Kelly Haston – Scientist, ultrarunner & Commander of NASA’s Mars simulation project

Jennifer Stewart: Okay, first things first, how did you feel the moment you walked into the Mars Dune Alpha, which is where you spent over a year of your life, and you looked behind you and that door closed for the last time?

Kelly Haston: Believe it or not, the very first thing we did when we walked in—because it was myself and three other people, the crew—we actually sort of linked together and gave out, like, a little sort of, I don’t know, cheer, a celebratory cheer, because it had been a really long time coming. We’d been selected in 2022. There had been a delay to the start of the mission while they were sort of finishing up some of the pieces that they needed to put in place. And then we had over five weeks of training together in Houston.

So to be honest, I think we were all just so excited that the door finally closed and we were in there. We kind of spontaneously formed this, like, group hug and then sort of made a cheer. And we could actually hear the audience outside laughing at us because they could hear it through the walls.

Jennifer Stewart: Oh, fun. I love that!.

Kelly Haston: Yeah, that might have been the last time we heard live people, actually.

Catherine Clark: You were isolated, right? Can you describe it for us? What it was actually like there, and whether you were in your own entire space or whether you knew that there were people in the outside world around you? Just describe it for us a little bit, if you don’t mind.

Kelly Haston: Sure. So CHAPEA is a crew and health sort of exploration analog that NASA put on. It’s actually based at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and it was built inside a hangar. It’s a 3D-printed habitat that was designed with the idea of what it would look like to have the habitat on Mars using materials that might be there.

So it’s kind of like this huge 3D printer that made it, and then we did actually have sort of a bubble over parts of the habitat to create our outdoor area where we went out and simulated being on Mars as well. But we were actually in a hangar that had other things going on, including our mission control.

So in a really interesting way, you had to, like, enter this analog mission and go into this isolation, knowing that mission control was actually in the same building as you. Kudos to those people, because they had signs all over the building—which we didn’t see until we came out—that said things like, “No talking at all during EVAs or extra-vehicular activities” when we were actually outside the habitat. Even when we were inside, they had to be really quiet all the time. They worked as a team, a ground crew, for over a year being extremely quiet so that we could never hear them.

So it was actually kind of a very interesting scenario to have to, like, sort of modulate in your mind. You know, be part of the mission and believe in it, and yet kind of know as a normal human being that you have all these people actually relatively close to you that you’re not speaking to directly.

Jennifer Stewart: I saw a video of what I’m going to call the set, and it reminded me of that Matt Damon movie where they go to Mars. It was really interesting. But talk me through, mentally — did you trick yourself into believing you were on Mars? Or how did you reconcile that you weren’t? Did you want to pretend you were on Mars? Mentally, how did that shift happen? Or did it happen?

Kelly Haston: Yeah, that’s a great question, and one that I think every single person handled slightly differently. We talked about it a lot as a crew. There was a crew intentionality to how we wanted to treat the mission, and there was also concern about not getting in the way of somebody else’s version of that.

For me personally, I tried to drop into the scenario of what we were experiencing. But to be honest, I couldn’t always pretend we were on Mars. There were things that were just not the same. Of course, you can never fully simulate the dangers of being in space or on a planet that’s less friendly than Earth. For example, if we had gone outside our habitat without proper extra-vehicular activity (EVA) gear, we obviously would be okay. You can’t mimic that danger in the same way.

Analogs are built to ask specific questions about certain parts of problems, but they’re not going to address all the problems. So, I would say that each of us had a unique way of approaching the situation. For myself, I did my best to drop into the experience of being resource-restricted, isolated, and on comms delay as part of a crew with Mars-like tasks. It was kind of like toeing the line. But there were times where it was really difficult to stay within that mindset because it is a simulation, and you have to work pretty hard to stay there.

Everybody else had different ways of doing it. As I said, you always tried to be really sensitive to other people’s methods and not step on them if you could.

Catherine Clark: Just for laypeople — because it took me a bit to figure out what “analog” means in this contex t— can you define it for us?

Kelly Haston: Sure. An analog is something that simulates something, and oftentimes it’s part of testing. This was an experimental analog. You could also have analogs that are for training.

For example, when astronauts go into the Neutral Buoyancy Lab — a big pool that has mockups of the International Space Station — that’s an analog. It’s the best we can get on Earth for simulating a spacewalk. They put their spacesuits on and go underwater, where they’re relatively weightless, and they can practice tasks they’ll need to do in space.

There are other analogs too, like in austere conditions. There’s Nemo, which is underwater, or ones in Antarctica. These are often designed to ask a specific question or set of questions, or to train a group on specific tasks.

This analog was focused on how a crew based on Mars might do in terms of their health and performance. That included psychology, exercise, eating, and more during a long-term mission of over a year, like in this particular case. In its simplest form, an analog is a simulation.

Jennifer Stewart: I’m really curious about the perception of something versus the reality of it. What was your perception of spending over a year away from family and friends, and then what was the reality of that experience?

Kelly Haston: I’ve lived away from home for a long time. I’ve been based in the U.S. for a while, and all my family is in Canada. Before that, I lived in Britain for five years when I was younger, so I’ve spent a lot of time away from family. I also tend to spend a lot of time in the backcountry. I do a lot of trail running and spend time alone, so I thought I was a pretty independent person.

I’m a scientist, so I love being in the lab and have spent long hours in the lab throughout my career, often in collaboration with others, as is the case with backcountry travel. I was really ready for this. My partner, my friends, and I did a lot of prep for it, and the crew and I collaborated on preparations as well. We were a super collaborative crew in terms of thinking about what we needed to bring with us.

For example, most of us brought activities for our downtime because you can’t really go anywhere. You are in the same area for work and living, so you need to have enrichment that will keep you occupied. I love having my hands busy, so I brought a lot of crafts. I ended up embroidering the mission patch and the NASA meatball logo, and I even embroidered gifts for people.

The reality, though, was that I knew the downtime and time away from family would be challenging — and it was. The communication delay, for example, was something I knew would happen, but it was much more difficult than I imagined. At the height of the mission, the delay was 22 minutes each way. This meant that at the fastest, if you sent a message, it would take about 45 minutes to get a response. But it wasn’t just the time — it was the data size. If you sent a picture, audio file, or video, it took even longer to reach Earth, and vice versa.

We quickly learned that we couldn’t send large items during busy times, or it would block the system for smaller messages. We became really adept at thinking through when to send certain things, and we learned to use audio instead of video to get quicker responses. We could only send short videos because of the size limit on the files.

While I knew about these challenges on an intellectual level, I didn’t realize how tough they would be. When something goes wrong, or when you need to talk to someone immediately, that time delay feels really hard. Learning how to adapt to that was one of the most difficult aspects. Each crew member found their own ways of coping with it, both with their loved ones and with ground control, in terms of giving feedback and sending data.

Catherine Clark: Did it take a toll on your personal relationships? You mentioned being away from home, but you also have a partner. How did being away from them for over a year affect your relationship?

Kelly Haston: I feel really lucky because my partner and I actually grew even closer during the mission. But I have to say, it took a lot of work. The longer a mission goes, the harder it gets. Now that I’ve done 378 days, I can’t imagine a three-year mission.

For example, my partner would often do this thing called “Cooking with Elliot.” He’d put his audio on while cooking dinner and tell me about his day. Since I was in Houston and he was in California, I wouldn’t get the audio until the next day. Sometimes I’d listen to it while working out or doing something else, and I’d have to go back and listen again to catch all the nuances and the things he needed answers to.

It really depended on the day and context, but we worked hard to maintain that connection. My friends and my partner really rose to the occasion, and I felt like some of my friendships deepened because we were communicating in a different way.

It made me think about community, how communities come together, and how they adapt to challenges. It was amazing in that way.

Jennifer Stewart: What’s the biggest thing you learned about yourself during the mission?

Kelly Haston: I’d say I learned just how important family and relationships are. That became even more evident during the mission. Now, when people ask me if I’d go to Mars, that’s what stops me from saying yes right away.

Would I go to the moon? Yes, that feels like a lesser commitment. But a three-year mission to Mars and the time spent there would be incredible — but it would also be such a huge ask from your family and friends. You’d miss so many things.

So, I really learned a lot about my relationships during this mission, and it’s also altered what I’m looking for in my life.

Jennifer Stewart: Kelly, you’re a marathon and ultra-marathon runner, and you’ve talked about your love of trail running and hiking and being in the backcountry. I saw videos of treadmills within the simulation area. What was it like not being able to go outside and get that outdoor fill, which seems like a really important aspect of your life?

Kelly Haston: The outdoor thing didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would, until the end. That was a surprise. I thought that not being outdoors would be tough, but while it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t the hardest thing for me. I handled it pretty well until the end. By the end, though, I was really missing things like hearing the wind, the sound of trees, and the smells — there were no smells inside the habitat. That was a big difference. When I got out, I was so excited to smell things again, but I was also incredibly itchy for the first 24 hours. That was unusual.

Catherine Clark: Other than the itchiness, how did you feel when the doors opened, and you walked outside?

Kelly Haston: I was so happy, but it was also overwhelming. There was a lot of stimuli all at once. My partner, family, my brother, and my dad were there when I walked out of the habitat, along with some press and NASA folks. When I found my family in the crowd, I noticed my dad, who’s not very demonstrative, had a badge with a picture of me on it. He tapped it, letting me know he was there, which was really special.

I made eye contact with my partner, and that was grounding as well. But honestly, I was just so happy to be out. For the first few days — well, my partner would argue it was longer — I was a bit unfocused. There was so much to look at, so many things to take in. I’d wander around rooms, doing little pieces of things without finishing them because my attention would wander. It took a while to adjust to the input and get back to a state where I could handle everything without distraction and actually get things done. It was a funny impact of coming out.

Jennifer Stewart: I want to go back a little bit because you have such a remarkable story. You left school and home at the age of 15. Can you walk us through what happened during that time in your life?

Kelly Haston: My family went through a really difficult time with my parents’ divorce, and I was a bit of a rebellious teenager. By 13, I had decided I was going to leave, and by 15, I did. It was really hard on my family, especially with everything else going on, but in the end, it was probably the best thing for me. I left home and lived with someone who wasn’t very nice, but it turned out to be a good learning experience. I learned from that relationship and have had wonderful partners since then.

At that point, I left school and took up various jobs—like working at Eatons and doing childcare — basically the kind of jobs people do without a high school diploma. It was a pretty big challenge. When I was about 20, I moved to Britain, which was a random decision, but it turned out to be an amazing experience. I lived in Belfast during the peace process, which was a fascinating time. Eventually, I moved to California for my partner’s job and got the opportunity to go back to school. I was really ready to dive back into it, and I took that opportunity.

I truly commend the junior college system in the U.S. because it allowed me to catch up and return to school. Once I started, I just couldn’t stop and kept going.

Jennifer Stewart: That’s incredible. Kelly, if you could go back to your 15-year-old self, who had just left home and was in a tough relationship, what would you tell her?

Kelly Haston: I always tell kids that my story shows you can do things in an unusual way, and the system will forgive you. People will help you get where you need to go if you try hard enough and put in the effort. I don’t regret my path — it’s mine, and it’s made me who I am. But when I talk to students, I also tell them it’s much more fun to do things at the right time in your life, like going to college when you’re the same age as everyone else. Going to college at 30 is different. I loved it because I was so into studying, and I made great friendships, but it wasn’t the same as doing it at the right age.

In some ways, I would encourage myself to think outside the box a little more, to see if there was another way I could have continued with school earlier. I was pretty rebellious, and when I get an idea, I can sometimes charge toward it so hard that I don’t always see other options. I’m getting better at that as a scientist, but as a person, I wish I’d challenged myself to think, “Is this the only path?” But ultimately, those choices are what make us who we are, so it’s hard to say I would change anything.