A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Planet

Comedians May Hold the Key to Getting Humans Safely to Mars

- Jason Goodyer

Psychological stress is likely to surface during a human mission to Mars. Prof Jeff Johnson thinks an on-board ‘court jester’ could keep spirits up during the long and arduous journey. He is drawing on his research on the differing teambuilding approaches of rival polar explorers Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott to make his case.

Amundsen’s team made it to the South Pole and back while Scott’s perished on the return journey. How did their approaches to group dynamics differ?

Prof Jeff Johnson Well, Roald Amundsen actually put people through tests before they set off to make sure that they would take orders and, in particular, whether they would challenge any of them. Amundsen would set up situations where there would be an ambiguous context to see what their responses would be, and if somebody questioned him, they were eliminated. But there was also Adolf Lindstrøm, the cook; he was a key figure. If you read Amundsen’s diary, he writes that Lindstrøm was basically the most important person on the expedition.

Why was that?