The Mars rovers, with their unique 24-hour-39-minute Martian day, have created a peculiar situation for the engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). This article delves into the challenges and insights of living and working on Mars time, and how it impacts the human experience.
The extra 39 minutes in a Martian day is not just a rounding quirk, but a fundamental difference between Mars and Earth. This leads to a strange workplace condition where JPL staff spend the first 90 sols of a mission living on Mars time, eating breakfast at midnight and driving home from work as their neighbors leave for theirs. This raises a deeper question: what does this do to the human body and mind?
The human circadian rhythms run on a roughly 24-hour cycle, and a 24-hour-39-minute day is closer to the body's natural drift. However, the light cues that entrain the body's clock keep contradicting the schedule on the wrist. This leads to sleep loss, difficulty concentrating, mood swings, and a sense of social dislocation. JPL has developed a toolkit to help people adapt, including blue-enriched lighting, blackout curtains, and a precisely timed caffeine schedule.
The rovers themselves have also become more autonomous, reducing the need for human planners to micromanage each sol. The new navigation capability, Mars Global Localization, allows the rover to pin its position to within roughly 10 inches, saving time and effort for the planners.
Despite the challenges, the prospect of being one of the first humans to see pictures from another world fills some with awe. The experience of living on Mars time is a unique one, and it raises questions about the cost of operating a Martian rover from Earth, not only in dollars but also in terms of human health and well-being.
In conclusion, the Mars rovers have created a small civilization on local time, and the experience of living and working on Mars time is a fascinating one. It raises important questions about the impact of time on the human body and mind, and the challenges of operating in a different time zone from the rest of the world.
