Staying sane in space

In the last couple of weeks, a lot of people have been getting excited about space exploration thanks to Artemis II. So this week, we revisit an episode from our archives all about life as an astronaut and the psychological impacts of long distance space travel. And if you enjoy this episode, check out Artemis Explained, a podcast from the Science Friction team, following the Artemis II mission. This episode was first broadcast in March 2024. You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. Guests: Dr Albert Holland, Senior Operational Psychologist, NASA Johnson Space CenterDr Cady Coleman, Former NASA astronautJamey Simpson, Cady's sonWith excerpts from:Space: The Longest Goodbye, directed by Ido Mizrahy Credits: Presenter/producer: Sana QadarProducer: Rose KerrSound engineer: Simon BranthwaiteMore information: Artemis Explained podcast https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/sciencefriction/artemis-moon-launch-mission/106520816Science Friction https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/sciencefrictionTo view the transcript for this episode, please head to its original webpage https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/allinthemind/unicorns-mars-mission-mental-health-space/103458090.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Sana Qadar here. If you've been watching the progress of the Artemis II mission this past week, you have probably seen that humans have now travelled further from Earth than ever before. And I don't know about you, but it's had me mesmerised, it's had me awestruck. Like, there are just so few good news stories around that this one has really been a bright spot this past week. And so we thought it would be a good chance to replay an episode from our archives, which is all about life as an astronaut, what it takes to be mentally fit for life as an astronaut. Here's the episode.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  It was a magical place to live and work. And it takes really just like the touch of a finger to fly across the space station. And you really don't walk anywhere. And it's just so clear that every single thing that you're doing is actually moving us forward towards exploring the universe, living on the moon and in preparation for perhaps Mars.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Fewer than 700 people have ever been to space. Only 276 people have ever visited the International Space Station. And only 44 of those have been women. That basically makes Katie Coleman a unicorn.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  My name is Katie Coleman and I am a former NASA astronaut.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  So how old were you when you first thought, I want to be an astronaut one day?

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Probably about 20.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  I know. I think you were maybe expecting...

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, like a five-year-old Katie saying, "I'm gonna go to space."

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Well, and I was born in 1960. And I saw the first astronauts being chosen and people flying. And I really thought all of it was very cool. But there was nothing in that picture that made me think, maybe this could be me. And I think it really helps to see somebody who kind of feels like you, especially when it's something amazing where you just think, oh, only very special people, amazing, get to do this. And then you find out that they're actually pretty normal.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Okay, "normal" is a very relative term here because astronauts are special. Not only do they have to be excellent at the technical side of their jobs, they need to be mentally and emotionally excellent. Because think about what's involved in a mission to the ISS, International Space Station, for example. Not only is it dangerous, but you're stuck with the same people for weeks or months on end. And if one of your colleagues is getting on your nerves, there's nowhere to escape to. Oh, and all your friends and family are far, far away.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  And if you think about that, you think, well, okay, I can stay on an elevator with just about anybody up to the 10th floor, right?

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  But could you stay on that elevator for a month with the same people?

• 3:00Speaker 01

  And now, take all of those considerations and think about this. In the next 10 years, NASA hopes to send people to Mars, a mission that could take about three years. That is longer, more dangerous, more fraught than anything done before. So, how do you prepare the human mind for something like that?

• 3:20Speaker 03

  These are people we're dealing with. These aren't robotic landers.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  It's the central question of a new documentary called "Space: The Longest Goodbye", and we're going to hear from two of the people in it. NASA psychologist Al Holland-

• 3:32Speaker 03

  It excites me and worries me.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  And retired astronaut Katie Coleman.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  I think humans can do anything.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Today, the psychological challenges of space travel and what that means for a mission to Mars. I'm Sana Qadar, this is All in the Mind.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Of being here at the Johnson Space Center, you get to watch the wildlife.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Wow, I had no idea there were deer in Texas. When psychologist Al Holland joined NASA in the 1980s, he had one task.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  Learning. My first five years here, I was just learning, and so-

• 4:04Speaker 01

  He wanted to know how the organization could do a better job of selecting astronauts that would be capable of working in space for longer periods of time, because longer missions were on the horizon.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  We were going to be flying with Russians onboard Mir-

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Mir was the Russian space station that was built before the International Space Station.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  So, the issue was, well, do we want to fly people- For the first time in long-duration flight without any support system at all. And do we understand what the issues are? And the answer to both of those was no. And so what I was doing was just going around and trying to get all the lessons learned from the different analog environments. And by analog environments, I mean environments that are very similar to spaceflight or the space missions that we would have. So I went and I talked to the Navy, went up to the sub labs and talked to those folks, went out to the deep-sea diving rigs and Antarctic stations, to all the different analogs that I could find and talked to people and just asked them, how do you select people? How do you screen people? What are you looking for? What sort of problems do you have? When do those start showing up?

• 5:08Speaker 03

  What have you tried to do as a countermeasure?

• 5:10Speaker 01

  And here's what he learned from those conversations, the qualities that a good astronaut needs.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  Well, first and foremost, self-regulation. You need to be able to regulate your emotions. You need to be composed under pressure. You need to be self-aware. You need to have a somewhat positive demeanor.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  You also need to be able to think on your feet, I mean, as much as you can, floating around a spaceship.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Need to be resilient when you're struck with adversity. You need to have sufficient resources that it doesn't destroy you. And then you need to be able to bounce back. Recovery is just as important as the stress tolerance.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  You also need to be able to get along with others.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  Because everything we do here is in teams. So we want someone who can establish collaborative relationships.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  It's a lot to look for in one person.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  I was studying chemistry and I really, I loved science. I loved understanding.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Luckily, there's people like Katie Coleman. After studying polymer chemistry and working in the Air Force, she applied to NASA in the early 90s. And she remembers what it was like to be tested by them.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  We show up, well, they've gotten it down to about 100 people back when I was selected. We show up on a Sunday afternoon and go through about five hours of these psychological tests where you're just, you know, you're answering questions going, what are they really asking? And should I be trying to answer it in a different way? And I don't remember any of them specifically, but you know, I don't know. If I was to make something up, it would be like you go to the grocery store and you go to find spaghetti and it's just not in the usual place and you find it in the aisle with the peanut butter. What does that make you think?

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Wow, stuff like that.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Well, two of my favorite foods.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Some of the tests might have been bizarre, but during the week-long interview process, there was one thing she realized pretty quickly.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  And then you do have a really extensive interview with a psychiatrist. And, and then during the week, I mean, I think you're always being observed and everything during that week is a test. And, and I think if you haven't figured that out, that actually might say something about you as well is that, you know, if you're rude to the people that are helping you with the medical tests, or the people who are trying to get you from place to place, or figure out your logistics, those are the same people that are going to be helping you. I mean, you're, you're always going to be somebody who's relying on other people's help to get you as prepared as you can be. And if you're rude to them during the first week, that's probably not the best of signs.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  In March 1992, Katie was selected by NASA. And just three years later, in 1995, she blasted off to space for the first time.

• 7:54Speaker 04

  And liftoff, liftoff of the space shuttle Columbia, catapulting scientific knowledge through microgravity research.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  But I want to fast forward here to the early 2000s because if you want to understand the challenges astronauts might face on an eventual mission to Mars, it helps to understand the challenges people like Katie have already faced on long-duration trips. And her third and longest trip to space involved nearly six months aboard the International Space Station. And the challenges for that began before blastoff, during the preparation.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  So I trained for three years for my space station mission.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  And so it often have meetings with the psychiatric staff to just catch up on how you're doing and how's the training because it's actually, it's not simple. You're training for six weeks at a time over in Russia, in Houston, and then also Europe and Japan and Canada. So there's a lot of time away from home and actually my husband and I lived in different places. And so even when I was training at home, quote unquote, in Houston, I was not necessarily with my family because our son was by that time living up in Massachusetts with my husband.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Wow, that's, that's got to be really challenging. So were you getting the support from NASA for that or was it more you were working on that internally then?

• 9:15Speaker 02

  I was definitely getting support in that way. You know, partly I will say because I ask for it, you know, I'm just very forthright like that. Like, I mean, it's not, it's not just about you, it's about the mission. And if you can't bring your very best self to the mission, you're not doing your job.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  But not every astronaut is necessarily so forthcoming. And it's no surprise why.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  You know, there's times in society that there's negative implications of talking to other people to figure things out or have someone evaluate you when actually, boy, it's all good information. And during my time, one of the NASA leaders was very, very clear after the Columbia accident. He just made it so clear to people and he just said, listen, all of us have been through a lot.

• 10:04Speaker 05

  Just 16 minutes from its scheduled landing time, Columbia rocketed towards Earth, something very clearly wrong.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  And every one of you in the Corps needs to go and see someone. It's not because it's just some empty requirement, it's because this is a lot for all of us to take in, especially those of you who went out in the field, you know, and were helping to find all the pieces of the orbiter.

• 10:26Speaker 05

  In one field, human remains were found. Elsewhere, pieces of the shuttle and personal belongings.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  The Columbia accident happened in 2003 when the space shuttle Columbia, which Katie herself had ridden on less than a decade prior, disintegrated as it re-entered the atmosphere. All seven astronauts on board were killed.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  And any on purpose said very directly, you need to know that I am never going to judge your flight assignment by the fact that you are seeking counseling.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  I think it's a very good thing to do.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  After three years of preparation and with that disaster in recent memory, Katie left Earth for the International Space Station in December 2010.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  The day after my 50th birthday.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Her son Jamie, at the time, was 10 years old.

• 11:13Speaker 06

  As a kid going through NASA headquarters and going into the control room and learning about all the systems and tasks that she was doing, I learned so much about it to the point that I understood what was going on and it made me feel really confident in not only her mission, but I knew that she was going to be safe and that there were thousands of people taking care of her. So I wasn't nervous at all, but when the rocket finally lifted off into the sky, I remember just feeling like pushed into the ground because the rocket is so powerful and as it's flying up into space, it's just pushing everything back down to Earth and you can feel it in your chest. And I just remember

• 11:55Speaker 06

  immediately just bursting into tears because I realized, you know, my mom is just not on the planet anymore. She's not in California or Australia, right? She's so, so far away.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  For the next 159 days, Katie would be living with just five other people: one other American, three Russians, and an Italian. And she loved it up there.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  I mean, I would have spent another six months, and my family does know this, I would have spent another six months in a minute. Doesn't mean I was happy every single minute, but in terms of doing science experiments, knowing that the experiments you're doing can't be done anywhere else, learning to live in this microgravity environment where it's not about floating, it's about flying. I mean, so it really reminds you that you are at the very edge of where people are and you represent all of them.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  But as Katie said, it's not like it was perfect all the time. Working that closely and living that closely with only five other people, you're bound to get on each other's nerves at some point, right?

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Well, that definitely does happen. I mean, there's no question. And at the same time, you know, the solution is actually really two words. The mission, you know, we share a mission and it's so clear when you're up there, how important that mission is and that there's no one else to do it but you, meaning you, the six of you. And so there, you know, there would be times where I would just, you know, roll my eyes like, oh, really, you know? And at the same time, I have to say, there was never a time that I thought, oh, only, you know, only 90 more days of this person, right? I never thought that because it simply wasn't an option.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  But I will tell you, one of the things that was at first hard for me with Dmitry.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  That was one of her Russian colleagues up on the ISS, who in fact had never worked with women before.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  Is that he has a very stoic face and it stays that way often. You know, when I would say, you know, Dmitry, here's my great idea, and the stoic face would look at me. You know, it's my inclination to be like, oh, he doesn't think my idea is any good. He doesn't want to hear about an idea like that. And people would think, oh, this is typical Russian. It's not, I mean, it's really not actually, you know, typical Russian. And it's just the way, he's a very businesslike person at work. He really is. And so I had to learn to literally pretend that Dmitry was smiling at me saying, Katya, what's your idea?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  And that really, that seemed to work. But the thing that really brought us together, that helped me, I would say, really all the time, is that when we talked about family, his face just turned into the biggest smile. And I mean, he loved talking about his son back on Earth and what he was doing right now and showing pictures. And that's where we got to connect. And I just learned to remind myself that that's exactly who I was up in space with, was a person that could be both the stoic commander and the person who was just so happy to be, you know, having such a neat family and to be doing this job.

• 15:09Speaker 05

  Hi Mom, it's Jamie. I miss you a lot.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Katie was also in constant contact with her own family back on Earth.

• 15:18Speaker 07

  Hey Mom, you want to play tic-tac-toe?

• 15:21Speaker 05

  Oh, cool. Okay, I want upper left.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  This is audio from some of their chats while she was on the ISS. It's from the documentary "Space: The Longest Goodbye."

• 15:31Speaker 05

  If you loved me more, you'd let me win. You know, I'm in space and lonely. If you loved me, you'd let me win tic-tac-toe.

• 15:36Speaker 06

  So every night we would have a call with her. And up where we live in Massachusetts, there's no big cities around. It's very quiet, so you can see a lot of the stars. And so sometimes the ISS would pass right over our house. And so we would be talking to her as she's arcing over our house.

• 15:54Speaker 05

  I miss you guys that time.

• 15:56Speaker 06

  And then about the time that she reached the tip of New Zealand, which would take about 15 minutes from our horizon over, we would just be able to talk to her for about that long. And then she would, like the satellite would go away. And then we would talk to her the next day.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  This is Jamie and Katie playing flute together while Katie is in space.

• 16:21Speaker 05

  I think we had a good experiment.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Psychologically, being connected to your family, it's your foundation for emotional rejuvenation, for the ability to vent, to complain and to hear back. And it's your sounding board and it's your emotional sustenance. And we recognize that within spaceflight. We want to keep a person connected with their main line of social support.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Those cabins were soundproof. And so that really made, I think, life easier for me because you could have your own little world.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  But on a mission to Mars, which remember would take about three years, that kind of contact wouldn't be possible.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  The real challenge with going to Mars is going to be that factor which sets it apart so much from previous flights, which is delayed communications.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  This is senior operational psychologist at NASA, Dr. Al Holland again.

• 17:19Speaker 03

  The fact of delayed communications is actually much more important than duration because people have been deployed to war zones, et cetera, for long periods akin to what a Mars mission might be.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  But it's the ability to communicate or to stay connected with home that's the key.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:40Speaker 03

  So that's going to be the big challenge for for the psychology, the behavioral people.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Because real time connection, like you said, won't be possible. What would be possible? Like, how delayed would we be talking?

• 17:52Speaker 03

  You're looking at a delay of about 20 minutes each way.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Wow, okay.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  So that means you could say hi and they could hear you say hi in 20 minutes and they could say hi there back and you'll hear the reply in another 20 minutes. So once you say hi, you're going to hear the reply 40 minutes later.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  You want the other person to be okay when you're not with them. But then I think there's a fear of what if they're so okay that they don't need me anymore? I mean, not even in terms of finding someone else, but just what if it didn't really matter to them that I was gone? And that's what I think will be the hardest thing about Mars is what are the conversations you don't get to have with that long, long delay?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Because you don't have them, what happens? What doesn't happen?

• 18:41Speaker 01

  There is also the very plausible scenario that communications between Earth could be lost altogether. After all, Mars is an average of 225 million kilometers away. And really, there are so many other factors that need to be worked through for a possible mission to Mars. Putting aside the engineering feat of it all, like, here's a snapshot of what else could affect the well being of crew, who would be traveling for about six to nine months to get to Mars, spending about a year on the planet and then traveling six to nine months to get back to Earth. It's hard to be exact this far out.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  So the conditions, how small or how large the volume is, personal space, your ability to sleep, whether there's noises, the thermal environment, whether the work you're doing is sufficient. There's nothing worse than being underloaded with work in a small volume when you feel like, hmm, maybe I should be back home doing some other things with people that I love.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  And you not only have to get there, which is a big chunk of your time. I think once you're there, you're probably engaged to the point where it's not as stressful, believe it or not.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  But the return trip might be a little bit long because you've already done the exciting things and you're on your way back. So reintegrating back into the family and the work setting after being away for so long and being with only a small group of people will be an interesting affair. We're going to have to take a look at all of those factors before we actually go.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  How many people would be on a mission to Mars? How small a team would it be?

• 20:21Speaker 03

  My guess is three to four.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Here's the thing, NASA isn't training astronauts for Mars specifically just yet. It's too early.

• 20:29Speaker 03

  It hadn't been approved. We haven't gotten to the moon yet again.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Sure, but it is of course thinking and planning for it.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  But as we get closer and closer to a trip to Mars, we need to begin seeding the astronaut corps with people who can go to Mars because when it comes time, the space agencies around the world that are participating are going to look around and pick from whoever they've got on hand because they want known quantities to go. So we'll be looking for people that are very good at small group living. That'll be one big one is they have to be able to live effectively in a group.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  And the other key skill people on a mission to Mars will need to have?

• 21:08Speaker 03

  They need to be able to do a lot of autonomous operational problem solving. They're not going to have the fast technical support that currently in low Earth orbit they get when they're trying to solve a technical problem. And they're also going to have to be able to do it in the event that we lose communications entirely with the vehicle. So you, you have to plan for the worst case scenario and you have to have people that are adaptable. And I would posit that self-regulation is going to be extremely important. The keeping your emotional stability, keeping even keeled over a long period of time.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  It all begs the question, who are these perfect people who can manage all of this? Because if you imagine the Venn diagram comparing the people who have the technical expertise for a mission to Mars and the people who are psychologically solid enough to take on these challenges, it can't be a huge overlap.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  Right, this is aspirational, right? So if we had a bunch of these people lined up at the gate, I mean, I think the rest of the people here would marry them, or they would otherwise hire them immediately. But there are not that many unicorns out there. And so what you're looking for is someone who has as much of this as possible, or has the capacity to learn it and develop it. And that's, we make a difference between things that they have to have at the front door versus things that they can learn over time. And that's something, as you know, we all learn over time as we get older. We hopefully expand our knowledge base and we're a little bit more competent at different situations than we were when we were quite young.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  And it's the same thing here. The more experience you get in a long flight or spaceflight, working in teams, the better you get at it.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  NASA as an organization is also hoping to learn as much as it can beforehand. It's currently running a Mars simulation called the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog. Since June 2023, four people who aren't astronauts, they're volunteers, have been living in a 3D-printed habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. And they won't be let out until July this year. The habitat is called Mars Dune Alpha, and it simulates some of the challenges of living on Mars, like equipment failures, communication delays, and more. There are also a number of tools and strategies NASA and other organizations are looking into that could help make a Mars mission less psychologically taxing.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Things like using virtual reality to allow an astronaut to take a walk in the park or go on holiday, all while physically still on their mission.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  We want them to be able to do that virtually.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  VR could also be used as a way to help them see their family.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  We're looking at an approach that tricks the mind into thinking that there's a real-time communication going on, when in fact, it's not.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Small robots have also been developed that can keep astronauts company and share information. Hello, Simon.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  How are you? My robot feelings are fine.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  And here's something that feels really outlandish. Researchers at the European Space Agency are looking into hibernation. So possibly having astronauts asleep during the months-long journey to and from Mars. There are still lots of issues to work out with that option, though. And so how far away do you think a Mars mission actually is? There's that idea of the next 10-ish years.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  That depends, that probably depends on funding.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:40Speaker 03

  That's a very, very prosaic answer. But it depends on funding to a large degree. And it also depends on the lessons that we learn on the moon. For instance, containing dust. How do you contain dust in a habitat? So that's part of the rationale behind going to the moon is that we don't want to just jump out there and put our footprint in the dust. That's great.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  But we more importantly want to establish some sort of sustained living and working setting there so that we can learn how to work in a less than a 1G environment. What, what tools are required? How do you manage dust? How do you manage medicine? Et cetera, et cetera.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  So is, is saying, you know, a mission to Mars is the hope in the next decade? Do you think that's a bit ambitious then?

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Um, I will tell you that my hope when I came to work here was that I would still be in my career when we went to Mars.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:33Speaker 03

  And that's, that's not gonna happen. So I would, to answer your question, I think it's, it's, it's a hope. It's an ambition. But first we have to deal with the moon.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  And given like it would be such a long flight and there are so many unknowns, can you ever really fully know or predict how a person would act on a mission like that?

• 25:55Speaker 03

  No, you can't fully know how a person would act on a mission like that. You can't fully know how a person's gonna act in any situation at all. And you have to give them the permission to invent how they're gonna act. They can't act in a scripted way and they shouldn't be expected to act in a scripted way because they are high-functioning adults after all. But we certainly can mitigate the risks that they're going to encounter and we can deport the resources they have by informing them as much as possible of everything we know about what might come up and different ways to get around those. Then I think we need to leave them be.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess overall, like, the thing that blew my mind most watching that documentary was to think about, like, really, how would a person function trapped in a small rocket ship with two to three other people around them, with no real-time communication with Earth, and possibly being cut off from all communications if things go wrong? You're just with those three people floating away. That's a terrifying thought.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  It is terrifying. It's terrifying thought. And there, you know, that is what exploration's about. It used to be terrifying to get in on a raft and head west across the ocean. And there's no, I don't see any land out there. We're supposed to, what, just keep on continuing toward the setting sun? I mean, what's the point in that? You know, there are dragons out there on the edge of this map that shows it. So, you know, there's, it's always been there. The dragons have always been there.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  That's fascinating. That's right. This is just, yeah, the newest version of what humans have been doing forever, I suppose.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  It certainly doesn't terrify me, or anybody that you might send, I don't think. In that, I think if you've decided to do these things, whether it's to climb on a space shuttle and go to space, which comes with its own risks, or this much longer mission, at a certain point, you're counting on everyone to have done their best to make it as safe as it can be. You know, there's no question in my mind, eventually, we'll be living on Mars.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  That is retired astronaut Katie Coleman and senior operational psychologist at NASA, Dr. Al Holland. You also heard from Katie's son, Jamie Simpson, and all three of them appear in the documentary, Space: The Longest Goodbye, directed by Ido Mizrahi. The film is streaming now on DocPlay.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  And that's it for All in the Mind this week. Thanks to producer Rose Kerr and sound engineer Simon Brathwaite. This episode was written, edited, and presented by me, Sana Qadar, and thank you for listening. I'll catch you next time.

• 28:57Speaker 00

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