Episode 3: Why Are We Like This?

April 18, 2018·29 min·2 clips

Cyprien discovers the Paris attacks via Wikipedia, unable to contact his family due to a 20-minute communication delay.

The episode opens with Anjay Stewart, the High Seas 4 Chief Engineering Officer, whose childhood love of space was sparked by the 1986 film Space Camp, featuring a young Joaquin Phoenix and kids accidentally launched into orbit. Despite this cinematic inspiration, the reality of the High Seas simulation is decidedly unglamorous: the crew rehydrates dried chicken, exercises on stationary bikes, and has conversations about the proper past tense of 'sink.' The crew is subjected to up to 11 surveys per day, covering everything from sleep logs and stress levels to plant interaction and social dynamics, all designed to simulate the psychological monitoring a Mars crew would undergo. The narrator introduces the mattress analogy: just as manufacturers stress-test mattresses with 500-pound rollers and 20,000 fake-buttocks compressions, the crew is being product-tested for the psychological stresses of long-duration space travel. By mission day 100 and beyond, the repetitive sameness of every day begins to wear on the crew. The monotony breaks on November 13th when crew member Cyprien — a Parisian — sees a Wikipedia sidebar about a shooting near the Stade de France. Unable to Google, call home, or watch news due to the simulated Mars communication delay, Cyprien must rely on 20-minute-delayed emails. He receives a message from French mission support with the subject 'Attentat Paris,' describing at least 39 dead — a number that would rise to 130 confirmed by afternoon. While the rest of the world watched rolling coverage, the habitat was silent. Cyprien biked furiously on the exercise bike, alone, for hours. Mission commander Kim Binsted confirms they would have considered pulling Cyprien from the mission, but he never asked. After hours, Cyprien learned his family and friends were safe. He stayed in the dome, never breaking the simulation. The episode pivots to Frank Culbertson Jr., the only American in space during 9/11, who could see the smoke from Manhattan through the ISS window and wrote about the overwhelming feeling of helplessness. The narrator notes that future Mars astronauts won't even have this proximity — Earth will be a minuscule dot. Anjay then reflects on a prior simulation at Johnson Space Center's HERA facility, where the crew received daily newspapers. He stopped reading on day two due to depressing headlines, and learned at the debrief that every crewmate had independently done the same thing around the same day. In High Seas, the crew similarly filters out most news. After Paris, Anjay reflects on the strange comfort of the dome — no war, no crime — and asks, 'Why are we like this?' The episode ends with the narrator noting that the crew increasingly devotes energy to their bonds with each other, teasing that some of those bonds may deepen beyond friendship.

As heard by us

A Mars simulation turns repetition, confinement, and bad news from Paris into a quiet stress test.

A Mars simulation that begins like a drill slowly turns into a study of what repetition does to people. Anjay's childhood astronaut dream sits beside the campy pull of Space Camp, while the mission-day logs, the simulated Mars routines, and the tiny physical irritations start to…

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Why you'd press play

You want a Mars mission story where a Paris news alert lands like a gut punch.

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