Can humans make it to Mars without losing their minds?

All In The Mind

ABC listen

Life Sciences, Health & Fitness, Science

4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

NASA wants to send humans to Mars in the next decade or so. But can our minds handle it?

We talk to a NASA psychologist and retired astronaut about the psychological challenges people already face on long-duration space missions — and find out what it will take to get to Mars.

This episode was first broadcast in March 2024.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	ABC Listen, Podcasts, Radio, News, Music, and more.
0:07.4	Hey there, a heads up. This episode is one from our archives.
0:13.5	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
0:22.2	don't walk anywhere. And it's just so clear that every single thing that you're doing is actually
0:30.6	moving us forward towards exploring the universe, living on the moon, and in preparation for perhaps Mars.
0:40.3	Fewer than 700 people have ever been to space.
0:45.3	Only 276 people have ever visited the International Space Station.
0:51.3	And only 44 of those have been women. That basically makes Katie Coleman a unicorn.
0:58.6	My name is Katie Coleman, and I am a former NASA astronaut. So how old were you when you first
1:04.3	thought, I want to be an astronaut one day? Probably about 20. Oh, wow. I know. I think you were maybe expecting a little bit younger, right?
1:13.9	Yeah, like a five-year-old Katie saying, I'm going to go to space. 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
1:28.6	and it made me think maybe this could be me. And I think it really helps to see somebody who
1:33.3	kind of feels like you, especially when it's something amazing where you just think, oh, only very
1:38.1	special people amazing, get to do this. And then you find out that they're actually pretty normal.
1:43.8	Okay, normal is a very relative term here, because astronauts are special.
1:49.0	Not only do they have to be excellent at the technical side of their jobs,
1:53.0	they need to be mentally and emotionally excellent.
1:56.0	Because think about what's involved in a mission to the ISS International Space Station, for example.
2:01.6	Not only is it dangerous, but you're stuck with the same people for weeks or months on end.
2:06.6	And if one of your colleagues is getting on your nerves, there's nowhere to escape to.
2:11.6	Oh, and all your friends and family are far, far away.
2:15.6	And if you think about that, you think, well, okay, I can stay on an elevator with just about
	...

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