By Aquanaut Kimiya Yui (JAXA)
Image at right: The topside crew discuss communications delay scenarios in the mobile mission control center.Today, we didn’t have any EVAs. However, we had several interesting events today! Our commander Dottie had live, underwater interviews while in her diving gear. Tim Peake and Steve Squyres had some interviews with a 50-second communication delay. Imagine if you asked a question, but you couldn’t get an answer for 100 seconds? It must make a really strange interview!
These kinds of events were completely new to us, so we really enjoyed the challenge and also learned a lot from them. We know that during deep-space missions, communication with mission control on Earth will be delayed, and it will be very challenging for us to communicate during our missions.
Of course, we had some hard training today. We had different types of emergency trainings, also with a communication delay! We got really good data, which will be valuable when we are going to explore an asteroid or Mars. We need to know what will be the most effective ways – and what kind of tools will be used – to comunicate effectively with a communication delay.
By the way, do you think communication delay will affect our team work? Of course, it is hard to react to an unexpected situation without timely support from the ground team, which is an expert team. However, I felt the bond of the crew became much stronger. And more interestingly, I feel that not only crew but entire team’s bond became stronger!
When teams overcome tough situations, the individual grows and team members will be bonded stronger! That is why we always need to keep a challenging and difficult mission! Sending humans to an asteroid is a tough mission, but I believe it is worth it!
Learn more about NEEMO at www.nasa.gov/neemo