system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: The first people who will go to Mars will go insane

The group that goes first to establish a base colony probably will not be big. They will have to work all day in a hostile enviroment with the same people everyday. 

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Most importantly, over time they will realise what they left behind on Earth and that they will not return. They exchanged their life on their home planet for a pioneer status and an unbearable slave life in the desert with no hope of return. They will feel that the glory and having your name in history books is not worth it amd they will miss every trivial thing Earth has to offer. 

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This will slowly nag on every single one of them, giving way to conflicts in the group, the atmosphere in the group will become worse and worse over time as you cannot take time off and relax, or leave the group. This will lead to someone snapping and doing something bad.   


New people will be sent after them, but no one will be willing to go, because they know they will go insane too. This will be the end of the Mars mission.
gpt
This is actually a very relevant concern that NASA has spent a lot of effort into studying.  NASA has run a number of isolation experiments where they isolate people from the rest of the world and put them into a confined space alone and in groups and have psychologists study the results.  They have done these experiments several times with periods longer than 6 months.

When the chilean mine collapse happened, due to this exact research, NASA had the most qualified psychologists in the world for helping the miners deal with being trapped in a confined space with others for an extended period of time and actually sent those psychologists to Chile to help.

> Most importantly, over time they will realise what they left behind on Earth and that they will not return. They exchanged their life on their home planet for a pioneer status and an unbearable slave life in the desert with no hope of return. They will feel that the glory and having your name in history books is not worth it amd they will miss every trivial thing Earth has to offer.

I think you're likely right that the average person might experience that kind of emotional rollercoaster, but there are people who would also do fine, and so its simply a matter of being able to identify and screen for those individuals.

For example, there are hermits who live in total exclusion and prefer that.  As you properly stated, someone who is going to Mars to seek glory is going to end up very disappointed as that initial wave fades.  That is why you need to find people who aren't excited about the glory, but rather are excited about doing the actual work.  There are people out there that would legitimately love every minute of that kind of hardship and also wouldn't mind having just a handful of companions to do it with.

The kind of people that set out on a solo sailing trip around the world or venture out into a remote area of the woods to build themselves a log cabin by themselves. Another good example of this would be the early antarctic expeditions who for *years* at a time would give up contact with the rest of the world and only be able to be in touch with the other people on their expedition.  Being an early explorer of antarctica was probably similarly treacherous as someone on Mars with modern technology. Mars will actually have better contact with earth than someone on an early antarctic expedition.

>  worse over time as you cannot take time off and relax, or leave the group.

Some people relax by working harder.  People that build boats in their spare time as a hobby or people that workout to relax.