What an Antarctic Disaster Can Teach Us About Getting to Mars
Vložit
- čas přidán 5. 05. 2024
- Space: The Longest Goodbye on Independent Lens: pbs.org/longestgoodbye | #LongestGoodbyePBS
Watch on the main PBS CZcams channel: • The Psychology of Spac...
A manned mission to Mars presents a huge array of challenges for scientists and explorers to figure out. Chief among them: how to keep humans sane and relatively content on the isolating, confining, and potentially years long journey to the red planet and back. Turns out, explorers from generations ago here on Earth survived similar challenges that tomorrow's astronauts can learn from.
*****
PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: to.pbs.org/DonateTerra
*****
Subscribe to PBS Terra so you never miss an episode! bit.ly/3mOfd77
And keep up with PBS Terra on:
Facebook: / pbsdigitalstudios
Tiktok: / pbsterra
Instagram: / pbsterra
I love reading about Shakleton's Antarctic explorations. His boat, The Endurance, is still there at the bottom of the sea. They found it in 2022!
Impressive that it endured until now.
I'll see myself out.
@@sizanogreen9900 His other boat, The Dissolver, has yet to be found.
@@theultimatereductionist7592 Oh wow, I wonder what happened to it
What books on the subject do you recommend?
@@machoslothman "The Ship Beneath the Ice" by Mensun Bound tells of the expedition to find the Endurance. It also talks about the Endurance's last voyage. If looking for a book about general Antarctic explorations, I liked "Alone on the Ice" by David Roberts.
oh man, I've worshipped Shackleton since I was 6. Till today, every time I go out in a snowstorm I shout "I'M ERNEST BLOODY SHACKLETON"
Is that a quote or something I'm not recognizing?
The Twilight Zone's pilot episode was about a man being unknowingly isolated by scientists studying it's effects for space travel. Probably my favorite episode.
When I first heard of Shackleton's expedition years ago, I was amazed. It's a great story and I wonder why it hasn't been made into a movie. I never thought about the implications for space travel however.
Not a movie topic.
There have been a couple movie adaptations of the story and at least one miniseries. The best one I've seen (about 20 years ago) had Kenneth Branagh. The book by Alfred Lansing (Endurance) is also pretty amazing. reads like an adventure novel but is really just a retelling - hard to put down!
@@abpccpba everything is a movie topic lol
There was a great movie made. Owl city even rescored it
Thanks for letting me know everyone, I'll have to check those films out. 🙂
The closest analogue is probably the old whaling ships in the 19th century. The larger ones would stay out for 3-4 years at a time. No radios. Occasional contact with passing ships but sometimes it would be quite a while between seeing them. No sight of land for weeks and even months at a time. The closest current analogue is probably submarines. Not quite as isolated with modern communications but still a small group of people in a small space, cut off from land and rarely even seeing the sky for long stretches.
3-4 years? No
@@DanWasAlreadyHere I recommend looking things up before making statements of fact. Larger ships would indeed stay out 3-4 years before returning to their home port. The longest stayed out 11 years. They would land at various places to take on water and supplies from time to time, but most of the time they were at sea. The New Bedford Whaling Museum website has a good article discussing life aboard a whaler.
Heck with submarines (although due respect to the submariners)… I know people who have willingly spent > 20 days underground without any form of reliable outside contact. That's more isolated than being on the moon.
@@mikebmcl Yes, let me ask a question: what happens with the isolation when they "land at those various place to take on water and supplies"?
If you want to ask someone about isolation talk to a disabled person. What everyone experienced for a short while during covid is the norm to some of us
Explorers may be isolated, settlers and inhabitants not. There are many reasons going to mars is hard. Either go or don't go.
@@starshot5172 The only people going are highly trained astronauts and robots. Even the astronauts, thats decades away. So, don't worry about going or not going. It's more absurd to think about than winning the lottery... better odds for the lottery.
We do have the Internet though, that’s drastically different than being cut off from your planet and species by inter planetary distances.
@@sdm161 The only good thing about the internet is porn brugh. That's it.
I dont thing is the same type of isolation. Probably is very hard for a disabled (I just say Probably because I'm not so I cannot say I know) but you still are in yout planet. And if you never had something is hard to missed, but if you have every day is harder to live without
I'm in awe of polar explorers - truly a test of character showing what humans can achieve, circumstances and technology be damned.
So interesting. I'm neither an astronaut nor an Antarctic explorer, but I have experienced terrible loneliness and it does destroy your mind and spirit over time. I became very frightened on and off that I was getting dementia (in my 30s!) because my memory and cognition were getting worse and worse. I would get very depressed, would often wake up crying. I now live with a lovely partner, and every day I am grateful, I feel like my life expectancy has been miraculously extended, through his companionship.
i found i felt company with all the wildlife around me and people often spoilt that experience . each to their own !
I find it so interesting how essential holidays are for human society and mental health. They allow us to infuse meaning in the passage of time, and create connections and joy among our community. They’re a central part of how we connect to our community and when far from home we miss them more around those times! Holidays are a social need for us, it’s fascinating.
They aren't objectively essential. Most were just raised that way, it's all in your head. Collective mental illness, stupid coping mechanisms for stupid normies.
Well said.
Endurance is a great book, especially when Shackleton had to separate his men to find food and try to SOS for help if a ship was spotted in a distance. It was probably very difficult for him to do. I can't imagine what they went through
Being on the Autism spectrum, I actually find it much easier to concentrate, sleep better and over all feel better when I'm alone for weeks at a time. It's why I breezed right through the pandemic while everyone else in the neighborhood went stir crazy. So perhaps NASA should look into recruiting people with high functioning ASD for a Mars mission (not me though, I'm not nearly physically fit enough nor do I have the level of education necessary to "science the s***" out of things. Would love to some day do a brief round-the-Moon tour once it's affordable for the average person.)
Yes, one thing might be to look for people like us who love being alone - although this would be a very specific kind of alone, where you are cut off from the vast majority of humanity, but forced into VERY close contact with a small group of individuals. Ironically, it might be important to create isolation pods or something for people who can deal well with isolation, to make sure we can get away from the humans we would be forced into super close contact with on a daily basis.
I just wrote the exact same thing 😄 as a fellow autistic, I 100% agree. I thrive in isolation, either totally alone or with a very small group of like minded people. I could not comprehend people freaking out during covid lockdowns. It was some of the best time of my life.
@@mayatara1980 When living in close quarters, under stress, I'd think the ability to read other people's intent and body language would be key, as would be stellar interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. My thought is that introverts would make good candidates.
Great point
We have great difficulty living year round at Antarctica even though there is free oxygen and water.
Mars? A super frozen desert.
With practically no oxygen in its atmosphere, a weak magnetosphere and dust storms capable of covering the planet for weeks at a time. Mars is an alien world.
I read his book, South. It was truly an amazing story. Everyone survived to tell the tale.
I don't think it was mentioned in the video, but none of the dogs survived. 😢
They were ritually beet and then crucified half alive for the boys to throw chunks of ice at until it stopped howling in agony.
@@jennyanydots2389 its hard to understand why you would write such a thing. It is completely baseless and a very negative image. I hope you find some solace from whatever plagues you.
They tasted nice though.
Yummy
The reason the ship was trapped in the ice, was that Shackleton did not take the advice of the captain.
The takeaway from this, is do not place a narcissistic person to in charge.
Chilean here. Fun fact, this expedition is mostly known here as the heroic feat of Pilot Luis Pardo, who commanded the escampavía (small steam tug) Yelcho of the Chilean Navy, the boat that rescued Shackleton's crew against all odds.
More details here:
en . m . wikipedia . org / wiki / Luis_Pardo
There’s a big difference between Antarctic isolation and space isolation: the risks associated with an accident. If something goes wrong in Antarctica, you can hunt seals (depending on where you are). In space, there is nothing to eat if you’re stranded. There’s nothing to hunt. If the spacecraft springs a leak, everyone dies. Even worse, if the craft gets off course and loses thrust, it will drift into space and keep getting farther and farther away from Earth, and no rescue mission will be able to catch up. Then those special pills might have to be used.
It's true, the risks are different. Some of these things are risks that just come with space exploration, and while scary, you have to accept that they might happen when you start the journey. But one nice thing is that there's a lot of time to think about solutions. Astronauts are smart, resourceful, resilient people. While initially there might not seem to be a solution, something like thrust could have a solution engineered in-flight.
This is an incredible story.
There was also the other component of the expedition called the Ross Sea Party, which came in from Australia. Basically their job was to make supply depots for the second leg of Shackleton’s crossing. Their ship also got stuck in ice and pushed out to sea. They actually successfully laid out the depots, made it pretty close to the pole and returned the pick up point. Then they had to wait for Shackleton to get rescued, himself, raise money to rescue them, sail all the way around the world and finally pick them up.
Space: The Longest Goodbye is really good. Recommended!
I love that I'm still watching PBS. I started watching it on TV as a child in the mid to late 2,000's.
It reminded me of the sci-fi book Alien From Earth by Sobers Rodrigues. It's also a survival story on an alien planet.
no one will go to Mars..never
@@vincentl.9469 have faith, Elon Musk will eventually take us here, he is a great leader like Shackleton, caring for his owns while being able to make the hard choices.
@@user-nm5rj7ol8f ignore him...this is someone who likes to indulge his fantasies. Too much money. Can you imagine living on Mars? I think I'd commit suicide on the first-that's if nature didn't take it's course by the first day
Looking forward to this series! I just recently read a book called "City on Mars" that talked about LOTS of questions relating to humans in space - not just as explorers but as inhabitants. Hopefully y'all will be able to touch on some of those topics too!
Interesting, as a rural raised only child isolation doesn't phase me a bit, but the need to work with others is always a serious challenge. The need to have high skills in both isolation and working together on top of technical skills seems challenging.
Thinking back to CGP Grey’s Spaceship You video.
My mom is on a world cruise. I only share news that is happy. No reason for her to worry and just enjoy her cruise.
Space Soccer should be endlessly entertaining. Taco Paste Tuesday. Name That Star -- No, That Star. Table Tennis. Tug of War. What's Your Name Bob? Whack-A-Mole.
To ensure a successful explanation of Mars, an advanced robotic campaign should be started for the base build.
I agree- it would be good to land a few "Tool bins" some months ahead of crewed mission, like the Antarctic depots were.
Nobody should even consider sending humans to Mars until unmanned craft can land on and return from Mars.
Why build a mars base? Robots can do all the experiments better. Outside of just to say we did it, Mars makes no sense to have a manned presence on for any reason. Start with a moon base, it's not so suicidal. Maybe in several decades but even then, with superior tech, it doesn't make sense to waste the resources on a dead planet with an eviroment very hostile to life and not enough resources worth the cost of extracting and exporting back to Earth. It's just dumb dude bro sci fi fantasy land nonsense.
Robots will be the only inhabitants from Earth on Mars.
@@JonnoPlays They will certainly have to go in first, and it could be done with long-range Waldos. Same with the moon, or low earth orbit.
“The longest goodbye”. Is actually phenomenal. Thank you pbs!
More of this, please!
Great series topic!
What an amazing story. I had heard of him but didn't know many details.
I feel like with the “earth out of view” phenomenon, the instinctual reaction might be fear. Fear that if you can’t see it, you can’t find it. I remember feeling this as a child, the moment you pass a boundary where you no longer recognize your surroundings and panic sets in as you realize you may be lost
No mention of the doomed Franklin expedition in the north.
@Patrick-nodak Sure it does. They used an antarctic expedition where everyone survived as a case study / presentation. They could've also mentioned the famous arctic expedition that went horribly wrong.
Well, you can make one.
@@RafiOmar83 They've since had another video, this time of a doomed Arctic expedition, so no need.
Coincidentally, I just watched another video on this very topic. It's quite an amazing story. It truly was Ernest Shackleton's knowledge of the human psyche that saved the men that he could save. We all have to remember this isn't Ernest Shackleton's first rodeo. He even tried to cross the Arctic. He was a very experienced and very capable cold weather Explorer.
They should be provided books and apps on how to improve their mental health for the journey. Thats the big difference beetween old explorers and today. We have advanced immensely in psychology and psychiatry.
Well done and pertinent. 👍
Unlike your life.
@@jennyanydots2389 Oh... we have a slime bot spewing hate filled garbage, wanting to be relevant. Not gonna happen simulated intelligence.
@@jennyanydots2389Why did you choose violence 😭😭😭
@@jennyanydots2389 I know, not like that loser have a meaningful life shitposting like us. Oh my, all this time spent online, the memories we are building. Keep on the good work.
@@user-nm5rj7ol8f Nobodies life is meaningful brugh. It's all in your head. So, everyone's life has meaning if they want it to. Brugh. We are both special to each other right now. You are so special to me. I have wash me trousers.
It seems to me that they should make a huge effort to make parts of a mars expedition’s ship non-utilitarian.
Have at least one area where you can’t see all of the necessary structure, with screens showing a (delayed obviously) live feed of earth from orbit, maybe feeds from different places on earth including sound, and also maybe with scents added.
What if the look and layout of the inside spaceship closely resembles some place on earth that they are familiar with during training and what if they never get a view of the earth as it gets smaller and smaller. Or have a window similar to a hud that will give you a location on the window, if only a tinie, tiny dot. With information about the earth like distance, weather or if we blew ourselves up while they were out on a trip to Mars
One thing they should do is shorten the time it gets to mars and back which will be very important for the journey back home and to lessen these effects
Check out Tom Creen. He was with Shackleton for the worst parts and was also with Scott nearly right to the end. Amazing stories he must have had
it will be hard. And I still would sign up in a heartbeat. In a heartbeat of a hummingbird on its first date.
That was a very good.
0:57 one of my relatives was on the crew that retrieved the remains of the first crew!
The worst thing about Antartica, the ice-olation.
Amazing video
What about all the boats that committed mutiny? 🤔 The men of this expedition almost succumbed to mutiny. On a space voyage this could spell death for everyone with no chance of rescue.
Would never happen if Musk was in charge of a Mars expedition.
Maybe it would be a good idea to send people who are more introverted and antisocial to Mars. They’d definitely still need to be people who are able to work well with others as a team, but if they’re the kind of people who enjoy solitude it might not be as hard for them to be in such an isolated place.
Excellent video!
3:37 ...sounds better than my quarantine routine 😅
Wooooo! New Joe series!!! But also bring back Overview PLEASE
👀
Just guessig but I would suggest 50/50 mix of work/play. If you plan for 50/50, you can always add more work. If you dont, you get stressed. Im also guessing that the infrastructure currently being designed and possibly produced might have time asca funtion of their design. These things should include "regular people" in their planning, i.e. people that work camp jobs (mining camps), people that work ritating shufts (for 20-30 years), etc.
This was a surprisingly nice premise for a video.
The narrator looks like Greg Olsen if he decided to play chess instead of football 😂👌
Must have been pretty cold there.
Great subject matter. I hope some of you reads this. If we want go to Mars. We will have to design and build everything plus " smart robots and rocketships to get there and see that all the constructions are carried perfectly before any human steps on Mars. IE We will have to construct a human livable environment remotely on Mars before trying to send anybody there. At this point in time We are incapable of designing such a project let alone do it.
Only astronauts and robots will go to mars. There is no reason for a manned presence on that planet beyond just to say "we did it" a couple times.
Cool topic and video, helped me feel a little cooler in this heat 😁
How is that you and Simon, both released videos on Polar exploration and Shackleton, within a 5 hour time frame??
When you have enough CZcamsrs, from time to time, multiple from the collective will think about and produce a thing at the same time without intending to. It's also possible that all the people were influenced by a similar thing at a similar time, for example, the recent graduation of astronauts destined for a return trip to the moon. Return trip to the moon is similar to an exploration of mars, which naturally links to Shackleton and his expedition. Since they aren't that wild of video concepts, it makes sense that multiple people could (and did) produce them at the same time.
Feels like an Apollo 13 moment
Do we know how to keep a persons body from deteriorating on a two year space journey?
A lot of this, reminds me of the saying "idle hands are the devils plaything"
And tho I don't take it literally, I think the saying has a nugget of truth, as you saw in this video
The moral of the story is: mental health is important and great leadership will go a long way
Joe, your other self (from beSmart) sent me here. ILF to the next vid in the series.
Yes, there is much to learn from Shackleton-but seriously, Mawson.
Just like someone else in the comment section mentioned, it's easier for us Autistic people to focus on things when by ourselves. But I isolated myself more or less for a long time and I think it affected my memory and focus a bit.
Anyways, disabled people (or many of us atleast) value solitude. It's kinda forced upon us (different for everyone) as we have to reflect over what works and what doesn't.
I would recommend solitude for self-reflection to anyone willing to do so. It can help both yourself and the people around you, since everything has to go fast these days. Humanity has to chill down a bit and value the differences in us as well as our similarities. If we all thought in a similar way, it would make problem-solving so much harder.
Neurotypical disabled people, as some mention in this thread, often struggle with the isolation brought on by their physical disability. Those who have isolation thrust upon them often don't like it as they don't have a choice.
Mars exploration is a good opportunity to test robotics, but we should not send people there they will die.
Isn’t this from a movie transformers??? Witwikis great great great grandfather or something that’s really cool reminded me of that
Wrong pole
I'm willing to bet most human space colonies will be space stations.
Once we hit a certain level of knowledge and Technology. The idea of living on a planet may seem kind of stupid to future humans.
Even down here on Earth. Humans spend most of their life spans inside of a artificial environment.
We have a environment that's perfect for our species yet we spend most of our time trying to avoid that environment.
These things are really overblown--I agree with @mikebmcl below. You just have to look at whaling ships or submarines to see that long duration space travel is well within the psychological resources of many (if not most) people. The key is strong leadership (as so well shown by Shackelton) and well defined roles and responsibilities.
I AM AN ENGINEER AND SENDING HUMANS TO MARS IS THE ULTIMATE ENGINEERING CHALLENGE AND I AM UP FOR IT ! ! !
Venus has entered the chat
I'm a near engine engineer! LET"S DO THISSSS!!!!!!!
@@evilsharkey8954 I don't get the obssesion with Mars, it's a bad choice
Sending astronauts or the moronic and suicidal idea of starting a colony/space tourism "industry" Elund Munsk style?
@@jennyanydots2389 You know, in the old days cult leaders made to believe aliens are comming to Earth, now cult leaders will send people to Mars... is not that funny?
Truly can't make myself ever to understand what's in isolation to others that makes them so concerned.. 😏
There are seals on Mars?
If I was younger and in better shape I'd be a great candidate for the isolation from humanity in space. No prob.
Yeah, but the 1982 film "The Thing" is really good.
Humans aren't getting to Mars. It's one of those perennial "in 20 years" things. 20 years from now it'll still be 20 years away, etc.
At one point, we were always 20 years away from the steam engine, airplanes, and even 3-d printing and color television. Self- driving cars also. We'll figure out a way, as a species, to get through that forever 20 years.
@@jayfridayaq Nice if there was a feasible way to make a bet on this. Because I'm very skeptical of humans ever laying a foot on another planet. We aren't going to make it long enough to develop that far.
I could give a TED talk about physical and psychological isolation if anyone wants one 😅
You don't need to go to space or Antarctica to feel alone. Your brain can take you there from anywhere.
Configure a better recording system! The sound in each video is blurry and unclear, which is very annoying.
As long as they've got minecraft on the ship and a couple movies they'll be fine
Lunar missions make more sense than Mars. With the ISS retiring, an upgraded alternative is the priority aside from a UN body to regulate atmospheric order. Issues such as space debris must be tackled. Issues of inclusivity of different races to space missions are yet to be addressed.
They need more countries getting into space
Can you imagine if he was alive today…, I guess we have that in our astronauts & military…👍
Go to Mars!!💪💪💪😊😊😊
I'm cerous how farm boys would compare to where we commonly get our astronauts from because in my experience of living in Vermont and Florida people in Vermont are pretty isolated and disinterested in the outside world everyone is just hanging around their little farms and homes in the middle of nowhere meanwhile people in Florida are constantly online and chatting with hundreds maybe thousands of people all at once but at the same time people in Vermont get a lot of exercise from chopping trees and feeding cows so idk if like to see an experiment that compares how country folk and city dwellers handle Mars exploration simulations
Why does this look like Daniel Tosh doing an impersonation of a science presenter?
Guys, they can send me to Mars. I don't mind, am okay with it.
Great video, eager for the rest of the series.
Now, about explorer psychology. I think we could be missing some important stuff. I mean, we all already know that the psychology of explorers of old was very different of that of astronauts of today - before, we had usually poor men, with few options, but also very much hardened by their own lives; today, we have usually well off men and women, of great education and comfortable life, that yes probably do their exercises every week, meditate, and have healthy love lives. Still, I'd wager that both types of explorers would do badly in a mars trip. First, because ANY HUMAN would do very badly in this INSANE idea. Second, because they're all (yes, including men like the ones Shackleton hired) pro-social. Being pro-social won't cut it. We need some pariahs. Some really unique mental types, anti-social, that don't get rich and don't get into universities or into PHd or into NASA because they really don't fit our society AT ALL. Those guys will be happy to be FAR far away, be it Antartica or Mars. Damm, put in some good videogames in the ships and call it a day, if you take the right nerds.
Even tough even those are just human after all and thus will just suffer as well. We really shouldn't be trying to go to Mars. This is dumbassery.
People forget that Homo sapiens survived while other species perished cuz we were curious and explorers.
12:28, Even the dogs thrive and breed their offsprings
But is this sort of travel really different than traveling somewhere on the earth that’s very different from everything that you’ve known? If we already can move to radically different places on the globe, I don’t know that traveling to a different planet will really be all that different. The challenge I think is the lack of new people to encounter.
Mars Express! Look it up
Shipped sunrise, sunset
Forty two, our delay
Purple heartbroken
#dontpanic
With the rise of AI--- arrrrghghghg!!! "I can't let you do that, Hal."
We are most certainly both the weakest link and great phenomenon is the universe..
Would like to see this studied with autistic people. As an autistic who craves for isolation, I've spent most of my life willingly by myself, isolated. As a kid, I'd run away from other kids and hide in closets, as an adult, I thrive working from home most of my career and moved to an isolated house in the country. Can be alone forever and not feel any of the down sides of isolation that allistics experience. Maybe it should be considered to chose autistic crews for expeditions and space travels 😄
There are plenty of East Asian modern hermits who would do fine having isolated for years or decades. I loved the pandemic isolation. 🤣
Joe says hey by the way
I saw another video that said a Mars mission would probably need to be all women because a bunch of guys would all kill each other. The effects of isolation have been well known from early work in the Antarctic as well as men's experiences on oil rigs. The research on this goes back to the 1950's but was not highly publicized because such matters were upsetting to the public. So how can you solve a problem if you cannot even talk about it? The factors involved here are not just psychological but also cultural.
I think it would be mostly because women generally weigh less and don't need as many calories per day. These alone could easily knock off a couple hundred pounds, which would add up a lot on a trip that long. But also what you just said.
@@RevShifty this is counter balanced with women experiencing more health issues in zero-G.
The music is so tedious. Please turn it way down or eliminate it.
Good idea to go to Mars by thw way. Not that we got anything better to do.
Not a single man was lost.