“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, the home of human spaceflight, stationed in Houston, Texas. We bring space right to you! On this podcast, you’ll learn from some of the brightest minds of America’s space agency as they discuss topics in engineering, science, technology and more. You’ll hear firsthand from astronauts what it’s like to launch atop a rocket, live in space and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. And you’ll listen in to the more human side of space as our guests tell stories of behind-the-scenes moments never heard before.

Episode 24 features Lisa Spence, Flight Analogs Project Manager, and Dr. Paul Haugen, HERA Operations Engineer, who talk about the space habitat analog here in Texas. They discuss what it’s like inside, what crewmembers do on missions, and how to sign up to participate in the study. This episode was recorded on November 16, 2017.

Transcript

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Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, We Have a Podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 24, Space Habitats. I’m Gary Jordan, and I’ll be your host today. So on this podcast, we bring in the experts, NASA scientists, engineers, astronauts, all to let you know all the coolest information that’s going on right here at NASA. So today we’re talking about the space habitat analog that we have here at the NASA Johnson Space Center called, The Human Exploration Research Analog, or HERA, with Lisa Spence and Paul Haugen. Here in Houston, Lisa is the Flight Analog’s Project Manager for HERA, and Paul is the HERA Operations Engineer. They work with the people who actually stay in HERA, this analog, and simulate deep-space missions for days, weeks, and now more than a month. And actually, just recently, the campaign for Mission 3 this year just got out, and they’re going to be going home for the holidays, and speaking of which, happy holidays to all of you, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, whatever, happy holidays, and I’m glad to see that the campaign for Mission 3 crew members are going to be going home too.

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But here with Lisa and Paul, we had a great discussion about HERA, what it is, what it’s like inside, what crew members do on missions, what we’re learning, and then how to sign up for those missions. So with no further delay, let’s go lightspeed and jump right ahead to our talk with Miss Lisa Spence and Dr. Paul Haugen. Enjoy!

[00:01:23]

[ Music ]

Host:You were part of the crew that was in there during, like, right before Harvey hit, or something?

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: Yep, yep. So we were halfway through when Harvey hit [laughing], so.

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Host:Wow! Halfway through. How — how long of a mission?

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Paul Haugen: It’s a 45-day mission, so.

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Host:Okay.

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Paul Haugen: So we were on day 23 when we got kicked out, so [laughing].

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Host:Wow. So by that time, were you pretty much immersed in…

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Paul Haugen: Oh yeah.

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Host:…in like the whole environment.

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Paul Haugen: Oh yeah, yeah.

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Host:And then, all of a sudden, oh, by the way, you’re back on earth and there’s a hurricane?

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Paul Haugen: It was weird. I mean, we were very much immersed and we got woken up, they have an emergency com [phonetic] for just stuff like this, and we were in a com delay, so our normal com, you know, was — already had a, you know, delay going on, but we got called on the emergency radio and said, pack it up, you guys are kicked out, so.

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Host:That’s it? It was just, alright, well, we’re done, we got to go! So, was — because at the end, I know there’s like usually a ceremony, right, and they do this whole thing where you come out. It was just, alright, you guys get out.

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Paul Haugen: Yep. They had — all the gates were closed, so they had to specially open up a gate to get us out, because they were flooded. I mean…

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Host:Woah!

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Paul Haugen: Yeah.

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Host:[Laughing] Wait, so, when did you — what was the day that you guys were out?

Paul Haugen: We got kicked out on August 27th, so that Sunday morning. So it was right in the middle of all the flooding and stuff.

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Host:Well, okay, so I — I live up in the city, and, by far, the worst — the worst night was Sunday night, but I think Saturday night into Sunday night was pretty bad.

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Paul Haugen: Saturday night was the worst one.

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Host:For here? Down in JSC?

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Paul Haugen: Yeah.

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Host:Oh, wow!

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Paul Haugen: Oh, big time. Yeah, yeah. They got just hammered.

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Host:Wow! So what happened to the HERA facility?

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Paul Haugen: It was fine.

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Host:Really?

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Paul Haugen: So we — we were fine inside, but mission control, those guys were having trouble getting in and out of — of Johnson Space Center, and they — so there was a concern for them that we had to call it short.

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Host:Wow. I know for — they had to set up a lot of cots and everything for people to — to go back and, you know, once they were done, they just slept in the back rooms or something.

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Paul Haugen: Well, in building 30, yeah, but so we have our own mission control.

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Host:You’re talking about HERA mission control?

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Paul Haugen: The HERA mission control, and so those folks were having trouble getting in and out, and — and they were getting stuck in flood waters and stuff. So it was concern for them that we had to call the mission. Yeah, because we — inside HERA, we were fine. We — frankly, we had no idea.

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Host:And you’re right, they closed the gates. So, on top of all the flood waters, you know, you had — you couldn’t even get in.

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Paul Haugen: Yep, yep.

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Host:Wow. Alright. [Laughter] Quite an experience! Are you going back then?

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Paul Haugen: Nope, that’s it.

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Host:That’s it?

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Paul Haugen: I mean, it was — it was fun, but now I know too much so they won’t let me go back and be a subject [laughing].

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Host:Oh, that’s right. Because you actually experienced it. Okay, well let’s — well let’s pull back then, because that was an awesome story. Let’s pull back and just talk about, you know, what is HERA?

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Paul Haugen: Sure, okay.

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Host:So, we’re talking about space habitats, and it’s really a simulator for what it would be like, right, to live in a deep space environment. Is that — is that kind of right?

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Paul Haugen: Close. So it’s — it’s not actually a simulator, and that’s a — it’s a — that’s a word that gets used quite a bit, but it’s a little inaccurate, so it’s not — it’s not actually a simulator, it allows us to simulate what it’s like, and the difference is that, I mean, is — there’s a fidelity difference. So, what this allows us to do is to simulate that we are in a deep space mission and — and we’re isolated, we’re confined, and we’re controlled. And by controlled I mean so they are constantly monitoring us with cameras and audio and we are wearing all sorts of different equipment to measure various biomarkers or whatever the case may be, and — and then there’s a mission control. So they are — it’s very controlled what they allow in and out of HERA. So it’s a very, very controlled environment, and so that’s — and so by being — by allowing us to simulate what it’s like to be, then they can do all sorts of various studies and they can tweak this little part here to see how that will affect things, or — or not, so.

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Host:Okay, so instead of a simulator, what do they — what do they call HERA then?

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Paul Haugen: An analog.

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Host:Analog, okay. So what’s an analog?

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Paul Haugen: So an analog is kind of what I was describing. So it’s — it’s a — it’s an environment that, in our case, there’s two main types of analogs. There’s a — there’s an isolated and confined and controlled analog, and then there’s one that’s more of an extreme environment that’s not as controlled. So — so there’s not as much monitoring, there’s not as much knowing what goes in and out, but it’s more of a harsh environment, such as Antartica or NEEMO, which is an underwater analog. So there’s two main types of analogs, the one here, HERA, is — is the — is the controlled environment. So it’s the isolated control, confined and controlled environment.

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Host:Okay, and what’s the significance of those two segments? Like the controlled environment and then the extreme environment?

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Paul Haugen: Sure. So the controlled one allows you to do specific scientific studies and really control what’s going on, right? So it really allows you to baseline and to — and to change certain parameters that really allow you to see how that is going to affect various things, and you’re very much isolated and controlled that way, whereas more of an extreme one, it’s not nearly — there’s a lot more variables that are not controlled, and so it’s harder to set up specific types of scientific experiments, maybe. However, there’s the added part of being an extreme environment. So there’s actual really, you know, physical risk. You know, if there’s an issue in Antartica, you cannot just open up the door and walk out and be okay and go to the doctor, I mean, you’re — you’re in a rough environment, same with NEEMO. I mean, you can’t just open up the door and, I mean, you’re 60 feet underwater, so…

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Host:Yeah, because NEEMO — yeah, NEEMO is the habitat that’s literally underwater, and you’re right, you can’t — you can’t open up the door, because — because you’re so deep underwater, it’s not even just getting out and splashing up, like, there’s a whole sequence of — of getting…

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Paul Haugen: And there’s real, you know, real danger.

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Host:But the whole — but that’s the purpose, right? Is you’re putting them in an environment because the — the imminent danger is supposed to help with imminent danger in space, right?

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Paul Haugen: That’s correct. So, you’re — you’re adding that stressor that is — is a real stressor. I mean, you know, technically, I suppose that T38 could be considered a type of an analog, because, you know, it’s a — it’s a, you know, they use it as a trainer, but they do that because there’s real risk involved and there’s a real operational experience. Whereas, you know, HERA, I mean, you know, a person knows that you can open the door and step out. Now, that being said, after day 2, it, you know, we were really quite immersed. I mean, we were — I mean, you have that in the back of your head, that you can open the door and step out, but — but you forget about it and you really become immersed in the mission. So — so it’s not as big of a player is what I would have originally thought maybe.

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Host:Yeah.

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Paul Haugen: I mean, I was surprised how quickly I was able to get immersed in the mission and — and forget that I was, I mean, obviously, I knew I wasn’t in space, because I wasn’t floating around or anything like that, but I — but I, you know, I got immersed in the mission, and that happened much, much more than I would have guessed and much quicker than I would have guessed.

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Host:Yeah, because one of the main objectives of HERA, right, is — is the human research component, is understanding what goes through, I guess, well, I guess, psychology is one component, but then there’s other components too for the human research aspect?

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Paul Haugen: Yeah, so, actually, psychology, that’s probably the largest component, because they’re looking at the isolation aspect and that type of thing, and how four crew members operate together, and in our case, I mean, we’re total strangers. So, but the — but then there also is more, you know, there’s physiological studies and — and other principal investigators that look at other aspects as well, but probably the — the psych docs are the biggest components of the studies.

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Host:Yeah, I guess the psychology and then — is there a team component too, because you said, like, you — that you’re working with some strangers, but do they select you because you’re compatible with these strangers or incompatible?

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Paul Haugen: Oh, well, [laughing]. So — so they — so the people that select the crew, so there’s — there’s criteria they want. There’s an age range, they want 30 to 57, I think it is, and they want at least a master’s, and they want it in a technical field, and they, you know, so, there’s different criteria like that, but then beyond that, you know, there’s — and there’s a physical you have to pass, and there’s psych screening that you have to pass, but beyond that, so the people that are selecting the crew, they look at personalities, and they look to see, is this crew going to be compatible? And they are not trying to pick a crew to fail, they are picking one to succeed. So they are picking crew members that they think will — will work well together. And knowing that, you know, maybe one or two or three or four, maybe all of them, are going to have some quirks, like we all do I guess, I mean, that — so maybe they’re not going to work, you know, person A and B are not going to work as well as person C and D together, but they’ll still be good enough to get the job done.

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Host:Yeah.

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Paul Haugen: So they definitely look at that.

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Host:Alright. So, it’s getting these group of people to test, you know, all of these human aspects of — of putting together a mission, and the mission is — is what? What are you simulating in the analog?

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Paul Haugen: So our mission, this year, so this — this year is — is simulating going to an asteroid and collecting samples at the asteroid. It’s a 715 day mission or something like that.

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Host:Wow.

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Paul Haugen: That they, you know, shrink down to 45 days.

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Host:Okay, so you’re — you’re in there for 45 days, but pretending to be in there for…?

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Paul Haugen: That’s correct. So, you know, future ones may be going to the moon, maybe going to Mars, something like that, but — so, but it’s, the purpose for HERA is a deep space mission. So it’s not just going up to ISS or anything like that, but it’s extended exploration into deep space.

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Host:And is the deep space mission in this analog, right? Which is simulating that if you were to go in a — in a mission profile, just like this, you would have this habitat that you would be in, and that you would live and work in for a simulated two-ish years or whatever, but really it’s 45 days, obviously. So what are — what — what’s the lay of the land inside of HERA? What — what’s the full, I guess, the plan? Yeah, the blueprint for HERA?

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Paul Haugen: The floor plan? Yeah. So, they try to keep it, you know, similar to what they think, you know, a deep space vehicle would be, you know, volume wise. Obviously, the difference here is we’re in 1G, so — so we can’t live on the roof or the — or the walls or anything like that.

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Host:Oh, that’s right.

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Paul Haugen: But, so the general layout of the — there’s two and a half levels, [chuckling] I guess you could say. So the bottom level, there’s a tiny airlock, and we use that for simulated EVAs and stuff like that. There’s the main part, down on the first floor, and that has, you know, workstations or different simulators that we’ll work on and stuff. Lab desks, and — and then there’s also a hygiene module. So there’s a bathroom, a shower, a sink and stuff like that. The — the second level is — that’s more of the quote, unquote living space maybe, that’s where the — the food galley is, so that’s where the kitchen is, where we’ll cook, prepare foods, that — we would do — there’s some workstations up there, as well. There’s workout areas for — whether it’s an exercise bike or weights or whatever, and then the half level that I was talking about, it’s actually a level three, but — and those are the sleeping quarters.

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And so those are roughly the size of a twin bed. So they’re fairly small. And they are — and that’s all that’s up there, so it’s — it’s just the sleeping quarters.

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Host:Alright. Hey, thanks for joining us, Lisa, I’m sorry.

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Lisa Spence: Glad to be here!

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Host:I know you’re very busy, especially because there’s — there’s a mission going on right now, right?

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Lisa Spence: Yes, there is. We are actually on day 19 of 45. So, yes, we’re — we’re getting there. We’re getting there.

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Host:Well, Paul was — we started with Paul talking about his part of a mission, because of — because of the whole Harvey thing, but now we were just going through the — the sort of layout of HERA and — and living and working, I guess, but there’s — it’s two and half levels you said, and there’s living, you know, there’s a living component, sleeping component, and it’s — it’s just this whole confined area, right? It’s — is it self-contained?

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Lisa Spence: It’s pretty much self-contained, it’s — it’s not — it’s not hermetically sealed, so it is getting air exchanged from the outside. We don’t have an active environmental control and life support system. You know, we have plumbing that’s provided by the facility, but — but it is self-contained. So once we close the doors to start a mission, those doors stay closed until 45 days later when the crew triumphantly emerges from — from the HERA and gets to reunite with friends and family.

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Host:That’s true. Or quickly emerges, in Paul’s case I guess.

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Lisa Spence: Yeah, that was a — that was a bit unfortunate [laughter].

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Host:Well, he said, even in that short amount of time, he got immersed, right? You got immersed into the environment, and you were living it. Right? So what was that like living it then? What was — you know, what — what state of mind were you in in order to, you know, to think that you’re in space? That you were operating in a — in a space habitat?

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Paul Haugen: So — so, again, I don’t quite know how to describe it, because, I mean, so — so, you know, we knew that we weren’t in space, for example, but I get — maybe it started with training. I mean, the trainers did such a good job explaining the importance of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and — and how important it is to get in that mindset, and so just going in purposely with that mindset, it — I guess it just kind of came naturally then after that, and — and we got into a routine and, you know, we — we kept incredibly busy, you know we had — it was partly a sleep deprivation going on, so we had long work days and they just kept us busy doing tasks all day, and — and it really — I suppose that was part of it too, just keeping us busy and going — constantly going, you know, that helped us to — to get in there.

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Host:So on top of the 45 days, there’s a prepping component too?

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Paul Haugen: Oh yeah.

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Host:How early are you starting to — to prep the crew members for their stay?

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Lisa Spence: So the training, for these 45 day missions, the training starts 16 days before they’re going to go in. So, it’s — we were finding that two weeks was just a little bit cramped, and even 16 days may be a little cramped. Because as — as Paul said, we keep them really, really busy during the timeframe that they’re in there. And so some of that is on the more operational tasks. So, you know, the kinds of activities and tasks that you would do as you are flying your spacecraft to this destination. And then, of course, the activities that you’re going to do at destination and then the return. But they’re also engaged in all of the scientific investigations that — that we are doing where we’re collecting the data that will ultimately inform some decisions that we’ll be making, you know, in order to keep our crew members safe and healthy and happy and productive as they’re going on those really long duration exploration missions. So — so there is — there is that training component that’s up front.

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We’re also collecting some data that we used as our baseline data that can then be compared to, well, what are the effects, you know? So now we have these individuals, we get some baseline information, now we subject them to this — this isolated, confined, and controlled environment for 45 days. You know, what is that effect? What changes? And can we detect those kinds of changes? And then, ultimately, will we be able to mitigate those changes if they’re not healthy or productive?

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Host:Alright. So there’s, I mean, 16 days, that’s a pretty jam-packed kind of schedule to prep for all of that sort of training. What kind of — what’s the type of training you’re getting, I guess it depends on what you’re doing on board, so I guess the follow up would be, what are you doing on board?

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Paul Haugen: So, I’m not quite sure how detailed we can get, because we can’t spill the beans for future stuff.

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Host:That’s right, because you want people to sign up to do more missions.

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Lisa Spence: We do!

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Host:Okay!

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Lisa Spence: It’s critically important that — that we’re able to find, you know, suitable volunteers, you know, people who, to a large degree, mimic or emulate the type of people that we select for astronauts. So that’s very important to us. But, you know, some of the types of things that they do, you know, we have a lot of simulators. And so they’re flying a simulator for their spacecraft. They’re participating in virtual reality EVAs. So they do spacewalks that they’re all in virtual reality. There’s prep work that needs to go with all of that. There’s also a simulator that is like a robotic arm trainer. And — and those are what we — some of the operational tasks, so the operational tasks do allow us to collect some data, as well. They have to cook their food [laughter]. Yeah, there’s — there’s, you know, there’s no, you know, mom or dad or — or spouse or whatever to cook the meals for you, so they do have to cook their own food.

[00:20:56]

It’s all food from — for this current mission, this series of missions, all of the food is from the food lab at JSC. The same food that the astronauts are getting on board the International Space Station, which means that it’s either prepackaged, it’s dehydrated, or it’s those meals ready to eat that you just kind of warm up in a little warming oven, and every single package of food has to be individually fixed. So it takes time. There’s a serial process. They get to do a lot of exercise, and then, you know, of course, any self-respecting spacecraft, you’re going to have to do a little bit of onboard training, you’re going to have to do some maintenance and housekeeping tasks. We also have to practice some emergency procedures just in case an emergency were to happen. And so — so, you know, the team, my team, comes up with, you know, a very intensive scenario for the spacecraft mission itself, and then we weave in the — all of the different scientific investigations.

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Host:Alright [laughing]. So, do you have to make up different ones every time or is it — do they sort of translate? The emergency scenarios?

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Paul Haugen: So there’s a wide variety of things that they run you through and stuff like that, and, you know, all of those things, you know, they need to train you in 16 days prior, because, as Lisa said, I mean, if — if you don’t know how to do something, it’s not like they’re going to open the door and show you how to do it. So they — you need to know how to do all of the operational tasks, all of the scientific studies, how the vehicle works, how the HERA works, in those 16 days. So — so the training is quite intensive, as well. They — they really cram it with [inaudible] and that stuff.

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Host:Sounds like it! Is there a lot of autonomy with the way that you’re doing these tasks? Or do you have some support from — from a simulated mission control?

[00:23:07]

Paul Haugen: Well, so mission control is always there. So they’re — they’re 24/7. And they are always there to answer questions or — or whatever the case. So you always have that support. There’s, honestly, I think it depends, it varies from crew to crew and crew member to crew member how autonomous a person or a crew will — wants to be.

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Host: Oh!

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Paul Haugen: So MCC is always there, but some crews, or some people, may be a little more autonomous than others.

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Host:So is that one of the things you’re looking at, Lisa, is trying to see, you know, what — what things people can do by themselves and what, you know, about autonomy and what you need to support?

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Lisa Spence: Yep, absolutely. Some of the research is looking at those levels of autonomy, and so, yes, MCC is there 24/7. Sometimes they’re more there than at other times. But one of the other things that happens during the mission is, you know, we’re — we’re simulating a mission to an asteroid. You’re getting really, really, really far away from earth over the course of the mission. So as you get further away from the earth, there’s a calm delay. And so you don’t — when you say something to mission control, it may take, you know, anywhere from an additional 30 seconds to 5 minutes before they hear what you said. And then, of course, when they respond, it’s going to take that same 30 seconds to 5 minutes before you hear it. So if you’re the crew member on board, and you have a question, and you ask MCC a question, it’s at least 10 minutes, worst case, it’s at least 10 minutes before you get a response.

[00:24:54]

And so what we find is that sometimes the crew members will have to wait for the response, and sometimes the crew members just get to the point where they’re like, hey, we don’t need no stinking mission control [laughter], we can figure this out by ourselves, because we’re not going to hear back from them anytime real soon. So we do see some — some trending towards increased autonomy. As we move forward with, not this particular research campaign, but future research campaigns, autonomy will become more and more important from a — from a research perspective. So, mission control will always be there 24/7 to some degree, because that’s a — that’s a safety requirement to make sure that we have, you know, that everybody is going to, you know, be able to implement the mission safely, no issues, no problems, but in terms of how much interaction the crew members might have with the mission control, that may be scaled back in — in future research campaigns to sort of force that autonomy and to — to really be able to determine, you know, if there are tasks that can and should be done that way, or if there are things that ought not to be done so autonomously.

[00:26:21]

Host:So is that kind of depending on the mission profile? So you’re doing a mission profile to an asteroid now. Maybe with — once you get to Mars, those can take 20-something minute one-way trip. You’re talking about not getting a response for 40 minutes! So, autonomy is definitely something that needs to be built into the tasks for — for that kind of mission, right?

[00:26:44]

Lisa Spence: Absolutely. And — and with the autonomy, we’ll probably come and need to revisit how we’re doing training, how much training we can do, how long it’s going to take to do the training, and whether we need to move some of that training inside the module after the mission starts. I’m not talking about us coming in and — and setting up our little genie workshop, you know, it would be some type of onboard training, maybe some uplink video or something along those lines, but our simulator does have the capability of doing that 20 minute voice delay. We just — we don’t need it for the current — current set of missions, but if we change our scenario, and as we change our scenario to — to a Mars-based scenario, we could certainly implement that longer — longer-term comm delay.

[00:27:39]

Host:Wow. So, Paul, did you have to live this comm delay?

[00:27:43]

Paul Haugen: Yep.

[00:27:43]

Host:You did?

[00:27:44]

Paul Haugen: Yeah, we were — so we were on day 23. So we were at the 5-minute, one-way comm delays, so.

[00:27:50]

Host:Alright. So how did that affect your work from, you know, how did that progress?

[00:27:55]

Paul Haugen: You know, frankly, I — I didn’t really notice any difference other than having to be a little more careful about what — looking ahead more in whatever task we were working on, and saying, oh, I need to interact with MCC here, I’m going to make the call as soon as I possibly can, and kind of lining it up that way. But really, I mean, it wasn’t as huge an impact. I think, you know, one or two of the crew members would probably say otherwise, you know, I think it was a little more of an impact, but, you know, then one or two of us, you know, I don’t think it was a huge impact, so.

[00:28:39]

Host:So is that some of the stuff you’re finding, Lisa? Is that some of this stuff is not universal, right? It kind of is a little bit more crew-dependent.

[00:28:47]

Lisa Spence: It certainly is. And you had asked the question a little while ago about, you know, whether some of the tasks that we do, if we create them new for every mission? Actually what we do is we — we have a suite of scientific investigations that we’re — we’re implementing right now. We will implement those scientific investigations for all four of the missions that will run within that, we call it a campaign. Each one of the missions in that campaign is as identical as we can make it from a mission control, from a timeline standpoint, the variable in how the mission is executed really comes down to the individuals who are our crew members inside. And, you know, we say it a little bit tongue-in-cheek, and it’s — it’s really true, every single crew is different. You know, every crew is special, they’re different, they’re unique.

[00:29:50]

How these four individuals mold into a crew. It’s different every single time, and then, of course, the — the four individuals acting as individuals, that’s different every time as well. So, it — it really — you know, when I abstract myself out of, you know, the actual execution of the mission and I look at it kind of more in an aggregate viewpoint, it’s just fun to — to see the variability between individuals.

[00:30:24]

Host:Absolutely! That’s just good science, right? Doing it the same, and then you just see the differences between exactly what you want to study, which is the people, right?

[00:30:32]

Lisa Spence: That’s what we’re hoping for, yes.

[00:30:35]

Host:Alright.

[00:30:36]

Paul Haugen: And that’s one thing that’s very unique. You know, we had talked earlier about the different types of analogs, and that’s one thing that is very unique, I think, to HERA, is that we are able to — to cookie cutter four missions and have them as identical as they possibly can be, and have 16 subjects, or 16 guinea pigs or whatever, that we are — can use for that scientific data. That is, you know, probably more unique to our analog than — than to some others.

[00:31:07]

Host:Alright. So backing up from there. 16, you’re talking about 4 mission per year, right? So 4 missions of 4 crew members.

[00:31:15]

Paul Haugen: Correct.

[00:31:16]

Host:And this year, I guess, was the 45-day mission.

[00:31:19]

Paul Haugen: Yes.

[00:31:19]

Host:So where did it start and how has it evolved?

[00:31:22]

Lisa Spence: So the HERA, this is only our fourth year of operations. So this is campaign four. It started, I guess, in, you know, 2012, 2013, with seven-day missions. So pretty short, you know, but, you know, that’s — it’s a good place to start. And then the following year, we went to 14-day missions. So we doubled, which is pretty exciting! And then the third year, so campaign three, last year, we did four 30-day missions. So we doubled again. Now, if you do the math, we couldn’t continue to double the duration of the mission and still get four missions executed in, you know, roughly a year’s period of time. So, we — we worked very, very closely with our — our scientific community, the stakeholders in all of this, and, well, yeah, they — they certainly want those longer duration missions, they kind of determined that 45 days is a duration that is — is very beneficial to them, and so we — we can do the four 45-day missions in roughly a year.

[00:32:41]

As long as we don’t get Harvey’d. [Laughter] Harvey — Harvey sort of threw a monkey wrench into the whole process this year.

[00:32:49]

Host:Oh, that’s right. So what number was your mission, Paul? Was it number three of four?

[00:32:53]

Paul Haugen: We were actually number two.

[00:32:55]

Host:Number two? Okay. So you got — you have two completed 45-day missions, right, and you’re on the last one? Or is it — did the schedule kind of get messed up?

[00:33:05]

Lisa Spence: The schedule got a little bit wonky. I guess the technical term that we use for wonky. So, Paul’s mission was the second, and it got Harvey’d. So truncated at 23 days. And so we’re — we’re currently in the middle of our third mission.

[00:33:22]

Host:I see.

[00:33:23]

Lisa Spence: So, again, you kind of have to, you know, we had to do all the recovery, of course, from — from Harvey, and then, you know, we already had this third mission scheduled for a specific time. We’d recruited subjects, and so we can’t just, you know, move the schedule around, you know, to fill up the white space that was created by the shortened mission. So — so this is the third mission. Our fourth mission will start in the January timeframe.

[00:33:52]

Host:Alright. So you mentioned that the 45-day mission was kind of like a 700 and something, what was the number again?

[00:34:00]

Paul Haugen: I think it was 715 or something like that.

[00:34:03]

Host:715 day mission collapsed into 45, just because 715 would be a lot to ask of someone.

[00:34:11]

Lisa Spence: In terms of a time warp. [Laughter]

[00:34:15]

Host:So how — so how has the mission design changed for, because there was a 7-day mission, right? Did you — did you condense the 715 day mission to 7 days?

[00:34:24]

Lisa Spence: We used a slightly different scenario during the — the 7 and 14 day missions, but, yeah, they do get compressed or condensed fairly significantly. The 45-day mission, obviously, means that we don’t have to compress it quite so much, but as — as we move on, we are looking at different kinds of scenarios, and, you know, so we may — we may use a different compression factor just depending on what kind of mission profile we choose to fly for future campaigns.

[00:34:56]

Host:So what was the 7-day mission? Was it out to an asteroid or was it somewhere else?

[00:34:59]

Lisa Spence: I believe it was to an asteroid. I actually came onto the project at the tail end of the 14-day missions, actually, I think they were already over by the time I came onto the project. So — so I’ve really only been the project manager, you know, for the end of that campaign, and then all of the third and the fourth campaign. And now planning for campaign five.

[00:35:23]

Host:Alright!

[00:35:24]

Lisa Spence: Yes, it’s very exciting!

[00:35:25]

Host:So what’s — what’s coming up then? Do you — do you want to preview?

[00:35:29]

Paul Haugen: For campaign five?

[00:35:30]

Host:Yeah!

[00:35:30]

Paul Haugen: I mean, it’s going to be, you know, the same type of thing, where they’ll be a deep space exploration mission, you know, to a destination of some type, and it’ll be, you know, they’ll be operational — it’ll be laid out the same, it’ll be a different scenario, but it’ll be the same type of something, so operational tasks, scientific tasks, they’ll be looking at, you know, psychological aspects and autonomy and — and possibly some physiological, again, but — but the — it’ll be laid out similar. So, again, they’ll be four missions, you know, as identical as can possibly be with four crews a piece, so.

[00:36:16]

Lisa Spence: And they will be 45 day missions. So, for the foreseeable future, you know, all of our campaigns, as far as we know, the research community is requesting us to continue with the 45-day missions. So, for campaign five, we — we will have a different suite of scientific investigations. Some of the investigations that we’re currently doing will carry over, and then we also have some new investigations that we’ll be executing for the first time in campaign five. So — so, there’s — there’s a lot of work that needs to be done with that. The — the investigations themselves, often times, will drive the types of operational activities that my team develops. So, for instance, you know, one particular research investigation may be looking at crew interactions. And so we might want to develop some operational tasks that would force a couple of crew members with working together, and maybe force different combinations of the four crew members working together, maybe, you know, two working together, three working together, or even tasks that would require all four.

[00:37:36]

And so, as we get into — we’re just getting ready to kick off all of that activity, but as we get into kind of into the guts of the individual scientific investigations, that will help us determine what scenario is going to work best, what kind of activities will we need to do, how intensive are some of the data collection activities that we need to do, how is that going to impact laying things out on a mission timeline? All of those things kind of get rolled up into a whole lot of work that a small number of people will do in what seemingly is an incredibly short amount of time.

[00:38:21]

Host:Alright. Well, it sounds like there’s not a lot of spoilers that you can give for what’s coming up and — but is there — is there some high level stuff that you can share about what you’ve learned so far and how that’s going to be put into deep space missions for actually, you know, for human spaceflight in the future?

[00:38:37]

Paul Haugen: You know, you’re kind of touching on an area that, for me, was one of the neatest aspects of — of being on the crew, and that was — was having the folks doing the training amplifying the fact that this is needed for — for real deep space missions. So this type of research, the questions that are being asked, and the answers that they’re trying to find are needed before we can ever hope to go to deep space. And so that aspect is — is pretty neat. You know, there’s — there’s — all of the questions I think that we’ve already been touching on as far as what types of questions they need to answer. You know, the autonomy, the crew composition, the [pause] different — how busy do the crew need to be on, you know, if they’re going for 9 months to Mars, how busy do they need to be during that time?

[00:39:42]

Or can they just have nothing to do all day for nine months? I mean, so there’s all sorts of different questions that — that need to be answered and they’re trying to answer now. I think, you know, I think a lot of the studies, because they do roll from year to year, I think a lot of it hasn’t been published yet and been fully analyzed, so I think — I think, Lisa will know better, but I think we’re just starting to get to the point where they’re starting to maybe publish some of the work now from the past four years.

[00:40:10]

Host:So more to come.

[00:40:11]

Lisa Spence: Yeah, absolutely more to come. And — and Paul’s absolutely right. A lot of the studies that we saw in earlier campaigns, they do have a tendency to roll forward. About half of the studies in any given campaign tend to move forward, and some of them have — have been implemented or plan to be implemented in two or three, maybe even more, research campaigns. So it — it gives the researchers a lot of — a lot of N, you know, that scientific validity, but the researchers are also being — making some slight modifications to how they’re doing their research based on what they’re seeing. That doesn’t mean that they have the answers or that they have published those answers, but they can kind of see, you know, trends in what is — what is going on. So, I think it will be very exciting. One of the things that the human research program does every year, they have an investigator’s workshop that happens at the end of January, it’s down in Galveston.

[00:41:21]

We invite all of the researchers who are being funded through the humean research program to come and talk about their research, yo uknow, and whether that is talking about what their research is, you know, for instance, if they don’t have any results yet or haven’t crunched all the numbers, if you will, or whether they have preliminary results or, you know, if they’re just in the planning stage for that next experiment. But it — it really, I think we are now at the point where the 2018 investigator workshop is — is really going to start, we’re really going to start hearing about some of the results that investigators, participating in HERA over the last three years, have — what they found.

[00:42:11]

Host:Wow!

[00:42:12]

Lisa Spence: I know! It’s great!

[00:42:14]

Host:That’s cool! So, HERA is mostly human study, right? It’s mostly the human aspect. Is there some components of designing a mission or the layout of a space habitat or is it really just focusing on the human part?

[00:42:29]

Paul Haugen: No, I think you touch on an important aspect. So, I mean, you know, there’s — whether it’s procedures or even equipment or whatever that — that sometimes, you know, groups will want to vet or check out in an analog such as HERA. So — so there’s — there’s most definitely other aspects of — of what analogs are useful for, and — and can be used for.

[00:42:55]

Host:Definitely.

[00:42:55]

Paul Haugen: And mission planning too like you stated, as well. So, yeah.

[00:42:59]

Host:Even on the International Space Station right now, too, they — they have, you know, they have conferences for, like medical conferences that are private because, you know, you need to keep that stuff confidential, but then also in case anything’s wrong, you can talk to a psychologist, and then you can talk to your family too, so you’re in constant communication with them, you’re in constant communication with the ground, you don’t feel isolated, you know, all of these things on the International Space Station, as well, and I’m sure HERA too has some human elements, but all of this can be translated out to deep space. So, Paul, take me through like, I don’t know, without, you know, much spoilers, what’s like a typical day in — on the — in HERA.

[00:43:39]

Lisa Spence: You wake up at 7. [Laughter]

[00:43:42]

Paul Haugen: Yep, wake up at 7, you know, you — you don all of your equipment, which takes a fair amount of time, I mean, there’s all sorts of different measurements that — that they’re taking, so, you don that stuff, you eat breakfast, and then you begin your day. So, there’s — whether it’s — and the days vary, so it’s not the same everyday. So, whether it’s, you know, some of the simulator that Lisa was describing earlier or some of the other various tasks — tasks, and, you know, generally we do them throughout the morning, you know, lunch would be later, typically, and we had a sleep deprivation going on, like I was stating. So, we eat later, in, you know, mid-afternoon, and then continue on with tasks until evening. And evening would roll around and we would, you know, obviously eat supper then, and — and then we would have a little bit of downtime, and, you know, we had to be sure that we stayed awake until certain — you know, so they were monitoring that pretty closely.

[00:44:49]

But, so — but the days were surprising, I mean, the time was absolutely flying by. I mean, it felt like we had been in there about 5 days and it was 23. I mean, it felt like we were in the first week. So, it was really going by fast.

[00:45:07]

Host:Did you — was your sense of time off, because you’re not really seeing the sun rise and set, right?

[00:45:13]

Paul Haugen: Yeah, yeah, I suppose it was. You know, yeah, I think so. You know, that was a little weird not seeing the sun ever [laughter], but — but, yeah, you know, yeah, I guess, you know, I didn’t find myself getting hungry until lunch at 3 o’clock or whatever it was, you know, I mean, later in the day, and supper we were eating late, but — but it didn’t seem like that. It didn’t seem like we were working these extended, long days, it seemed like — like just a normal day. I mean, so the days were going by fast, and the — the time itself was going by pretty fast.

[00:45:50]

Host:Wow. So you wouldn’t let Paul go to sleep, huh?

[00:45:54]

Lisa Spence: No. No, everybody had to stay awake. So with the — the study that’s going on, the — the awake time is 19 hours, and then the sleep time is 5 hours, that’s only Monday through Friday, you get to sleep in a bit on the weekend. So you do get a break on the weekend, sort of reset. And — and for some individuals, the fact that there is a weekend and — and the schedule’s a little bti different, that might help people mark time, but, yeah, the absence of all of those external queues. We do find that — that the crew members lose track a little bit of time. Now you had a very special guest inside — inside the HERA.

[00:46:39]

Paul Haugen: We did.

[00:46:40]

Lisa Spence: You had Wilson. And so, that goes back to the movie, I guess, Castaway, right?

[00:46:47]

Host:Alright!

[00:46:48]

Lisa Spence: Now, as I recall from that movie, and it has been a long time, he kind of marked off the number of days, but he was able to see the sun rise and the sun set to keep track of how many days he’d been on that desert island, but I didn’t observe this crew marking off the days, they just had Wilson as their companion.

[00:47:08]

Paul Haugen: Actually we did. So we had on — there was a little whiteboard that we designated and we’d written out the calendar, or, you know, the mission days, and that was one of the highlights. So at the end of the day, we would go down and X off what day we had finished, and…

[00:47:22]

Lisa Spence: Like an advent calendar.

[00:47:24]

Paul Haugen: Yep, that’s exactly what it was like! And we — we marked where, you know, the halfway point, we marked when the comm delays would start. You know, kind of all of the big, exciting things. When we’d reach the destination and how long we’d be there. We — we blocked that off. So — so, we were — we were checking the days off, but that was kind of a — I mean, it was, you know, exciting to who’s turn it was to check off the date [laughing], so.

[00:47:49]

Host:So that was something that your crew sort of just kept track of, right? It wasn’t assigned to you, it was just, so was it like a team building thing that you guys came up with or…?

[00:47:58]

Paul Haugen: Not intentionally, but, I mean, it kind of ended up being that way. I mean, you know, it ended up being that, you know, I mean, you know, I think it was the first day we were in there and I just wrote out the numbers, and I didn’t think anyone would really care, but then, you know, they all wanted to be — everyone wanted to be, you know, the one to check it off when we were done with the day, so. So it kind of became I suppose a team-building thing.

[00:48:20]

Host:Yeah. I guess in an environment like that, like those little things, you really just look forward to. And hanging out with Wilson too.

[00:48:27]

Paul Haugen: Yeah, you know, having Wilson — I mean, we used him on a lot of the PAO events and, you know, had them, had them around, and so, yeah, it became kind of a — kind of a neat, little team-building mascot, as well.

[00:48:43]

Host:Wow. So the kinds of people you’re looking for to sign up are astronaut-like, right? In what sense?

[00:48:51]

Lisa Spence: So, obviously, our astronauts are very healthy. So, our — our subjects have to be able to pass a modified class III Air Force physical, which — which generally means you’re in pretty good health.

[00:49:04]

Host:Congratulations, Paul. [Laughter]

[00:49:06]

Lisa Spence: So you don’t have to be an Olympic athlete or anything like that, but you do need to be pretty — pretty healthy. We’re looking for people between the age range of 30 and 55. And I know we’ve gotten a lot of feedback on that, but — but by the time our astronauts fly, that’s really generally the age range that we’re going to see. So we want them to be similar in terms of, you know, I’ll call it social maturity, educational maturity, social maturity, so similar in that respect, to our astronaut corp. Our astronauts are pretty highly-educated. And so education is also one of our criteria and we — we are looking for people who have an advanced degree, say a master’s degree or above, in some type of STEM, you know, science, technology, engineering, or math field. That’s — that’s our — our — our favorite criterion to use, one of our key criterions to use.

[00:50:12]

We do find, though, that — that people who have certain types of backgrounds, say, for instance, a military background. We can easily substitute military background for that advanced education if — if a person has, you know, some level of skill in, say, maybe an engineering or a technology type of field, and military experience. Those people are very similar to our astronaut corp, as well. So — so those are some of the — the major criterion that we’re looking for. You know, we are looking for men, as well as women. We — in a perfect world, we would have a career that’s — that’s 50/50, you know, half men and half women. You know, so — so those healthy, educated, you know, individuals. Some of the other things that — that we look for are people who are highly-motivated.

[00:51:14]

You know, so maybe goal-oriented, highly-motivated, that’s, you know, that describes our astronaut corp to a T. And so, so those are some of the factors that we’re looking at, as well. And — and, you know, so most of those things are objective, you know, you can — you check them off, you know, yep, you’re in the right age range, yep, you’ve got the right skillset or educational background, yep, you passed the physical. And then we also do some interviews and some assessments with the potential crew members and say, yep, this person’s definitely goal-oriented, which, you know, helps us to say, you know, this person, if they set a goal to, you know, stay with us for 45 days, by golly, they’re going to meet that goal.

[00:52:02]

Host:That’s true. Because you need good people and good data too. You don’t want someone leaving halfway through it, just like, eh, I’m done.

[00:52:09]

Paul Haugen: Yep.

[00:52:09]

Lisa Spence: That would be a bad day.

[00:52:10]

Host:That would be a bad day. Alright, well, I’m sure there are plenty of people out there like that, but it’s interesting that you say, you know, in a perfect world, half — half men, half women, is that — is that the ultimate goal or do you kind of mix it up every once in awhile?

[00:52:25]

Lisa Spence: So that’s — that’s our ultimate goal, and that is the goal that — that we have from a research perspective. You know, so over the course of the campaign, they would really dearly love to see that 8 of the 16 were female and 8 of the 16 were male. So we — we would like to have that, you know, that 50/50 split in each mission, but we also have to maintain schedule. And so, sometimes just the way it works out between the people who have applied and who have screened and been found acceptable, they may or may not be available for a specific mission. So we have had missions where all four crew members were male, we’ve had missions where all four crew members were female! And we’ve had missions with a 50/50 split, and we’ve had missions with, you know, three of one gender and one of the other. So, to some degree, we kind of take what we can get, or what’s available, it generally comes very close to to 50/50 over the course of the campaign.

[00:53:33]

Host:Alright. Well, hey, good — best of luck to you for getting the candidates for — for the HERA 5 I guess. What’s the next one called?

[00:53:41]

Paul Haugen: Campaign five.

[00:53:42]

Host:Campaign five, yeah.

[00:53:43]

Lisa Spence: Campaign five.

[00:53:44]

Host:Very cool! Alright, well, I think that’s a great place to wrap up, and if you stay tuned until afterwards, we’ll tell you exactly where to sign up so you can possibly be a HERA crew member if you meet all the qualifications that Lisa said, but Lisa and Paul, thanks so much for — for coming in today. Lisa, I know you’re busy, so thanks for running over here [laughter]. I appreciate this. This was really cool! I really…

[00:54:05]

Paul Haugen: Yeah, thank you.

[00:54:05]

Host:Just to know about HERA. I’ve been to HERA and visited a couple of times, but just to — to dive in and understand what it’s like to be there, that’s — that’s pretty cool. So thanks again for coming on!

[00:54:15]

Paul Haugen: Thank you!

[00:54:15]

Lisa Spence: Absolutely! And if you’re over 30, consider joining us.

[00:54:20]

Host:Almost there. [Laughter]

[00:54:23]

[ Music ]

Host:Hey, thanks for sticking around! So, based on Lisa’s description, if you think you’re qualified to stay in HERA for those 45 day missions, and from what Paul was describing — was describing, they sounded pretty cool. Just go to nasa.gov/analogs/HERA. That is the official HERA page, and if you scroll to the bottom, there’s a box that says, want to participate, and there you can see all the qualifications and how to apply and all that kind of stuff and be prepared for campaign five next year. Those 45-day missions that Lisa was talking about, and the new mission profile that they’re going to be doing.

[00:55:24]

We also like to post about HERA on social media, on the NASA Johnson Space Center accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you have a question about HERA, just use the hashtag NASA on any one of those platforms, and ask a question about HERA, we’ll answer it, otherwise, if you have an idea for the show that you want us to do, maybe you want us to do another episode on HERA or on something else entirely. Make sure to mention it’s for, Houston, We Have a Podcast, and we’ll make sure to answer it for you or even do a whole episode on it. So this podcast was recorded on November 16th, 2017. Thanks to Alex Perryman for producing the show, and thanks again to Miss Lisa Spence and Dr. Paul Haugen for coming on the show. We’ll be back next week!