<p>The six people who went into isolation for a year in Hawaii to help NASA plan for a mission to Mars emerged, happy to breathe fresh air and meet new people.<br /><br />The team was based on a barren, northern slope of Mauna Loa, living inside a dome that is 36 feet (11 meters) in diameter and 20 feet tall.</p>.<p>French astrobiologist Cyprien Verseux said that he was "feeling excited" about being in the open and eating fresh food again.<br /><br />The most challenging aspect of the experiment was the monotony, he said in a Periscope interview by organizers posted on Twitter.<br /><br />Crew members experienced no seasons inside the dome, and were able to go outside only dressed in spacesuits.<br /><br />Nevertheless he was upbeat about the experiment results. "A mission to Mars in the near future is realistic," he said. "The technical and psychological problems can be overcome."<br />The crew also included a German physicist and four Americans -- a pilot, an architect, a doctor/journalist and a soil scientist.<br /><br />The dome was located in a place with no animals and little vegetation around. The team locked themselves in on August 28, 2015.<br /><br />The men and women had their own small rooms, with space for a sleeping cot and desk, and spent their days eating food like powdered cheese and canned tuna. They had limited access to the Internet.<br /><br />NASA's current technology can send a robotic mission to the Red Planet in eight months, but any astronauts that would travel to Mars face a trip that would take between one and three years.<br /><br />A typical current stint for an astronaut aboard the orbiting International Space Station is six months.</p>
<p>The six people who went into isolation for a year in Hawaii to help NASA plan for a mission to Mars emerged, happy to breathe fresh air and meet new people.<br /><br />The team was based on a barren, northern slope of Mauna Loa, living inside a dome that is 36 feet (11 meters) in diameter and 20 feet tall.</p>.<p>French astrobiologist Cyprien Verseux said that he was "feeling excited" about being in the open and eating fresh food again.<br /><br />The most challenging aspect of the experiment was the monotony, he said in a Periscope interview by organizers posted on Twitter.<br /><br />Crew members experienced no seasons inside the dome, and were able to go outside only dressed in spacesuits.<br /><br />Nevertheless he was upbeat about the experiment results. "A mission to Mars in the near future is realistic," he said. "The technical and psychological problems can be overcome."<br />The crew also included a German physicist and four Americans -- a pilot, an architect, a doctor/journalist and a soil scientist.<br /><br />The dome was located in a place with no animals and little vegetation around. The team locked themselves in on August 28, 2015.<br /><br />The men and women had their own small rooms, with space for a sleeping cot and desk, and spent their days eating food like powdered cheese and canned tuna. They had limited access to the Internet.<br /><br />NASA's current technology can send a robotic mission to the Red Planet in eight months, but any astronauts that would travel to Mars face a trip that would take between one and three years.<br /><br />A typical current stint for an astronaut aboard the orbiting International Space Station is six months.</p>