WOMEN IN SPACE

From NASA's Mars mission to the European Astronaut Centre Australian women are reaching for the stars and changing life on Earth along the way

- SAMANTHA TRENOWETH

LAUREN FELL, Quantum cognition researcher

As a kid, Lauren Fell dreamed of being an astronaut, and "read quite a lot of Einstein and came up with my own theories of the universe and presented them to my poor teachers".

Her grandfather sparked her interest in science. "He'd give my brother and me science riddles and we'd have to figure them out. It was really fun." It also prepared her to enter (and win) a series of NASA challenges later in life that propelled her academic fascination with space.

Last year, Lauren spent two weeks with three other scientists living in a dome set amongst the volcanic rubble of the Mauna Loa volcano, 2500 metres above sea level on the island of Hawai'i.

The isolated Mars/Moon simulation habitat, called HI-SEAS, was the perfect place for her to research what she calls 'quantum models of trust'.

Lauren was learning about the importance of trust in an astronaut's life and how they make decisions about who and what they can trust: Fellow space travellers, their team on Earth, their equipment and even themselves. She uses physics to decipher how those decisions are made, "and they're not always rational," she explains.

Among the elements that tried Lauren's trust on HI-SEAS was the terrain. "It was rocky and precarious," she remembers. "You can't rely on your intuition or natural way of climbing because you're in cumbersome space suits. The terrain might slip away at any moment, and do you trust that someone will grab you if you fall?" She also learnt the importance of trusting in friends and family.

"You're really reliant up there and quite vulnerable," she says. "So, having people you can trust back home, and thinking of that to keep you calm and positive, is really important." Whenever the team left the dome, they had to wear space suits, backpacks and helmets, and exit via an airlock. Their only contact with the outside world was with a 'ground control' team via radio.