At the cuter end of the robot scale is Kirobo, a 34cm (13 inch) high talking robot, recently launched to the ISS. Designed to provide emotional support to Japanese astronaut Kochi Wakata (due to arrive at the station in November), the robot will be able to recognise his master and respond to his instructions.  Japan has been experimenting with emotionally responsive machines for several years. My particular favourite is Paro, which I first came across during a visit to Japan in 2005. Pick it up and this soft, cuddly, and irresistibly cute, seal cub mewls gently.  The robot seal was designed to improve the quality of life for those in nursing facilities, particularly for elderly people who are feeling lonely or suffering from dementia. Many hospitals use therapy dogs to help patients recover, and the researchers behind Paro claim robot pets can be just as effective in some cases, such as helping to improve brain function in elderly people with cognitive disorders. Anyone who has stroked Paro and been startled at how easy it is to forget that its eyes are plastic, fur synthetic and mewing generated by a microprocessor will have little difficulty in imagining Kochi rapidly accepting Kirobo as a fellow crew member.  For the foreseeable future, taking a real pet dog or cat into space is unlikely to be practical – certainly until someone develops artificial gravity, so a robo-pet would seem to be a good idea.  3) Try to stay in touch Pretty close to the top of most right-thinking people’s lists of worst pop songs of the 1980s is likely to be Rah Band’s Clouds Across the Moon, outlining the difficulties in the singer having a conversation with flight commander PR Johnson on Mars flight 247. Johnson happens to be on his way to Mars but even astronauts closer to home find communication with Earth challenging. Even in Earth orbit, where there is no time delay, most audio and video conversations are at fixed times via mission control and even supposedly private chats are sometimes overheard. Email has made life considerably easier but still that has the potential to be intercepted.  Nevertheless, reports from astronauts who have described their experiences on long space flights suggest it is extremely important to maintain your emotional ties to the ground. A few pictures from home, a response on Twitter or a quick chat with an amateur radio enthusiast can make all the difference to an astronaut’s mood. It helps that all Nasa communications with the ISS are through individuals known as capsule communicators. These are usually fellow astronauts who are well placed to understand what their comrades in space are going through.  Communicating with a spaceship on its way to Mars will, however, be much tougher. Astronauts on the ISS are only around 350km (220 miles) above the Earth, so there is no time delay. Mars, on the other hand, is an average of 225 million km (140 million miles) away and a radio signal can take anything up to 22 minutes to travel to or from the Earth. Two-way conversations will be completely impossible, so email and social media communication is likely to become indispensible.  4) Keep yourself busy Until recently, the flight to the ISS took almost three days in a cramped, spinning Russian Soyuz capsule. One European astronaut who has endured this experience (but who prefers to remain anonymous), says the worst thing is the boredom. After all the build-up to the mission and the excitement of launch, he was stuck in a tin can with nothing to do.  Participants in the Mars500 mission to Mars experienced a similar sensation. Although the 520-day voyage and simulated landing actually took place in a mock-up spacecraft in a Moscow suburb, the crew had plenty to keep them occupied. It was on the way back, with mission’s goal completed and fewer things to do, that boredom set in.
Astronauts face many difficulties, but the lack of company can often be the most daunting. Solutions come in all guises, from tweeting to talking robots.