Arguably one of the most Mars-like environments on Earth, the north side of Mauna Loa has been home sweet home to six NASA crew members for the last year. Inside a dome-shaped structure, they were living out the latest in a series of NASA-operated missions designed to inform spaceflight: Operation HI-SEAS, for Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation. The mission was designed to study the psychological impact of long-term space travel by sticking the crew in a confined environment with the same people. Who would voluntarily sign on for that still isn’t clear, but WIRED checked out the team’s return to normalcy this weekend.
Six Scientists Lived in a Tiny Pod for a Year Pretending They Were on Mars
If you can’t go to Mars, the next best place would be a stark, lava-spewing active volcano in Hawaii. Right?
