NASA was founded in 1958 and that very year the first plans for a mission to Mars begun. As of 2015 NASA had conducted 17 successful Mars missions, but had yet to send people to Mars.
To survive on Mars, astronauts must share a small, enclosed bunker-like living space with five of their crewmates. Mars’ toxic airs makes going outside without a space suit impossible. Trips outside of the bunker are reserved for exploration, mapping, and data collection. Oh and one more thing: they would had to live up there for an entire year until the planets orbited close enough for a return trip.
Could someone live in these conditions for 365 days? This is the question that NASA and HI-SEAS crew sought to answer in 2015.
A remote mountain in Hawaii is home to the Habitat: a small dome almost exactly like the one needed to house a six-man crew on Mars. The surrounding landscape is eerily similar to that on Mars. It is here where six volunteers plan to immerse themselves in the Habitat Simulation for an entire year.
The Habitat podcast follows the crewmembers (Carmel Johnston, Christiane Heinickes, Dr. Sheyna Gifford, Andrzej Stewart, Cyprien Verseux, and Tristan Bassingthwaighte) of HI-SEAS IV (2015) as they navigate their new life, responsibilities, and relationships inside the Habitat.
The story spans over seven episodes. The host Lynn Levy steers you through the crews’ life inside the simulation. Interviews from the crew and full audio recording make the listener feel like they are inside the Habitat with the HI-SEA crew. Along the way, Lynn Levy fills in the gaps with her own descriptions, research, thoughts, and antidotes. She even inserts audio recordings and stories from previous NASA missions.
As the story progresses you get to know the crew members personally. The first episode details what the crew members will miss most while inside the Habitat. You hear Tristan making terrible dad jokes and the whole crew laughing. The listener gets their first glimpse of the crew working together and it does not go well. This leaves listeners (and Lynn herself) wondering how the crew will fair for the remainder of the year.
The second episode features awkward, embarrassing, and sometimes mundane stories as the crewmembers try to adjust to life inside the Habitat. You hear the crew trying to fix the composting toilet, showering for 30 seconds, learning to play the guitar, shaving, and cooking.
Featuring these every day tasks remind the listener that this are ordinary people who signed up for an extraordinary experiment. Switching narratives from the crew dancing on a Sunday evening to them preparing to enter a Mars-like atmosphere keeps podcast pace even while offering a duality to the storyline.
Lynn interweaves facts from previous episodes into new ones; recalling past episodes while still focusing on the present one. She constantly reminds listeners of the crewmembers small-living space and unusual living situation.
One of the most underrated parts of this podcast is how well it was produced. Every episode flows together while still being unique; this makes it easy to listen to all at once or separated out over a longer period of time.
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Hi Blair,
Your description of The Habitat: A Year Living in Mars was intriguing; I might have to listen to this podcast in my free time. I thought it was interesting how you mention that the author includes interviews from the crew and audio recordings from their experience on the island. From the perspective of an audience member, I believe that including audio clips from the people involved in the actual events helps create a stronger story. The narrator of the podcast Serial, Sarah Koenig also includes audio clips from people she interviewed in her story and I would have to agree with you, that, including these interviews helps put listeners in the plot of the story and sympathize with the people involved.
Additionally, I would like to expand on the point that you make about Lynn recalling information from previous episodes into new developments of the story. I believe that this is an important feature in podcasts because it keeps the narrator and the listener focused on the story that is being discussed. This is especially important in podcasts, since the listener cannot flip back to a previous page to review certain details and, at least in my case, are less likely to click through the audio to find a crucial detail after several minutes have passed. Therefore, if the narrator keeps reminding listeners what the story is about it will capture their attention for the longevity of the story. However, one disadvantage in doing this is that if they repeat things too often it leaves less time for the narrator to talk about new information and it could bore listeners.
Also, as I read through your post, I got the impression that the author did a good job of setting the scene for the story. I felt that by adding audio about people doing everyday things like cooking, shaving and learning to play the guitar was a very effective and creative way to create the setting of the story. Thus, in creating my own podcast it will be crucial to include audio from a specific film or story to captivate the listeners attention. Throughout your blog you bring up many interesting points about this podcast and have great analysis of the different narrative elements.
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Hi Blair! After reading this, I am now wishing I found this podcast before because it sounds super intriguing. It isn’t often that you find a storytelling podcast that isn’t mystery or suspense but rather sci-fi.
Two of the first questions that comes to my head are: how old are these crewmembers and what are their backgrounds? I’m curious as to whether or not these people of are the same age and how that played a role into their teamwork skills. I could imagine how difficult it would be to work with 5 other strangers of different cultures and experiences and on top of that, they are forced to work together in a confined space. People always say you learn new things about someone after living with them and this most likely rings true to this situation.
I think it is also interesting that the stories that are chosen to be included are ones that you wouldn’t think a podcast would choose, especially if this is a podcast documenting the 365 day journey. Something as small as shaving was a purposeful choice to the creator of this podcast and shows their attention to detail. This also helps the listeners imagine themselves in the crewmembers shoes and experience what they are experiencing. We are all curious what is like to live in a spaceship and just from reading your commentary, I can tell that this podcast allows for a sneak peek as to struggles of living in such a restricted area in a totally unfamiliar environment.
Once again, this is a super cool podcast and I am looking forward to see how the next few episodes compare!
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Hi Blair,
I thought it was interesting but cool that you chose a podcast completely unrelated to crime. I think one could still say though, that this podcast is very much related to mystery. Putting humans on Mars is still a great mystery to us, and maybe this podcast will help us understand this mysterious venture a little more. It seems like the podcast is less focused on the scientific side of living on Mars, but more the psychological side. It raises questions for me like, how do humans interact in such a pressured environment? How do they make harmonious living? How will they resolve quarrels? (because it’s guaranteed there will be some of those). It’s clear that the host is putting effort into humanizing the people in the habitat, and recording the little and big things that come with sharing a space, particularly a small space with other humans. The podcast also sounds like it’s very good at integrating the audience into the story, like you said, it’s as if you are in the habitat living with the crew as well. I think a story like this is really relatable for everyone, but especially for college students, because most of us are fresh out of our parents house and learning to live with roommates in a new space, and, it’s not all fun and games like it seemed to be when we were younger. It allows us to empathize and understand to an extent, what these crew members are going through. I’m excited to read your future blog posts and uncover how these humans function, and hopefully an actual trip to Mars is in the near future and we can see how people really act on a completely different planet.
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