I've been selected to be a crew person on a 2-week
HERA isolation study about how a long
duration space mission would affect the people living in close confines far
away from home. The next two weeks we will receive training and provide
initial data for the researchers. Then we will be sequestered in the HERA
modules for 2 weeks, and that's that. After we get out we do some
debriefing, and presumably some more data gathering. It should be an
interesting challenge, to say the least, right here in my backyard. Does
this count as a "staycation" for me?
Some external views of my future 2-week home:
Immediately right of the main entrance is a workstation for the
environmental systems and such.
Just left of that is the hygiene module, with the bathroom facilities.
It will be interesting to see how communal use of this co-ed facility will work
out.
Left of the hygiene module entrance is the simulator workstation for
orbiters/rovers (?), I believe.
Left of that is the area where some of the biological sampling will be
done. There is a tube here to send out saliva swabs to be flash-frozen,
as well as the pass-through to dispose of our trash.
Left of the previous workspace is the med table, and left of that is the
entrance to the "airlock" module. It is in here that we will
put our arms through a curtain for a phlebotomist to take blood samples from
time to time during the study. This is so we won't see them, and we won't
be talking, but communicating via hand signals. I did say this was an
isolation study, as you recall. This photo is taken through the central
lift/ladder that is used to move between the first and second levels of the core
module.
More to come
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