Astronauts on ESA’s 2016 underground training course CAVES pose for a picture on their fifth day underground during the six-night expedition in the Sa Grutta cave in Sardinia, Italy. From left back row: NASA’s Jessica Muir, Japan’s Aki Hoshide and cosmonaut Sergei Vladimirovich. Front row from left: NASA’s Ricky Arnold, taikonaut Ye Guangfu and ESA’s Pedro Duque.
Caves offer a dark and alien underground environment with many analogies to space. Deep underground, our senses are deprived of many sounds and natural light. The procedure for moving along a cave wall resembles spacewalking and cave explorers need to stay alert, take critical decisions both as an individual and as a team, just as in space.
The CAVES – Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising – course focuses on multicultural approaches to leadership, following orders, teamwork and decision-making.