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Phoenix Lander Crew's Cubicles Designed to Fight Perpetual Martian Jet Lag
Posted by John Mahoney at 9:20 AM on July 30, 2008
I've always tried to look at jet lag from a more recreational perspective (when else will I rise from sleep wide awake at 3:45 AM?), but what the scientists of the Mars Phoenix Lander mission have to go through makes a 19-hour direct flight to Singapore look like cupcakes. Since Martial Sols are longer than Earth days by 40 minutes, the staff's work schedule effectively skips two time zones every three days to stay on the spacecraft's own schedule. Multiply that over the course of the planned 92-day mission, and you've got some mightily out-of-wack Circadian rhythms on your hands.
One way to preserve the Phoenix workers' sanity are the harsh blue LED-lit workstations you see here, which are on a wavelength that simulates daylight and fools the body into thinking everything's OK. Researchers from the Harvard Medical School who are using the Mars Phoenix staff as guinea pigs for a study on Circadian rhythms also have them doing pre- and post-shift cognition and "mood" testing.
So if any of this crazy scheduling rings a bell with your terrestrial gig, do yourself right and get a nice big glaring blue LED panel for your cube. You'll feel a lot better. [Space.com]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Dont Know Me? You Are Me.
Posted 12:29 PM 30/7/08
@92BuickLeSabre: It's a nice idea you have there, but the job is not a 24-7 one. The lander is solar-powered, and almost all its activity happens during the Mars day (sol). That's when the team on earth has to be awake.
Dont Know Me? You Are Me.
Bokusatsu_Tenshi
Posted 11:51 AM 30/7/08
@biofreak: Here's a new one them: Enjoy your banhammer.
Interesting stuff... I understand some people pays heavily the price of jet lag, while others don't feel nothing.
I hope their experiments work, because I'm one of the people who pays heavily the price...
Trip to Japan, I had a persistent, almost disabling headache for a weekend. Like a very long hang-over.
Living in Brazil and having traveled to Spain once and twice to the US, wasn't expecting to feel nothing like that.
But well, Brazil is on the exact opposite side of the globe... on my next trip to Japan, I'll try anything to get rid of the jetlag. From drugs to flashing leds.
Bokusatsu_Tenshi
Con Seannery
Posted 11:16 AM 30/7/08
@mac_tanaguchi: I heard that, too. Let's hope more people don't, or else scientists will try to put rockets on the planet at the right angle to slow it down to a 25-hour day.
Con Seannery
mac_tanaguchi
Posted 11:05 AM 30/7/08
actually, ive heard that if you put humans in a cave with no sunlight at all, their cycles gradually stretch into rhythms lasting around 25 hours.
ref: Stores, G Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology 1999, 41: 348-352
mac_tanaguchi
WorstPostEver
Posted 10:39 AM 30/7/08
@facultus: ummm... some sort of European 220v power-strip? Not sure why... but it is my best guess.
WorstPostEver
kathartik
Posted 10:22 AM 30/7/08
maybe I could use this... working til 1:30 in the morning sucks (btw, stop calling in for tech support at 1:30 in the morning)
kathartik
pacificism
Posted 10:16 AM 30/7/08
@biofreak:
why do ppl feel the need to try and impress everyone else by knowing or claiming to know about something before its posted on a site...and then downplay it like they are some veteran of the information age. so annoying.
pacificism
facultus
Posted 10:07 AM 30/7/08
Take a look at the plugs in the bottom right corner where he has a power cord inserted into a round thingamajig? What is that?
facultus
UberJumper
Posted 9:50 AM 30/7/08
Fascinating.
The Blue LED lights... I wonder if they're the same type of lights used in Maternity wards to ward off excess bilirubin.
[uberjumper.hwcommunity.com]
UberJumper
Metkis
Posted 9:47 AM 30/7/08
@Metkis: Nevermind, epic fail...
Metkis
Metkis
Posted 9:46 AM 30/7/08
@Metkis: Well for me it'd be sixth, but you get the idea.
Metkis
Metkis
Posted 9:46 AM 30/7/08
@92BuickLeSabre: FIFTH!!!!!!111!!1ONE
Metkis
92BuickLeSabre
Posted 9:40 AM 30/7/08
@biofreak: You seriously have no idea how f'in irritating that is do you?
Couldn't you just use a handful of teams and regulate their schedules in a way that makes this all moot? Why should it matter if I'm working 1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Mars Time one day and 1:45 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. the next day (or whatever it actually is) if I'm working the same 8 hours on earth? Presumably they have people monitoring 24/7 as it is?
92BuickLeSabre
rexplex
Posted 9:29 AM 30/7/08
I'd bet that if the JPL team stayed underground & their entire 92 day mission was 24h39m long they would adjust easily to the longer day. Sending them out into the world 39 minutes later every day will definatly mess w/ you head.
rexplex
DeadWriter
Posted 9:27 AM 30/7/08
So, if he wears the 3d glasses, does only half his mind perceive the time change?
DeadWriter
Lodlaiden_
Posted 9:26 AM 30/7/08
@Giz: Or i could snap and kill myself.
Lodlaiden_
biofreak
Posted 9:26 AM 30/7/08
Old news.
biofreak
92BuickLeSabre
Posted 2:16 PM 30/7/08
@Dont Know Me? You Are Me.: I was thinking about that. But don't they do something while it's asleep? (Sort data? Monitor it's snoring patterns?) It would just mean that over the 92 days the amount of time spent during the "boring" times and the "interesting" time would slowly rotate between the teams? Perhaps not I guess.
92BuickLeSabre
Platypus Man
Posted 10:28 PM 30/7/08
@mac_tanaguchi: Yeah, the human natural circadian rhythm is 25 hours. So, if they were to just take these people out of normal society and keep them locked up and on Mars's 24:40 day, they'd adjust just fine. The problem there would be, you know, keeping them out of regular society.
This reminds me of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, which had a 26 hour day, so everyone had to adjust.
Platypus Man
GeekyNerdGuy
Posted 1:10 AM 31/7/08
@Platypus Man: Well, obviously humans would naturally have Martian circadian rhythms since we originally came from Mars.
GeekyNerdGuy
Lev_Astov
Posted 12:40 PM 30/7/08
Are you kidding? My body clock is at least 40 minutes slow each day. That would be perfect for me!
Lev_Astov
DeusExMach
Posted 4:29 AM 31/7/08
"The twins keep us on Alpha Centaurian time... a 37-hour day. Give it a few months, you'll get used to it. Or you'll have a psychotic episode."
DeusExMach