The only way is to write a book.
In order to smooth the path for the triumphant beneficiary, serious money was on the table: enough to buy a year off university teaching. When once asked how he had developed his extraordinary and awesome theories, Einstein claimed “I used my imagination.” Increasingly such an intellectual path is denied us by the straitjacket of funding policy in this country. The anal retentive attitude towards grant proposals puts iron weights on any flights of imagination, global overview, or paradigm shift. The winner, a professional scientist, would have the chance to write a book for the general public on the biomedical subject of their choice. Many of us bench-bound practitioners would give eye teeth and right arms to take on such a project, to have the chance of putting one’s ideas and even dreams into a form comprehensible to the general reader – and thus to see the wood for the trees, pull out the Big Idea, and to speculate. More to the point, in the civil world of Nasa’s made-for-TV space programme, it is felt that American tax payers would not condone such high jinks.. The poster from the The Wellcome Trust, the medical research charity, showed pens protruding from a sawn-off head and was followed by an enticing competition.

Combined with an exercise bike, for example, a video headset would allow an astronaut to cycle through a landscape – more than likely an idyllic earthly one.Other forms of escapism such as drugs and alcohol have been ruled out The military fears they could impair thinking in a crisis. “But what if there was a compartment at the end of the spacecraft where you could go ‘on holiday’?” asks Wolff. It seems certain that virtual reality apparatus will be important on any Mars mission to create fantasy environments. But one can create the impression by various design techniques that the spaces aren’t quite as cramped as they are.”Times and places can be designated as special Scientists in space work shorter hours at weekends. “Of course, one would like to create as much real space as possible,” says Harrison “Given the stresses, a place to retreat is of some value. Even aboard the comparatively spacious Mir, it has been found that cosmonauts become territorial, especially when the work is dull. With its several linked modules, Mir permits this withdrawal.

Perhaps they will use the time to pick up a little conversational Martian.Privacy is another concern on long missions. One way of tackling the growing sense of isolation is for the crew to make more decisions on their own. Although newly powerful on-board computers with artificial intelligence will be capable of doing much of this work, it is thought desirable to let the astronauts do it in order to provide a sense of fulfilment. The challenge for the psychologists will be how to assign tasks between crew members and computers.Mary Connors of the Living Aloft project at Nasa’s Ames Research Center in San Francisco is pursuing another possibility of providing a kind of “continuing professional development” using telemedia to allow the astronauts to acquire new skills on the voyage, although Nasa are quick to add that this does not imply sending astronauts up half-trained. Human sentiment suggests that they should have the privilege of a window to see this unique sight But practical demands may rule it out.