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Journalism of Courage
European Space Agencys (ESA) astronauts have returned after six days in the dark,not in space,but in caves,during their caves venture in Sardinia.
Sardinia is not only a popular Mediterranean holiday destination but also an excellent place for astronaut training.
The islands interior has isolated mountains and forest areas,rugged and savage.
ESAs astronauts passed their survival training there,and two of them recently returned with American,Russian and Japanese colleagues.
For six days they lived and worked in the islands complex cave systems some of them unmapped or unexplored.
Even for astronauts,life in the dark,cool,humid underground environment can be a completely new situation with interesting psychological and logistical problems, said Loredana Bessone,astronaut trainer at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne,Germany.
The cave environment is isolated from the outside world. There is confinement,minimal privacy,technical challenges and limited equipment and supplies for hygiene and comfort just like in space, Bessone explained.
This is not the first time she has taken a training team in the caves,but this was the first with such an international team: ESAs Tim Peake and Thomas Pesquet were joined by Randolph Bresnik from NASA,Norishige Kanai from Japan and Sergey Ryzhikov from Russia.
Their scientific work included mapping,photography,monitoring airflow,temperature and humidity,and taking geological and microbiological samples.
At the end of the mission,the crew prepared a report,went through a final debriefing and gave a handover presentation that will be used for the next cavenauts.
