Offshore sailing as training for astronauts
The full Mars Ocean Analog crew suited up. Credit: Reid Stowe I remember someone mentioning that there are spots in the ocean where we are closer to the ISS than to any land station on earth. And with this week's excitement about the Artemis II crew slingshot around the moon in a tiny capsule, ten days aboard seemed like crossing an ocean in a small boat. Except that everything was controlled remotely from Earth, which is pretty amazing in itself. Then came an article in Cruising World about how offshore sailing is great training for becoming an astronaut. Author Reid Stowe studied space psychology and assembled a crew to sail a gaff-rigged schooner across the Atlantic to the space center in Florida to prove a point: that distance sailing is better training for being an astronaut than being a fighter pilot. The idea first came to him when President George H.W. Bush called for a crewed mission to Mars. The description read—eight people, multinational, isolated in a l...