The Astronauts Who Go Spelunking

All week, Motherboard contributor Daniel Oberhaus is exploring those isolated space analogs from around the world that have become integral in planning for long-duration space flight. This is part three of five.

Several hundred feet under the Earth's surface might seem like an odd location to prepare people for the trials of space travel. But for Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behavior and performance Skills (CAVES) mission designer Loredana Bessone, there is no better place.

For the past four years, Bessone, whose job description at the European Space Agency involves everything from parachuting out of planes to exploring some of the least traversed areas on Earth, has lead a group of six astronauts, half of which have been to space and half who have yet to fly, deep into the caverns on the Mediterranean Isle of Sardinia. For the next week, the astronauts run team building exercises, explore, and perform scientific work, during which Bessone and others study the effects being isolated in a uniquely stressful environment has on group dynamics.

Bessone said caves replicate a number of experiences had by astronauts in space, something which is buoyed by the astronauts who have spent time on the International Space Station as well as several hundred feet below the Earth's surface. The stress experienced by the astronauts, together with the reality of such situational dangers, make the CAVES mission a fitting space analog, but there are also more subtle similarities.

Imagine only having a headlight to see in the dark, mimicking the limited visibility of an astronaut's helmet. The flight-tested astronauts have found many similarities between moving into vertical and horizontal ropes in caving and performing extravehicular activities in space. In other ways, CAVES provides experience in tasks that are currently not a part of most space missions, but will increasingly become so as space agencies gear up for the initial manned missions to the Red Planet.

"In CAVES one of the things we do is have astronauts do real exploration activities, including field science, where they have to become a geologist or microbiologist in the field," Bessone told me. "That is something they are very rarely able to experience in space now."

Like many other space analog missions, CAVES is more than a simulation. The astronauts spend their days doing real science and mapping out unexplored regions of the Sa Grutta cave systems, which burrow hundreds of feet beneath the cerulean coasts of Sardinia. CAVES research has led to a number of cool results, such as the discovery of a new kind of woodlouse.

Video: ESA

Life underground for the "cavenauts," like the lives of many others who find themselves at space analog sites, is relatively routine. As Bessone relates it, there are really two main types of days, dedicated to science or exploration. Science days involve returning to areas explored by the previous year's crew with the intent to perform specific scientific experiments to follow-up on the last mission's observations. After spending the day at the old site, the astronauts return to the campsite to store and collect their data from the day.

The last mission, in 2014, introduced a new variable into the CAVES missions: now the astronauts do "advanced camps" in which they venture into uncharted territory within the cave system, taking equipment and camping gear ahead with them. They spend the night deep in the caves, away from the base camp.

"[CAVES] is never a repetition. Every year we have to think about how to modify the mission to make sure it's still possible because the astronauts spend more time just moving," said Bessone. "We need to go into new areas … I want the science to always be real."

According to Bessone, who also trains crews heading to Antarctica's Concordia research base for a year, there are three crucial aspects to take into consideration when designing an effective space analog mission. The first is that the reality of the danger must be real, forcing the participants to constantly be situationally aware, like they must be on space flights. The second is that the mission must be situationally analogous, from the difficulty of seeing in the dark with only a headlamp to having real, life-threatening consequences for failure to properly follow procedures. The final element ties into the previous two, insofar as one's stress level must mimic that experienced by an astronaut.

"In creating CAVES, I needed to find a cave environment that was challenging, but not too challenging in order to get people to a stress level that's just the right amount of uncomfortable," she explained.

Bessone believes that all three of these elements are present in each of the CAVES missions, although the stress aspect seems to dominate. Caving is a dangerous activity and the persons participating in this experiment are trained as astronauts, not spelunkers. The astronauts are accompanied by a support team, but due to the isolated nature of the experiment, there are still plenty of ways in which things can go wrong. Getting to the experiment site involves a four-hour technical climb from the mouth of the cave into the Earth. If disaster struck, it would be very hard to deal with it effectively.

While most of the CAVES missions have gone off without a hitch, tragedy struck on the most recent iteration in 2014, when a support crew member fell to their death in the caves after failing to follow the proper safety protocols. The incident led to an investigation into the CAVES safety procedures which concluded last March with a report and some recommendations on modifying safety protocols for future missions, hopefully mitigating similar tragedies in the future.

These recommendations included extending health and safety protocols from the ESA's crew to the volunteer support team that assists in equipment transport, in addition to formalizing the terms of agreement between the ESA crew and their volunteer support team. As Bessone put it, "safety is a right as well as a duty of everybody that is worth reminding each time," a sentiment she will be driving into the next group of cavenauts to descend into the Earth this September.