Scientific research

29 June 2013

Update by Peter Tavel: 
“Everyday life brings sometimes interesting moments. However, there are also situations that are exceptional and surely it is our cruise on a hundred years old ship across the Indian Ocean. It is a life time experience being dependent on nature, weather conditions, sea. Sailing around the world on a ship attracted attention of scientists. Project Mars 500 has been finished recently. It was a project about a simulated flight to Mars, related to the forthcoming flight, which is going to be in 2020. In fact it looked that 6 men were closed in one cabin for 500 days in a Russia space station and scientists were studied their lives in isolation. The results of this project have brought some surprises. Is it a problem to verify them? How to find a situation, which would be similar to a space ship? The cruise across the Indian Ocean offers this opportunity! 
Sea conditions are considered to be comparable to a space ship isolation. In scientific language it is called ‘a control group’. The cruise is enough long to do a research where people are isolated and without communication with families and friends. Despite feeling safe on board people will feel that the cruise is not entirely without any risk. People are dependent only on themselves – even appendicitis or toothache (what we are used to handle in ordinary world) can be a big problem here. Our crew consist of 15 people: 8 volunteers or tourists and 7 stable crew members which are people who are highly professional. There is 8 men and 7 women. Nationality mix: one German, one Danish woman, one Norwegian woman, two Australians, one Slovak, one American, one English woman, and the rest is from the Netherlands. We speak English on board. 
Sometimes happens that we hear a Dutch word in the middle of conversation or French, German as well as Greek and Slovak. The truth is that if we work under stress we tend to use words in our first language. What is in the centre of our research is behaviour, emotions and way of thinking. It will be interesting how it can change during the cruise and during our days. How will a dynamics of group behaviour change? How will people express themselves and their emotions? How will conflicts be sorted? Stressful situations? The regime is that people will work every 6 hours, and every hour is a rest. Today the crew were given first questionnaires. They accepted it very well. 
Nothing special has happened so far…”