Trapped miners impress NASA team

2. The workers organized into groups and focused on meaningful tasks that either would help them during a final rescue.

"It's very important for people in situations like this to have meaningful work to do, not make-work. These men are no different," Dr. Holland said during a press briefing earlier today on the delegation's trip. "Part of their meaningful work is to continue the responsibility of extracting themselves from this mine."

Indeed, the men have been maintaining their section of the mine, servicing mining equipment there, as well as mapping their location in relation to other tunnels and halls, This has allowed them to identify suitable locations for latrines and showers.

3. Topside, rescuers established communications between the workers underground and their families. Regular communications on a predictable schedule is vital for moral, NASA team members say, but it's one that needs careful management over time.

"Excessive communication can be problematic, believe it or not," Holland says. Too much communication, especially about problems under ground or with a trapped worker's family can prompt the wrong person to try to assume responsibility for solving a problem over which he or she can has no practical control, leading to increased frustration or anxiety.

4. Rescuers have established a regular supply service between the mine and the surface. It consists of capped tubes roughly four inches across and six feet long that are sent down a steel-lined shaft. The tubes carry food, clothing, books, letters, a communal iPod for music, and soon will deliver a portable video player so the workers can watch movies.

Each "pod" takes 10 minutes to descend, thanks to gravity, 10 minutes to unload and reload with objects, ranging from medical samples to miners' lamps in need of charged batteries, and another 10 minutes for a winch to haul a pod back to the surface.

With the Chileans already undertaking an impressive rescue attempt, the NASA team's recommendations amounted to fine-tuning an already well-oiled machine.

Up to now, the Chileans have treated the effort like a sprint -- essentially what it was as they initially tried to locate the trapped workers. Now, however, the effort becomes more like a marathon, team members say. That takes additional planning.

The NASA team recommended a more-refined approach to alternating light and dark periods in the mine to help the workers keep their internal bio-clocks in sync with what they will return to on the surface. They also recommended training for the workers and their families on what to expect as a result of long-term separation. For surface operations, the team recommended that the Chilean team expand its depth chart at key positions -- shifting from one person to at least two to spread the workload.

And workers and families will need an enormous amount of support in handling the first 24 to 48 hours after the miners emerge, as well as long-term support for additional challenges the family may face as it readjusts to the aftermath of the mine collapse.

Rescue is more than pulling the miners from the depths, explains Michael Duncan, deputy chief medical officer in the Space Life Sciences directorate at the Johnson Space Center and the delegation leader.

"The work is just beginning when the miners come out of the mine," he says. "The miners will have in their own right a certain celebrity status in their own country. There will be a lot of pressure put upon them by society, by the media, by others wanting a part of their time. I think the Chileans had not gotten to the a point of thinking about how difficult this post-rescue-effort is going to be."

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