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910th navigator Stedman to lead NASA-funded Mars project
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Air Force Reserve Capt. Casey Stedman of Vienna will lead a NASA project to test the effects of four months’ isolation on a six-member crew in preparation for exploration of Mars.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
alcorn@vindy.com
VIENNA
Air Force Reserve Capt. Casey Stedman is taking a step toward his lifelong dream to travel in space.
For 120 days starting today, Stedman will get the next-best thing to space travel as mission commander of a NASA-funded project to test the effects of four months’ isolation on a six-member crew in preparation for exploration of Mars.
The project is the second major Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) space analog study conducted by the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
“The HI-SEAS mission is a chance of a lifetime,” Stedman said.
The mission of which Stedman, a navigator and flight commander with the 910th Airlift Wing at Youngstown Air Reserve Station, is the commander, is focused on the social, interpersonal and cognitive factors that affect team performance over time, said Kim Binsted, co-investigator for the NASA Astrobiology Institute at UH Manoa and principal investigator for the next three HI-SEAS missions planned for 2014 and 2015.
In other words, can the crew members stand one another well enough and endure the isolation sufficiently so that skill sets don’t atrophy and assigned tasks are accomplished, Stedman said.
“Hawaii provides a unique setting to simulate the challenging conditions for human exploration to Mars,” said Binsted, an associate professor in UH Manoa’s Information and Computer Sciences Department. The remote habitat site is a solar-powered dome atop the Mauna Loa volcano, 8,000 feet above sea level.
The six members of the crew Stedman will head, including himself, were required to have “astronautlike characteristics,” including the ability to pass a Class 2 flight physical examination and undergraduate training as a scientist or engineer. The six — three men and three women — range in age from 26 to 60. Stedman, of Vienna, is 33.
Like the astronaut mission specialists they represent, each participant is expected to bring a significant research project or other scholarly work of his or her own to complete while inside the space analog habitat, Binsted said in a news release.
The definition of an analog study is a type of study in psychology that attempts to replicate or simulate, under controlled conditions, a situation analogous to real life.
Stedman said his personal project, if approved, is to develop ways to reduce human errors during extra-vehicle (outside the habitat) activities, and procedures and techniques to respond to unexpected emergencies such as mechanical failures.
As a side project, he hopes to do outreach with schools while on the mission.
“I’ve recruited teachers around the country whose students might be able to forward questions,” he said.
Stedman, who is a combat aviator and has a bachelor-of-arts degree in geography and is pursuing a master’s degree in aeronautical science, said his strong suit is leadership.
He is not only a navigator for the 910th Airlift Wing’s C-130s, but a flight commander — which means when there is a formation, he directs not only the plane he is in, but the activities of all the planes in the group.
“I think that is why I was chosen for the mission — to make executive decisions and ensure the safety of the crew,” he said.
Also, he has longtime involvement in promoting aviation and space exploration by public outreach engagements through the National Space Society and the Planetary Society as an ambassador for the Suborbital Applications Research Group, and has done volunteer work at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland.
Stedman is the son of Gary and Cherie Stedman of Olympia, Wash. He was born in Vermont and grew up in Olympia. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Force in 2003 from Central Washington University’s Reserve Officer Training Corps program. His military training includes the Advanced Airlift Tactical School, where he studied, among other things, evasive maneuvers and combat airdrops.
He served on active duty four years and has been a member of the 910th’s 773rd Airlift Squadron since 2007. He has logged more than 2,500 hours as a navigator on a variety of aircraft including the C-130E Hercules cargo transport, E-3B/C airborne early warning and control system (AWACS) and the T-43 used to train navigators.
A veteran of operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, he has served in numerous contingency operations worldwide and has been selected for promotion to the rank of major in June.
When off duty, he also enjoys hiking, backpacking, mountain biking and alpine mountaineering.
Stedman said he was “ecstatic” and “very much in shock” when he learned he was chosen as a HI-SEAS crew member, his first foray into the NASA program.
He described the mission as hopefully a step toward his ultimate goal of actually flying in space, whether it be as a member of NASA’s Astronaut Corps or on a commercial flight.