Reid Stowe and Soanya Ahmad hope to stay aboard the schooner Anne for 1,000 days. *
Photo: Courtesy of Reid Stowe * If NASA one day fulfills the dream of sending a manned expedition to Mars, Reid Stowe will have plenty of advice for the first astronaut crew.
He could offer suggestions on mundane details -- bring plenty of socks, because they wear out faster than you expect -- as well as deep thoughts. "You have to put yourself in a timeless state of mind," he says. "You have to really abandon everything that's on Earth, and just live."
The 55-year-old Stowe, a sailor and professional adventurer, is currently sailing the 70-foot schooner Anne through the South Atlantic. He's attempting to stay at sea, beyond the sight of land, for 1,000 days. Stowe calls his project the Mars Ocean Odyssey, because he thinks the journey will provide valuable lessons for a manned flight to Mars, when astronauts would be confined to a small vessel for two to three years, separated from terra firma and most of humanity.
Stowe has made a number of long, grueling sails, including a trip to Antarctica in 1986. But if he succeeds in this mission, it will not only be the longest trip of his career, he'll also shatter the 1988 record world record for the longest continuous sail -- held by Australian Jon Sanders, who was at sea for 657 days.
Stowe's only companion and crew is 24-year-old Soanya Ahmad, his girlfriend, who says she had never stepped foot on a boat before meeting Stowe four years ago. But the novice Ahmad seems to be well suited for the particular rigors of this voyage.
"Being away from people is not as traumatic as you might think," she tells Wired News by satellite phone. "You're also away from the bustle of the city, from the commercialism, from pop culture telling you what to think and what to wear and how to be." Out at sea, she says, "You're free to find your own style."
Space (or psychology) enthusiasts can follow the 1,000 Days at Sea project through its website, checking daily blog posts e-mailed in by satellite phone. Stowe thinks they can draw one conclusion already: It's clear, more than a hundred days into the adventure, that personality type is a crucial criterion when selecting a crew.
For a long journey to Mars, Stowe says, you don't want an aggressive, overachieving jet pilot. In this case, an astronaut with "the right stuff" would be quiet and meditative -- someone who would take satisfaction from small daily tasks, and who could while away the hours staring at the stars.
So far, Stowe and Ahmad seem serenely content with each other and with their prescribed lives. Ahmad admits to a few food cravings, but immediately adds that when she does get that first spoonful of chocolate ice cream in about 28 months, "It probably won't be as good as it is in my imagination."
As for Stowe, he may be in danger of blissing out. Several weeks ago he wrote about the star-spangled night sky in his blog, saying that he and Ahmad have seen the constellations so many times that "we see them in each other's eyes even in the daytime." Astronauts on their way to Mars, he wrote, "will become starry-eyed like us. How will we ever adapt to normal life again?" In an earlier post, he noted that he has begun to muse about God and "higher callings."
A trip to Mars would be considerably better financed than Stowe's scrappy trip. He conceived of this idea about 20 years ago as a personal challenge, but it took years before he could round up sponsors and a willing first mate. Stowe cobbled together the supplies and equipment one sponsor at a time. Donated supplies include sails, solar panels, 15 cases of peanut butter and 250 pounds of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
A representative for NASA says she doesn't know anyone at the agency who is following Stowe's mission. But several space agencies are indeed thinking ahead to a Mars expedition. This summer, the nonprofit Mars Society conducted a four-month Mars exploration simulation in the Canadian Arctic, in cooperation with the Canadian Space Agency and NASA. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency is recruiting volunteers for an experiment simulating a trip to Mars and back. This would have the volunteers live in a small, isolated module for 520 days.
However, Mars experts believe the first journey to the red planet may take almost twice that long. Robert Zubrin, president and founder of the Mars Society, says most current plans call for a six-month journey to Mars, a year-and-a-half on the planet's surface, and a six-month return journey -- upwards of 900 days, total.
Zubrin says he's skeptical of Mars simulations that primarily test the effect of long isolation on human beings. "It's not at all unknown for people to be isolated for that length of time, and in far worse conditions," he says. "Ann Frank and her family were in an attic for two years, and not sailing the South Seas, but hiding from Nazis prowling around on the outside with listening devices." For most people, Zubrin says, isolation may be difficult to endure, but it's not likely to drive them insane.
The "human factor" that should be tested in simulations is how to create an efficient, cooperative team, says Zubrin. In that regard, he says, Stowe's mission is a better simulation than the European Space Agency's planned experiment, which will be conducted at a research institute in Moscow.
"At least they're doing something: They're managing a sailboat," Zubrin says. "These other people are sitting in a can in Moscow, playing chess. It has nothing to do with a Mars mission."
