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SIRIUS experiment will help pick right crews for interplanetary missions — NASA

Chief Scientist of NASA Human Research Program Jennifer Fogarty said the main goal of the SIRIUS experiment is "to understand isolation and confinement for a culturally diverse crew"

MOSCOW, December 12. /TASS/. The isolation experiment SIRIUS scheduled to start in March 2019 in Moscow will help better understand who should be included in crews on long space flights, Chief Scientist of NASA Human Research Program Jennifer Fogarty told TASS on the sidelines of the 17th Conference on Space Biology and Medicine held in Moscow.

"The big picture from our participation in SIRIUS experiment is to understand isolation and confinement for a culturally diverse crew. What kind of stresses this causes... The goal of experiment is to inform what kind of crew should explore planets," Fogarty said.

"All the data show us that we should continue on that trend. Of course, people are comfortable within a single cultural crew. But being comfortable with it doesn't mean it's the right thing. We are trying to challenge some of these norms, but doing so with data, not just with what we feel about it," she added.

Fogarty said that there are many risks in space, both individual and collective. "Measuring those changes over time, we will see how we can build countermeasures, how they can be prevented, or if this has happened how could we help the crew members treat themselves, because in the future the missions will be autonomous," she noted.

When asked about whether political tensions will affect scientific cooperation between Russian and the US on space, Fogerty said joint work has been relatively unaffected by changes in the political climate. "We have always worked really well together - ISS [International Space Station], SIRIUS. I think planet exploration is possible under international partnership," she concluded.