Dr Cady Coleman Photo: supplied
Beyond our romanticized vision of space exploration is a day-to-day life of physical and social isolation and confinement in an unnatural environment of microgravity and artificial light.
New documentary Space: The Longest Goodbye follows NASA psychologist Dr. Al Holland, tasked with studying and mitigating the threat loneliness poses to missons.
It's a particularly urgent task as NASA intends to send astronauts to Mars in the next decade - a voyage that will entail a three-year separation, with no real-time communication with Earth.
One of the subjects of the film is Dr. Cady Coleman, a former NASA astronaut who has spent more than 180 days on the International Space Station, separated from her husband and her young son Jamey.
Space: The Longest Goodbye screens in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin as part of Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival.
