Here's what it's like to live inside a tiny dome on 'Mars' for 8 months

HILO, Hawaii — Atop the giant Mauna Loa volcano, the landscape looks eerily similar to the surface of Mars.

Nothing green grows, and all you can see for miles are chunks of red rock and endless fields of lava tubes. It's easy to imagine you're on another world.

But it's even easier when you spot the 1,200-square-foot dome that sits near the summit, which looks exactly like the kind of space habitat that astronauts would use as a base camp on the red planet.

Researchers created this dome to lock volunteers inside and study the least-understood challenge that people will face on a real Mars mission, whether or not SpaceX or NASA sends them: Total isolation.

Volunteers are cooped up together for the better part of a year. Back in civilization, scientists monitor and measure their performance and see how well they work together as a team.

This ongoing series of studies is called the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS), and the researchers conducting this research chose Martha Lenio as the commander for the last simulated mission. She and five other crew members finished an eight-month stay inside the dome in 2015.

During that time, their only contact with the outside world was an email account that linked them to the experiment's mission control. They could only leave the dome wearing a full spacesuit.

Tech Insider recently traveled to Mauna Loa to meet Lenio and spend a night on "Mars," and we chatted with her about her eight-month stay.

We sat outside on the lava tubes to chat — Lenio had already spent enough time inside.

TECH INSIDER: Why did you sign up for this?

MARTHA LENIO: I've been interested in space since high school, and I always wanted to be an astronaut. So I've kind of always been working towards that. I did a lot of aerospace stuff in undergrad and mechanical engineering.

But the chances of becoming an astronaut are slim. So what's something I could do that still gets me on the path to being an astronaut?

I did a PhD in photovoltaics in Australia, and I worked in the solar industry for four years. Then a friend from undergrad told me about [HI-SEAS] and I thought maybe now is the time to get back into space and take a few chances again.

TI: How did they select you and other "astronauts"?

ML: You had to come up with a research proposal. If you made the first cut, they sent you an online aptitude and personality test did a Skype interview. Then they started selection for a four-month crew. I put down in my application that I was interested in something longer, so they said "We're not picking you for the first mission, but we'll keep you in mind."

Then I didn't hear back for a while — it took almost a year. At the end of the four-month mission, they started contacting people for the eight-month. They picked nine final candidates — I was one — and we did this six-day backpacking trip in the Rocky Mountains.

That's what NASA does for their astronaut candidates as well, so there were astronaut candidates there at the same time. It was really cool. I've done a lot of camping and backpacking, so for me it was a really easy trip. We'd only do like 3 or 4 miles a day so we'd finish early and then we would do these lectures or courses on leadership, personality, and how to deal with conflict.

TI: What went through your mind when you made the cut?

ML: Well, that nervousness started on the backpacking trip. I was thinking "I don't know if I want to do this." What crazy people would want to get locked up in a dome for eight months? I know I'm normal, but these other people must be crazy!"

I think everyone else had been thinking that too. But then we all met each other and we were like, "Oh you guys are also normal, I could totally live with you for eight months."

Then coming up here and getting locked in — it was weird. It was like "OK we're going to Mars," and when the doors closed we all cheered and did a dance.