Four scientists will walk to Mars in June 2023 and then walk back again earlier this month. They walked to a “mock Mars habitat” in National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)The first of three missions is scheduled to take place at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “An Exploration Analogue of Crew Health and Performance” Mission NASA’s planned CHAPEA 1 ended with Kelly Haston (Commander), Ross Brockwell (Flight Engineer), Nathan Jones (Medical Officer) and Anca Serariu (Science Officer) all happy and healthy. Planning their mission The goal was to simulate and evaluate a crew’s ability to live on the Martian surface for a year. Finally, prepare for production.
Can I leave normal Earth society for a year? And get paid for it? I’d love to participate!
“Congratulations to the CHAPEA 1 crew for completing their year-long stay in a simulated Mars environment,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Through the Artemis missions, we will apply what we’ve learned on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap – sending the first astronauts to Mars. The CHAPEA mission is critical to developing the knowledge and tools humanity will need to one day live and work on the Red Planet.”
The four stranded professional thinkers are living together in a 1,700-square-foot 3D-printed home made from a concrete material engineered after a substrate found on the surface of Mars, which is actually pretty cool: The 3D printer uses Martian soil to create the concrete, because shipping concrete into space would be too heavy.
Everything about the Texas mission was designed to simulate life on Mars, including “Mars walks,” operating robots on the surface, building and maintaining a habitat, daily exercise, and even growing crops. Even communications between CHAPEA and the mission control center were artificially delayed by 22 minutes to replicate the distances traveled between the parties on Mars and Earth.
“Having a 45-minute conversation means you have to think it through and plan your communication clearly and thoroughly,” Serariu says. “That’s really hard to internalize.”
During breaks, the crew watched television or read books downloaded onto drives they had brought with them, so they couldn’t even keep up with the latest in popular culture. I haven’t heard “Brat” yet.But fortunately, they managed to escape from their artificial space prison. Just in time to see “Twisters.”
