  Human long duration exploration missions (LDEMs) raise a number of
technological challenges. This paper addresses the question of the crew
autonomy: as the distances increase, the communication delays and constraints
tend to prevent the astronauts from being monitored and supported by a real
time ground control. Eventually, future planetary missions will necessarily
require a form of astronaut self-scheduling. We study the usage of a computer
decision-support tool by a crew of analog astronauts, during a Mars simulation
mission conducted at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS, Mars Society) in
Utah. The proposed tool, called Romie, belongs to the new category of Robust
Advanced Modelling and Scheduling (RAMS) systems. It allows the crew members
(i) to visually model their scientific objectives and constraints, (ii) to
compute near-optimal operational schedules while taking uncertainty into
account, (iii) to monitor the execution of past and current activities, and
(iv) to modify scientific objectives/constraints w.r.t. unforeseen events and
opportunistic science. In this study, we empirically measure how the
astronauts, who are novice planners, perform at using such a tool when
self-scheduling under the realistic assumptions of a simulated Martian
planetary habitat.
