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Mars time or Earth time?by Ray Oyung January 9, 2003 Adults go to work and come home each day. Usually, they leave for work and come back nearly the same time each day but there are occasions when they have to go to work earlier or get home later. Some people have jobs that require them to work at different hours through the night while most of us are asleep. Could you imagine going to work at 8 o’clock at night and getting home at 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning? There are people who work on these schedules all the time. Others may have to change the time they go to work and come home by several hours every few weeks or months. Their schedules will rotate around the 24-hour clock many times throughout the year. There’s actually a term for these crazy schedules. It’s called shift work. There are scientists and engineers at Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, California who are getting ready to launch a couple Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) into space. One rover is scheduled to launch in May of this year and the other about a month later. Most of these people are working during the day but there are some who are working at night too. Either way, they’re working around the Earth’s 24-hour clock. Now, what would happen if the rotation of the Earth around the Sun slowed down so there’s an extra 37 minutes in the day? I know a lot of people who would really like more time in the day to get things done. Wouldn’t you like to have more time in the day to study? Maybe it would be more fun if the time were used to play. Well, Mars takes more time to rotate around the Sun than Earth does so if you were to go to Mars, you would see a clock that’s 24 hours and 37 minutes long instead of the 24-hour clock that we have. Actually, I doubt there are clocks on Mars, but we’ll never know until we get there and explore the whole planet! Anyway, the scientists and engineers working on this project (the MER team) are wondering how they can get all the things they need to do for the Mars Exploration Rover mission while on 24-hour Earth time when the Rover, after landing on Mars, will be on 24-hour 37 minute Mars time? This could be a first class problem. However, we’re trying to provide help by teaching the scientists and engineers about sleep and strategies to stay awake in order to keep everything operating smoothly throughout the mission. The information we are providing to the MER team through several workshops is similar to the information we provide to pilots, doctors, and others interested in keeping their working environment safe. During this time, we’ll help the MER team determine the best way to operate the Rovers that will work on Mars time while the MER team is still living on Earth time. Could you imagine trying to go to bed 37 minutes later each night for a few months? We want to give the MER team information so the mission runs smoothly, but above all, we want to provide education and strategies on fatigue and alertness issues so each team member, and the people around them, are safe and as accident-free as possible. Go to the following link to learn about the information we provide in our educational workshops: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/people/journals/aero/oyung/survive.html. To learn more about the MER project, check out the
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