Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation

March 19, 11:30am - 12:30pm
Mānoa Campus, Hamilton Library, Room 301

Spring 2015 UHM Faculty Lecture Series: Sharing Our Work and Knowledge

Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation

Speaker: Dr. Kim Binsted

Description: HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, www.hi-seas.org) is a habitat on an isolated Mars-like site on the Mauna Loa side of the saddle area on the Big Island of Hawai芒鈧渋 at approximately 8200 feet above sea level. Here, crews of six people live and work through long-duration simulations of Mars exploration missions (four, eight and twelve month long).

This research aims to answer several critical questions to prepare for extended space exploration, including:

  • How should the crew be selected?
  • What skillsets will they need?
  • How should they be trained?
  • How can we best monitor their physical and psychological health?
  • What should we do if a problem arises?
Our goal is to help NASA remove barriers to the human exploration of Mars.

About Dr. Binsted: Kim Binsted received her PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh. Her thesis topic was the computational modeling and generation of punning riddles; her program generated puns such as "What do you call a Martian who drinks beer? An ale-ien!"

In 2002, she joined the faculty of the Information and Computer Sciences Department at the University of Hawai脢禄i at M脛聛noa, where she does research on artificial intelligence, human-computer interfaces, and human factors for space exploration.

Dr. Binsted was Chief Scientist on the FMARS 2007 Long Duration Mission, a four-month Mars exploration analogue on Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic. In 2009, she spent her sabbatical as a visiting scientist at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), working on the CSA芒鈧劉s planetary analogues program. She is now the principal investigator for the HI-SEAS project.


Ticket Information
Free and open to the public

Event Sponsor
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and UHM Library, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Sara Lee, (808) 956-6130, saralee@hawaii.edu,

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