “base camp” – the longest, Mission IV, had six crew members live there for a year. Mission IV included several scientific experiments amongst different disciplines such as psychology, botany, physiology and microbiology.

Photograph by HI-SEAS Mission IV members Christiane Heinicke and Sheyna Gifford, 2015
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