Green Spacesuit

I’m happy to report that golf fans here on simulated Mars are increasing in number!  With the recent adventure of hitting golf balls in our spacesuits (see last post) and our watching the Masters Tournament this weekend, the entire crew has developed a burgeoning interest and baseline understanding of golf.

The Masters, the first major PGA tournament of the year, is played at Augusta National golf club, a prestigious, private golf course with only 300 members; the club is invitation only, with members including Bill Gates and Condoleezza Rice. Each of these members receives a green sport coat with the club logo. This iconic green jacket is also awarded to the champion of the Masters tournament each year. Perhaps, golf champions on Mars should be awarded with a green spacesuit!

Jordan Spieth, 2015 Masters Champion (Photo: Jamie Squire/ Getty Images)

One of the signature sections of Augusta National is known as “Amen corner” which is a stretch of three holes that have been the stage for much drama over the years. This corner of the course begins with Number 11 “White Dogwood,” the longest and most difficult Par 4 on the course. It's 505 yards from the starting tee to the middle of the green, whereas the other Par 4 holes are on average about 440 yards. The 2015 Masters champion, Jordan Spieth, has an average drive distance of about 295 yards, so after an average drive, he’d have a 210-yard approach shot into the 11th green.. how would this differ on Mars?

Since Augusta National is seated on land that was formerly a plant nursery, each hole has a name that reflects the plant life decorating the hole. I can only imagine a red, desert-like landscape for a Martian golf course, so the calculations below should be further refined to account for differences in the distance that a ball rolls on carefully manicured grass versus hitting the dust-covered, rocky surface of Mars.  However, if 295-yard drives on Earth would carry 635 yards on Mars, here's the Martian equivalent of Augusta National:

The physics of golf is actually simpler on Mars. Without an atmosphere, Mars has just 1% of Earth's air density. Thus, aerodynamic forces such as lift and drag are trivial on Mars with magnitudes less than 10e-6. Simple projectile motion equations that only consider gravity are appropriate for computing the trajectory of a golf ball on Mars.  Opposed by only about 1/3 of Earth's gravity, every Mars explorer could hit the ball further than PGA tour players on Earth!

The club head speed of a tour player swinging a driver ranges from 100-150 mph. On Earth and Mars alike, momentum and kinetic energy are transferred from the golf club to the less massive golf ball, resulting in an initial velocity for the golf ball that is higher than the velocity of the golf club.  Most of the energy sets the ball into motion, but some of this kinetic energy is lost as the club hits the golf ball; this is accounted for by the coefficient of restitution (which USGA rules dictate should be less than 0.83).  An expression for the initial velocity of the golf ball is found by combining and simplifying the conservation of energy and momentum equations:

If we assume that velocity of the club head is 55.8 m/sec (125 mph), mass of the golf ball is .0459 kg, and mass of the club head is 0.195 kg, then the initial velocity of the golf ball is 82.7 m/sec (185 mph).

The projectile motion of the golf ball can be calculated based on the initial velocity of the ball and the launch angle.  A standard driver has a loft angle of about 9 degrees; however, the driver connects to the ball on the upswing of the pendulum motion of a golf swing adding about 3 degrees of loft. After combining the kinematics equations for both the x and y directions, the distance traveled by a golf ball on Mars is given by:

With an initial golf ball velocity of 82.7 m/sec and launch angle of 12 degrees, the distance traveled by a golf ball on Mars would be 748 meters or 818 yards!  

Let’s compare to the golf ball that I recently hit on simulated Mars (see last post).  I was restrained by my spacesuit and only hit my 7-iron about 90 yards, instead of the usual 135 yards when freely swinging.  Using simple projectile motion to analyze the corresponding differences in club head speed, I lost about 6.8 m/s (15.2 mph) from swinging in a spacesuit. Even with the handicap of a spacesuit, a tour player on Mars would hit 635-yard drives!  Better yell FORE!

Watch my swing in a spacesuit at https://youtu.be/B2Bm1miYTi8

Merry Martian!

It feels like Christmas again!  I’m basking in the glow of my computer screen as I watch the finished product of my video seminar for Florida Space Institute. The deadline snuck up on me, so it's been a whirlwind!  But I’m proud of the finished product and obsessed with the golf footage that I added into it.

Last week, on a whim, before I was reminded of the seminar deadline, I asked Zak if he’d like to go out on EVA with me to hit some golf balls over the weekend.  I didn’t realize how hectic of a weekend it would become.. but in the midst of slaving over iMovie, golfing was a timely, much needed break!  Zak even designed and 3D-printed some golf balls for the occasion; once added to the few real ones that I brought with me, we had an even dozen!

On Sunday March 22, the monumental day when golf made it to "Mars" ;) I woke up early, had a cappuccino with Martha, and started practicing for my research presentation. Then, I sat down with the crew for our weekly brunch / debrief meeting to recap events from the last week and make plans for this week.  Afterwards, I spent 2.5 hours recording footage in the airlock, which Neil transformed into a media room for me.  At 4:30pm, I emerged from the airlock and asked Martha what time it was!  I felt exhausted and lost from all of the video taping, but I did not miss the opportunity for the golf EVA!  It was epic!!! 

Move over Alan Shepard, we golfed on sMars!!! (Photo credit: Zak Wilson)

Looking back, I’m so thankful to my sister’s husband, Lee who insisted that I take one of his golf clubs with me.  My last stop before heading to “Mars” in Hawaii was Naples, FL, as I was soaking up family time and cuddles from my niece Maura.  In fact, the day of my flight, I still had lots of little, last minute things to do before I’d be ready to catch my evening flight.  However, I just kept putting it off and relaxing with Maura.  We played with her toys, watched cartoons, and we didn’t even bother getting dressed for the day!

Quality time with precious Maura before heading to "Mars" in Hawaii

Tick tock, oh no!  I rushed around, Lee and my brother Steven rushed out to get a memory card for my camera and an 8-month supply of multivitamins.  Eric and I headed to the eyeglass store for my prescription lenses that were waiting for pickup.  We all met up again to say the last goodbyes, and Lee managed to fit a 7-iron into one of my bags!

The other sentimental part of this story is the 7-iron itself.  I took a look at it and realized it was the golf club of one of my close friends Cody Brownell.  I looked up at Lee with a puzzled face, and he explained that he had bought the clubs off Cody awhile back. Cody, how awesome that your 7-iron made it to Mars?!! ;)

My golf swing in a spacesuit! (Photo credit: Zak Wilson)

Pinches and Sound bites!

My granddad, aka Papa, comes from Irish heritage.  In good humor,  after something unfortunate happens, I've heard him cynically say, "Well that's the luck of the Irish!" Despite not finding many four-leaf clovers or pots of gold, the Dunn family has made some lasting St. Paddy's day memories. So yesterday, I was proudly wearing my green on "Mars" to celebrate, but other crewmembers were not so festive.. I had to resort to a bit of pinching!  It reminded me of elementary school, which is fitting because I've been working a lot lately on preparing outreach presentations for K12 schools, as well as research institutes.

As part of the preparation, I’ve thought back on TED talks, the gold standard for science communication.  In TED talks, the message is always crisp and clear, delivered in a carefully-woven storyline that is both interesting and relevant to society. It seems that the merit of science communication can be judged by how clearly and succinctly one can explain research findings and why they matter.  This weekend, it was excruciatingly difficult to pick and choose what to include in a 3-min video explaining the scope and relevance of my research.  I can’t imagine what it’s like for the TED speakers who condense an entire research career into one 15-min talk!

To share this “Mars” experience, I need to effectively reduce eight months of dome life into the sound bite of a 3-min, 15-min, or even 30-min talk.  Now I’m realizing that this 8-month mission in itself is just a sound bite in contrast to a real Mars mission.  It will take eight months just to travel to Mars!  The story of our crew is like the abridged version of a book that has yet to be written on the challenges of living and working in a Mars habitat environment.

A quick overview on other upcoming outreach!  Last night, we took some video footage of our sushi meal (well, instead of fresh fish, we used canned albacore to make spicy tuna rolls) as part of our outreach with students in Japan. Recently, we’ve been working on a comic book for explaining the combination of educational backgrounds, talents, and personalities required for a successful Mars crew (this is still a work in progress, nerdy superpower ideas are welcome!)  And today, we will put together a tour of our habitat for all to see on YouTube sometime soon!  Please contact me if you're interested in collaborating on outreach with your local schools! (joceydunn2@gmail.com)

Well, it seems that everyone had exciting weekends, so I'll share a bit about our epic Pi day celebration!!  I even had to make an exception to my Lenten promise of no desserts, because of the special centennial Pi Day this year (3/14/15 9:26:53), just had to participate, also it was the first sunny day in two weeks! 

In celebration of Pi day: French Silk, Pecan-Apple, and Pizza Pies!!

Now that we actually have enough solar power to run the treadmill (yay for sunshine!) I’m catching up on my mileage (current total 25 miles in 28 days of Lent!) slowly running off the pies.. at least there's good sugar in my Irish blood!

Rain, Rain

Lately, we’ve had some cloudy, rainy days, so we are not generating enough solar power to support our elaborate cooking or even heating!  Turning down the thermostat in order to conserve enough energy to make it through the night, so although I am not exactly living in solidarity with my friends who are suiting up in layers of wool and trudging through the snow, it’s cold up in here too!

Rain, rain, I love your sounds, but we might need you to go away soon.. there’s only so much gasoline and hydrogen supply on sMars.  Here’s our forecast for this weekend, it’s looking bleak.. but actually much better than it has been!  We need sunshine from morning to mid-afternoon for the batteries to fully charge.

HI-SEAS monitoring system, called UILA (hawaiian for lightning / electricity)

All the rain has made me reminiscent of Florida afternoon thunderstorms in the summertime.  I really can smell when rain is coming, and it’s not anything as distinct as those “Fresh rain” candles, just a dampness in the air. Here, though, I certainly cannot smell the rain, since we only go outside in spacesuits, but I do enjoy the sounds of the storms.  In yoga this evening, it started raining again just as we went into shavasana (aka corpse pose, lying down and relaxing at the end of yoga). It was blissful!  The yoga we did today was an audio class, so I think my sense of sound was on high alert from listening to the instructor.  

In the recording, I could also hear kids playing in the background and at one point I heard a couple seconds of a dog barking.  Such ordinary sounds are making me nostalgic!  The other night, I heard a plane flying over.  I became so alert and listened intently, savoring it!  The sound of the gas generator, which is our backup energy source, also has been reminding me of the ole days.  

In high school, junior year, there were several hurricanes in a row, such that we had nearly a consecutive month of school closings due to power outages.  Still the show went on, I remember finishing up a research paper and dropping it in the teacher’s mailbox, so that we could stay on track with our curriculum. I doubt that'd happen in the school system today.. makes me feel old! And so does the fact that our 10-year high school reunion is this year!

Florida landscapes: sunrise on Lake Jackson, Oak trees at my parent's house, my niece and Aunt Shirley playing by the pool as some ominous-looking gray clouds are drifting in, and a gator on the golf course!

During hurricane days, Mom and Dad would hook up the generator to power some of the more critical amenities, such as the refrigerator, freezer, lights, fans, and the stove.  I remember Momma Dunn making a huge supply of the best chicken and rice I’ve ever had.  Though it was brutally hot without air conditioning, at least we had some good grub and the hurricane breezes ;) 

Here we also have a refrigerator and more importantly a lab freezer that we do not want to lose power, but MOST importantly our composting toilets have fans that must keep blowing!!  Side note, it will be so strange to flush a toilet when I get out of here, since I'm sure it will feel like such a waste of water. But the water savings here definitely comes at a price, check out Sophie's great blog post about us being "halfway between Mars and Earth, halfway between start and finish, and halfway between astronaut and plumber!"

The Occasional Insect

In my last post, I mentioned that here in the isolation of our home sweet dome, we only have live interactions with each other and an occasional insect. I went for a long run on the treadmill yesterday and had some thoughts sparked by a fruit fly. We setup our treadmill directly in front of the only window in the hab, a small porthole with a view of the lava fields.

 Our only view to the outside is through this small porthole, also pictured is a determined fruit fly attempting to return to the outdoors.

This fruit fly was desperately trying to get outside, bumping into the plastic window, regrouping, then diving back in for endless more attempts. I only spend time peering out the porthole when running. I can feel my pupils restrict from the sunshine and enjoy watching the clouds of fog (or vog) sweep over the generally static, lifeless landscape. We also occasionally glance at beautiful sunsets out this porthole in the evenings. But besides while running, I rarely spend time in front of this window. 

However, I do grasp for the outside world through delayed email and Voxer communications with my friends and family, mostly on a weekly basis. Such a contrast to this poor fly spending all its time and energy in front of this window longing for the outside world.  In order for me to let the poor fly outside, I’d have to catch the bugger, request an EVA, and then go through the airlock before opening the door and letting em fly away. I’m not sure if fruit flies are just bigger in Hawaii, but this one is quite plump!  We keep a tidy dome, though it seems there’s plenty of crumbs around to feed our insect friends. 

As for me, I’ve been cutting out sweet stuffs from my diet lately. My new year’s resolution was “no cookies” but I found all kinds of loopholes, such as vanilla wafers, brownies, etc.  So, for 40 days, I’m not eating any desserts and challenging myself to run 40 miles on the treadmill.  So far, I’m on track with 11 miles in 11 days, and I’ve bypassed my sweet tooth by savoring my daily caramel-flavored calcium chews, peppermint teas, and even lemon-honey cough drops! I want to moderate my diet, so that I can receive the maximum benefit from our workout regimen.

Fitness is a primary goal for our crew, as we need to plan workout activity in order to stay fit while confined to this small space. As you may know from my other posts, in the first few months, we completed Tony Horton’s P90X program. Next, we had one month of a combination of P90X2, Insanity, TurboFire, and yoga. This was our first week of a new schedule, we went back to some of our favorite P90X workouts, and introduced some new Insanity and T25 core workouts. We do 3 weeks of the same schedule, then have one recovery week of mainly yoga. During some of the cross-training and plyo workouts, we often wear Hexoskin shirts to quantify and compare measures such as respiration rate, cadence, and cardiac activity. Here’s a snapshot from Hexoskin during a plyo workout with six circuits:

Output from Hexoskin biometrics during a plyo workout with each circuit labeled

Recently, I put together a video that shows how we are utilizing Hexoskin wearable device technology in tracking our EVA and workout performance, and it also has some amazing time-lapsed footage of our surreal views on simulated Mars:  http://youtu.be/gX8NWmT2ptc

I’m sure my Earthlings are getting pumped for Spring Break. It was always interesting to see how the Purdue gym would become packed in the weeks before Spring Break as students prepare for their swimsuit debuts. For those of you enduring such a bitterly cold winter, I hope you will soon join the Spring Break-ers in an escape to the beach!

In the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling out of touch with the world. Even though we receive daily news headlines and some full articles about what’s happening out there. Still, I have felt out of the loop, wondering what I’m missing, and imagining that I will feel lost in conversation once I rejoin Earthly community. 

Thankfully, upon sharing these thoughts with some friends, namely Albane, Kori, and Maddy, these lovely ladies filled me in on the news that they’ve been hearing about. From these comms, I received a photo of the famous dress that I’ve been seeing in the news headlines. I showed the crew, and it turns out that 4 of us are seeing blue and black, one sees blue and gold, and one sees white and gold! After months of slippers, hiking boots, and athletic wear, I can’t wait to don a dress! Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised that I’ve already at least heard about the topics that my friends mentioned, so in reality, I was not “out of the loop” in terms of knowledge. However, I was lacking the confirmation that comes from interactions with more than just the occasional insect!

Then, Now, When?

Have I really been living in this 1000-square-foot dome for over 130 days?! After surpassing the halfway point of this mission and feeling utter disbelief, I’ve been contemplating why I feel disconnected from time. People say time flies when you’re having fun, or when you’re busy, or when you’re older, or maybe this is an early sign of space dementia ;)

Perhaps time is lost here in the same way that a person becomes entangled in a book or a game that they love for imperceptible hours. With the nature of an isolated and confined environment, we are effectively trapped together. Afterall, besides the six of us, our live interactions with living things are limited to the occasional insect and our pet fish, Blastoff McRocketboots!  Luckily, we have a balanced crew composition that has made the HI-SEAS dome a happy home!

From left to right: Jocelyn (Me), Martha Lenio, Allen Mirkadyrov, Sophie Milam, Zak Wilson, and Neil Scheibelhut (Photo Credit: Neil Scheibelhut)

Today, the 131st day in the dome, began with chatting over a coffee with Commander Martha. While conversing via our delayed email communications with mission support, we were quietly working on personal research in the morning hours. Allen collected our sociometer badges and uploaded data from our past week of interactions to NASA researchers. With the sunny day generating more power than our batteries can store, the oven was fired up, and the creative cooking began. Neil and Sophie masterfully baked a loaf of gluten-free bread (not an easy feat), and I tried my hand at a (gluten-full) rosemary bread recipe. By this time, we’d all completed about three to four surveys about how we’re feeling today. Next, we completely re-organized our storage container, which was much needed since we recently received a massive resupply of food inventory to sustain us for the next two months. 

Newly installed shelves for our food inventory in the storage container

Soon we became eager to start our new workout plan. For the next 3 weeks we will spend Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays with Tony from P90X – Tuesdays and Saturdays with Shaun T from Insanity – Wednesdays with Yogis – and Sundays with Chalene from TurboFire. For dinner, Zak and Allen prepared some bomb-diggity homemade ravioli!  While evading a food coma, we became engrossed in preparing for tomorrow’s EVA task. Later, some crewmembers entered an epic game of Carcassonne with all the available expansion packs, while others opted for catching up on work or writing blog posts ;)

Thinking back to how I spent my time last year, here’s what comes to mind. At the beginning of 2014, I traveled back from Christmas vacation in Florida to be greeted by -11F weather in Chicago. Day-after-day, I woke up, took a long, hot shower, gulped down a glass of Florida's Natural OJ, quickly packed some yogurt, granola bars, maybe a salad or sandwich if time allowed, then hustled to catch one of the L purple line express trains to Evanston. During my commute, I would either be fully absorbed in whatever research progress I needed to finish that day or engrossed in some of my favorite iPhone apps. 

The treacherous hike to my office on some extremely frigid days

One time, I completely wiped out on the sidewalk – my pen and notebook went flying – and a good-natured gal nearby blushed trying not to laugh until she noticed that I was laughing too. I promptly decided to take a road trip to Wisconsin to practice snowboarding on the next snowy weekend in January.  After gaining control of both my heel and toe edges, I made plans to hit the slopes of Vail, CO in February with some great friends.

It is astounding that I traveled 3400 miles in flight and 800 miles commuting in the first couple months of last year when compared to the handful of miles that I have trekked this year! I have only traveled about 12-15 miles in 2015 while exploring the volcanic terrain around our dome, albeit while charting meticulously. I have hundreds of measurements and scientific photos from our explorations of lava fields, tubes, channels, and ramparts here to compare with volumes of text messages, social photos, and bank transactions in 2014.

Some "Earthly" favorites, from top left to bottom right: the beach, pizza, Instagram, Chicago skyline and Lincoln Park, mis amigos Shailesh and Nate, outdoor yoga with my amiga Maddy, and catching up with my soul sista Melissa!

As evidence that I don't have space dementia, I can assure you that I can vividly recall most of my days here at HI-SEAS. I have spent far more time recording my experiences during this mission than any other time period in my life. But still, somehow, while I'm here in the dome, there’s this disconnect of not feeling the tick-tocks as time is barreling away. Perhaps I'm finally feeling what it's like to be living in the moment rather than hurriedly approaching a next plan or desire.

The restraints of the mission requires a dismissal of impulses. There’s no procrastination on social media, spontaneous road trips, fast food, or the option to immediately call a friend for advice when a problem arises. Rather than logging into Instagram, I access Qualtrics survey systems for five or more questionnaires per day, spend time journaling each night, and spend Sunday afternoons in weekly debriefs with the crew. I am thoroughly reflecting on my time spent here. These reflections are not overly analytical, just observational.  I’m recognizing and accepting how I feel, and I’m striving to improve each day. 

This experience of living in an isolated and confined environment has given me the freedom - to learn about myself – to reduce my requirements and live simply – to rule over longings – to focus on developing my intellect. Though confined to a dome, I have more freedom than ever before! I still miss my family and friends immensely, and I want to be there with them for fun events and special occasions.. but I know that they understand that this is an exceptional opportunity. And hey, time is flying by. Now that we've surpassed the halfway point, I'll be back to "Earth" in less than the amount of time that I've been away!