How Journaling is Helping to Get Humans to Mars
As NASA, SpaceX and others prepare for historic manned missions to Mars, they are making use of a simple practice that has been around for as long as humans have been exploring. Journaling...
Our crew motto is, “It’s all about the sauce.” We have salsa, hot sauce, hot pepper sauce, sun-dried tomato paste, pesto paste, olive oil, catsup-like sauces, horseradish sauce, mayonnaise, BBQ sauce, mustards of various types… They come in plastic bottles and squeeze tubes. A common question at lunch/dinner is “What are you having with your sauce today?”
NASA knows that journaling has and will always play an important role in any journey. One of the earliest recorded travel journals was by the Venetian merchant explorer Marco Polo, who documented his travels to Asia in Livre des merveilles du monde. His journal inspired and informed many explorers that followed.
NASA’s Human Research Program uses journaling as a simple, invaluable tool that it’s behavioral scientists use to assess the mental and emotional states associated with life in long-term isolation and confinement. Conditions not too dissimilar to the lockdowns used to combat COVID-19.
However, not only is journaling used for research it is also used as an effective way to combat some of the effects of isolation and confinement.
While in space NASA requires it's astronauts to journal at least three times each week but many astronauts journal daily. They can either type up their entries or audio record them. For us normal people we can use Journify.
If you want to journal like an astronaut just follow these simple rules:
Use your journal at least three times per week
Log every problem you encounter and any solutions you try to resolve it
Describe in detail how your feeling
Right now NASA is using the journals of past and present astronauts to find the solutions to problems that future astronauts may never face.
Just like NASA you can use your past journal entries to help solve tomorrow's problems.
About the Author:
Eoghan is a practicing pharmacist, health and technology enthusiast and lover of all things journaling. You can keep up with his journaling experiments on his instagram.
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