Sheyna Gifford

  • sMars doctor

    What It’s Like to Be the Only Doctor in Space

    Commander Carmel Johnston gives Chief Science Officer Christiane Heinicke a hand.Photograph by Sheyna Gifford Space is no place to be alone. On Earth, it may be uncomfortable, even oppressive—but by itself, being alone isn’t life-threatening. A person alone in space, however, is definitively lost: dead, or about to be.  Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. […]

  • spacesuit on sMars

    Stress on Simulated Mars Was Not What I Expected

    For 6 crewmembers who have supposedly traveled 150 million miles—and were, beforehand, complete strangers—we have remarkably little space. For more than 100 days we’ve been conducting NASA-sponsored studies at HI-SEAS—Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation—8,000 feet above sea level, in a dome around the size of a 3-bedroom apartment without real-time communication, to help understand […]