"If the Earth becomes habitable, it's over", according to Cyprien Verseux

• Every Friday,  20 Minutes  offers a personality to comment on a social phenomenon, in its new weekly meeting "  20 Minutes  with ...".
• Confined twice for a mission in a dome, in the Hawaiian desert, then in Antractic, Cyprien Verseux has, from March 17, provided some advice to live well his confinement, on his blog "White Mars"
• At the time of the deconfinement of several countries, including France, in the midst of a health crisis, the astrobiologist specializing in the planet Mars returns to life afterwards, with the coronavirus, and the myth of terraformation.

Microbes and space are his stuff. Cyprien Verseux, astrobiologist at ZARM (center for space and applied technology and microgravity, established in Germany) has been living for several years now, at the rate of his research on Mars. The red planet notably led him to shut himself up for a year in an eleven-meter dome, installed in a volcanic desert in Hawaii, with five other people, in 2015. Then, three years later, for nine months on the Concordia base, in Antarctica, where temperatures sometimes approach -100 ° C.

This confinement was therefore not his first time. Nor the deconfinement. At a time when the whole planet is facing a terrible health crisis and climate change seems more and more threatening, 20 Minutes asked the scientist how to resume a most "normal" life that is during the deconfinement. And if, in the event of an apocalypse, we could take refuge on another planet.

I have summarized what helped me during the isolation missions, hoping that this could be useful for you during the quarantine: https://t.co/ESRlsZ91fv

From the start of confinement, on March 17, you launched on your blog entitled Mars la Blanche , a practical guide to quarantine. Your first piece of advice: "Give up guilt" ...

When confinement started, I had a lot of relatives who called me and who were in a complicated state. People who were usually quite productive and happy. But who, at that time, tended to drag themselves on, to fail to motivate themselves to do anything. And they felt guilty. I was sorry for them. Under these conditions, it's normal not to know what to do. With this coronavirus crisis, people found themselves confined at once! And guilt is useless in this situation. It even tends to make things worse.

During the missions to Hawaii and Concordia *, we were prepared, and we knew what to expect. We had thought of strategies to get things right. So I wanted to share them. And then, the people with whom we live confinement change the experience enormously. If I had redone the mission to Hawaii or the mission to Concordia with another crew, it would have been completely different. So I think everyone will have a different containment experience.

The dome in which Cyprien Verseux remained locked up for a year, for the HI-SEAS IV mission - Cyprien Verseux / PNRA / IPEV

During this anti-coronavirus confinement, new ways of working, learning, interacting ... have emerged that are very much linked to new technologies. As on Mars, the Moon or at Concordia, could our survival ultimately depend exclusively on these technologies?

On Earth not necessarily. On Mars, obviously yes. We are dependent on technology because the atmosphere is not breathable. At Concordia, in Antarctica, we also depended on it a lot for our survival, simply because we wouldn't have had much time in front of us if the heating had stopped working. But for everyday life on Earth, I don't know if we need to depend on it as much. New technologies can be very good. People during the confinement were able to go to YouTube and find a guide on how to play sports at home. And it's great! But it is also a huge distraction. 

In Hawaii, we didn't have the Internet! Which is a bit paradoxical since we had access to a lot of new technologies for heating or to generate electricity, among others. But not the Internet. And we were doing very well! We played sports in a few square meters by talking to each other, and simply exchanging knowledge.

With this health crisis, which may not be the last, then global warming, the Earth risks becoming, in time, an inhospitable planet. Can we hope, one day, to be able to immigrate and settle on another planet than this one?

We sometimes talk of going to settle on other planets to be able to preserve the species. Except that those who say that think very very very long term! Because, it is true, one day, the Earth, whatever happens, will be uninhabitable if only because the Sun will heat it up much more than it does now. And so, it is true that by then, in a very very long time, we will have to have gone to other planets to preserve the species.

Now we're not going to Mars because the Earth is uninhabitable because of global warming. Even if we manage to terraform ** Mars, it will never be as hospitable as Earth today. And Earth, even in the worst possible scenarios of global warming, will still be more habitable than Mars. So going to another planet to preserve the species in the very very long term will no doubt be necessary. But in the short term, it is not a backup plan. If the Earth is uninhabitable in the coming decades, it's over. We will not take refuge on Mars.

In July, three missions to Mars should be launched, and would collect soil samples which could then be brought back to Earth. Is there a risk of unintentionally bringing back Martian pathogens that could affect humans?

One of these missions, "March 2020", aims among other things to collect samples of Martian soil and place them so that a next mission collects them and brings them back to earth. It is extremely unlikely that microbes will infect us if they have evolved away from cells resembling ours, and have stayed away from the biological arms race between our immune system and infectious agents. That said, they could harm our ecosystem in other ways, so the samples will be treated with great care. This was already the case when lunar samples were brought back. They were placed in highly secure facilities, where numerous tests were conducted to ensure that they posed no danger, before they were handled with less restraint.

Installations and procedures will be more rigorous with Martian samples, because biosecurity technologies have evolved, but also because Mars is much more likely than the Moon to harbor life forms. And because we have to manage a much more likely risk: that of contaminating Martian samples with terrestrial life, which would hinder their study.

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You describe, at the end of your book An Antarctic Winter *** , the shock of returning to the city with its tarred streets and its cars, after several months on Concordia. Why is it so difficult to get back on track after confinement?

At the time, I still had a disadvantage: when I returned to normal life, I was the only one to have been confined. People had continued to live their lives, and I was a bit of a stranger. There, everyone takes their marks at the same time so I think it will help. But it is important to keep in mind that everything will not return to "normal" immediately. At the beginning, there is a good chance that people will not be as productive as before confinement. We will have to be patient. It is normal that there is a rehabilitation time! But it can also be an opportunity to change our habits. Because, if we left them for a while, it's much easier to start off on something else.

Good evening! "An Antarctic winter" comes out tomorrow.
For those who would like to start it earlier, here is the prologue: https://t.co/APw7p1Fk4e

(Note: the rest is in black on white.) Pic.twitter.com/U15cRbKVsn

But it is true that at the beginning, we risk being tired because we will no longer be used to being so stimulated, to see so many people, things, going to the shops, etc. . You just have to be tolerant of yourself. And little by little, we will manage to resume a normal life.

Cyprien Verseux during his mission in Antractics, on the Concordia base. - Carmen Possnig / PNRA / IPEV / ESA

* Concordia is jointly managed by the French and Italian polar institutes, the IPEV (French Polar Institute Paul-Emile Victor) and the PNRA (National Antarctic Research Program).

** Terraformation: creation of an atmosphere close to that of Earth to give a planet living conditions similar to that of Man.

***  An Antarctic Winter by Cyprien Verseux, Ed. Hugo Image, in bookstores since October 17, 2019. 

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