Watch Part 2 on MSN video
Reporter: Liz Hayes
Producer: Peter Wilkinson
February 2001:
Imagine you are in a helicopter that crash-lands in the Outback. You have no food or water, it's desperately hot and help is six days walk away. How would you cope?
On 60 Minutes 12 ordinary people confronted this extraordinary challenge.
With none of the tricks or stunts of a TV show or a Hollywood movie - this was true survival.
It was a study of how humans behave under extreme stress.
The participants, including Glenn Ridge and Sorrel Wilby, were taken to their emotional and physical limits.
The whole operation supervised by NASA adviser, Dr Sheryl Bishop, to plan future American missions to Mars.
Her particular interest was whether gender affects the way people cope in extreme environments.
In a scientific first, the teams were divided by sex, set the same task and compared.
The results provoked heated debate in homes around Australia over that age-old question: when the going gets tough who is the tougher, men or women?
