Jet lag is worse on Mars
Research and actual experience has found that adjusting to the slightly longer Martian day is not as easy as you would think.
If you’re on Mars, or at least work by a Mars clock, you have to figure out how to put up with the exhausting challenge of those extra 40 minutes. To be exact, the Martian day is 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35 seconds long, a length of day that doesn’t coincide with the human body’s natural rhythms. Scientists, Mars rover drivers, and everyone else in the space community call the Martian day a “sol” to differentiate it from an Earth day. While it doesn’t seem like a big difference, that extra time adds up pretty quickly. It’s like heading west by two time zones every three days. Call it “rocket lag.”
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Research and actual experience has found that adjusting to the slightly longer Martian day is not as easy as you would think.
If you’re on Mars, or at least work by a Mars clock, you have to figure out how to put up with the exhausting challenge of those extra 40 minutes. To be exact, the Martian day is 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35 seconds long, a length of day that doesn’t coincide with the human body’s natural rhythms. Scientists, Mars rover drivers, and everyone else in the space community call the Martian day a “sol” to differentiate it from an Earth day. While it doesn’t seem like a big difference, that extra time adds up pretty quickly. It’s like heading west by two time zones every three days. Call it “rocket lag.”
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Not sure it will matter much as people will be indoors.
Also, didn’t have to reload the blog today to see the most recent post. Will try later on the tablet.
Seems to me the problem is living under Earth time and trying to stay synchronized with Martian time. If you were on Mars would the body even notice 40 minutes after some acclamation? Studies done in caves where the test subjects were completely cut off from all external time queues found that the subjects naturally adopted about an 18 hour day after a number of weeks — hazily recalled from a National Geographic article I read more than 20 years ago. That’s a much bigger natural drift from the 40 minute difference of the Mars sol.
The article went into great detail about more recent research that found people really do prefer a 24 hour day. Read the article at the link.
Research by Michel Siffre, living underground for several months in a Texas cave, indicated that without time cues, our circadian rhythm resets to a 25 hour day, not 18. Thus, an extra 40 minutes should not be a problem. In your own life, you may have noticed jet lag being easier flying east to west and harder going west to east. I haven’t seen data on sports teams flying east for games, but I’d bet it’s worse than the other way around. How else can one explain Southern Cal getting pushed around by a bad Boston College football team last season in Beantown?