Paper short abstract:

Borrowing from anthropology of performance and spectacle, we show how fidelity in space analogue missions can be created through social drama. Using case studies of prolonged field-care space missions, we show how science and social relations are formed and framed through a bit of Martian theatre.

Paper long abstract:

Space analogue missions create simulations for off-world living that provide immensely valuable test beds for efficacy in technology, errors in human factors, and standardisation of procedures and protocols for live space missions. However, creating and maintaining fidelity, the ‘realness’ of space, remains a complex challenge for analogue researchers. For many successful analogue missions, fidelity takes the form of engineering solutions to develop habitats, simulate isolation, and mirror laboratory research platforms that may exist off-world. What is largely missing from industry discussions on analogue work is an emphasis on the artistic labour involved in creating outer space fidelity. Based on our ethnographic fieldwork on Martian analogue missions in Scotland, and our work with architects designing space habitats for international space agencies, we ask - what are the forms of practice that are needed to turn Earth’s terrestrial spaces into Martian landscapes? We argue that missions have focussed on meeting the engineering challenges of the built environment and the data controls and collections for different research projects, but what they have neglected is a little ‘drama’. Anthropologists have long espoused the productive capacity of performance and social drama, even to the core of the structures of ritual (see for example Victor Turner). Borrowing from anthropology of performance and spectacle, we suggest that space research platforms can benefit further with attention to artistic license. Through brief case studies of prolonged field-care space missions, we show how science and social relations are formed and framed through a bit of Martian theatre.