"A one-way trip to Mars will take about nine months, which is a long time to spend inside a hermetically sealed tube hurtling through a cold, dark void."

"Like all animals, humans require stimulation; without something to break the monotony, most of us end up like a tiger pacing its cage—stressed, depressed, and prone to problematic behaviors. Indeed, many scientists believe that boredom is one of the most serious challenges facing future spacefarers. Until now, design for space has focused on survival. But [Ariel Ekblaw, founder of the MIT Media Lab's Space Exploration Initiative] thinks it's possible, even essential, to imagine an entirely new microgravitational culture, one that doesn't simply adapt Earth products and technologies but instead conceives them anew. Cady Coleman amused herself by playing her flute on the International Space Station—another astronaut brought his bagpipes—but future travelers might instead pick up a Telemetron. They might wear clothes spun of special zero-g silk, or sculpt delicate forms that couldn't exist on Earth, or choreograph new forms of dance, assisted by their robot tails. They might, in other words, stop seeing themselves as homesick earthlings and begin to feel like stimulated, satisfied spacelings."

From "Algae Caviar, Anyone? What We'll Eat on the Journey to Mars/Humans are headed for the cosmos, and we’re taking our appetites with us. What will fill the void when we leave Earth behind?" (Wired).

The article goes on to talk about food, but I came screeching to a halt at "Cady Coleman amused herself by playing her flute on the International Space Station" and was appalled at what I heard next: "another astronaut brought his bagpipes."

You're stuck for months in "a hermetically sealed tube," with other people, and you're allowed to tootle on some acoustic musical instrument? Put that on the list of things that make me "end up like a tiger pacing its cage." Maybe "monotony" is on the list, but if the list is in order of how quickly and how far it will drive somebody nuts, a fellow passenger playing the bagpipes (or flute) is a lot higher on the list. Who wants this "amused herself" sort of approach to shared, close-quarters living?

Anyway... I say "when I heard" because I'm listening to magazine articles on the app Audm. It love it! I'd resisted it, because you have to pay about $60 a year, but now that I've got it, I strongly recommend it. The selection of articles is excellent, and the audio format gets me through substantial things that I would only skim if left to my eyes alone.

ADDED: A tidbit from the discussion of food:

Like generations of chefs before her, [industrial designer Maggie] Coblentz began by taking advantage of the local environment. Liquids are known to behave peculiarly in microgravity, forming wobbly blobs rather than streams or droplets. This made her think of molecular gastronomy, in particular the technique of using calcium chloride and sodium alginate to turn liquids into squishy, caviar-like spheres that burst delightfully on the tongue. Coblentz got to work on a special spherification station to test in zero g—basically a plexiglass glove box equipped with preloaded syringes. She would inject a bead of ginger extract into a lemon-flavored bubble, or blood orange into a beet juice globule, creating spheres within spheres that would deliver a unique multipop sensation unattainable on Earth.

General Foods saw it long ago with Cosmic Candy AKA Space Dust (in the Pop Rocks tradition).