Antarctic Stations Inform Space Travel

IMAS/UTAS Researcher calls for participants in social interaction

Rebecca Kaiser is a PhD candidate with University of Tasmania School of Social Sciences and Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS). Rebecca’s research aims to investigate the social interactions in Antarctic stations as an analogue for future space travel and habitation.

Humanity aims to travel ever further into space but there are important areas of group interaction and behaviour that we still need to explore first. Like a space station or ship, Antarctic Stations are an isolated, confined and extreme environment and they can provide valuable insights into human behaviour.

This includes the presence of unusual conflict and increased tolerance for uncommon behaviour. These interactions and behaviours are vitally important to understand better if we are to send a group of people on an arduous trip in a confined environment, far from Earth, that may last years.

If you are interested in participating in this research and are an Australian citizen who has spent two or more months in Antarctica in the last 25 years, I will be conducting interviews starting in June and would love to hear from you. Interviews will last approximately one hour.

Expressions of interest can be sent to ra.kaiser@utas.edu.au