Book Review: Once Upon a Time I lived on Mars

In 2012, nearly seven hundred people answered an advert looking for analog astronauts – a small group prepared to spend four months isolated together, living as they would on Mars. This would be the first mission in the new Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS). Funded by NASA, it’s main aim was to investigate whether providing astronauts with shelf-stable ingredients and allowing them to cook would prevent the menu fatigue and weight loss seen during long-duration space missions.

For Kate Greene, it was an opportunity not to be missed. As a child, Greene dreamed of going to space camp, but it was beyond her family’s resources. Determined to qualify as an astronaut, she dived into a scientific education. Life, however, had other ideas, and Greene became a science writer instead. Now she was to become an analog astronaut, living her dream without the pesky inconvenience of having to blast into space.

There’s something quite romantic about the idea of tucking yourself away and pretending to be on Mars for a while, but the reality is a lot more prosaic. HI-SEAS is a geodesic dome built on the side of a volcano, a location chosen for its similarities to the geology of the Moon and Mars. There’s no fresh food. Power and water are both limited. Personal hygiene mostly relies on wet wipes, and the composting toilets don’t always work. Analog astronauts surrender their mobile phones and endure limited contact with their loved ones. For a Mars mission like this one, communications pass through a twenty-minute delay. Oh, and if you want to pop outside, you have to put on a “spacesuit”.

The idea was simple. The crew would alternate between eating long-life ready meals and using long-life ingredients to cook for