No spacesuit-wearing pioneers will be headed to the lonely white dome on Mauna Loa’s flank any time soon. But the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) project announced this week that it has secured restart of a $1 million NASA grant to complete evaluating research gathered during the project’s five Mars simulation missions conducted since 2012.

Human aptitude for handling isolation and other matters tied to life on the fourth rock from the sun were tested during those missions, which ranged from four months to a full year. A sixth mission was scrapped just four days after its start in February, after one of the mission’s four crew members voluntarily withdrew from the program.

Hawaii snubbed by federal DOT

Aging infrastructure here tends to fare poorly in national rankings of roadways, bridges and dams. Even so, Hawaii was the only state left empty-handed this week when the U.S. Department of Transportation announced $1.5 billion in federal grants to more than 90 projects. A total of more than 850 applications were submitted from all 50 states.

In addition to standard selection criteria, such as safety and environmental protection, also prioritized was innovation, such as proposals that support autonomous vehicles infrastructure and private-public partnerships. Let’s hope that Hawaii will get another shot in 2019, for a round of grants toward overdue infrastructure improvements.