Global Courant 2023-04-14 10:17:30
HOUSTON– While we can’t send humans to Mars yet, NASA is starting to get some practice.
In June, four volunteers from outside NASA with backgrounds in science and engineering will begin a mission to Mars, but it’s a simulation at the Johnson Space Center. In the Martian habitat, the volunteer crew will eat, drink and exercise in the simulation.
Dr. Grace Douglas leads NASA’s Crew Health and Performance Exploration analog (CHAPEA).
“As we move from near-Earth orbit or lower-Earth orbit to missions further from Earth, we really need to understand how we impact crew health with more limited resources,” said Dr. Douglas.
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The habitat includes bedrooms and dayrooms. (Joy Addison/Fox News)
NASA’s “Moon to Mars” exploration began with missions like the launch of Artemis and continues with this Mars simulation habitat.
It’s about the size of a three- to four-bedroom house and will be used for NASA’s longest analog mission to date: 365 days.
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“It’s an isolation and confinement mission with a crew of 4. We’re putting in realistic simulations, so they’re going to be doing realistic Mars tasks. They’re going to have a lot of exploration activities in our sandbox that will become more Mars-realistic,” said Dr. Douglas.
From the sand to the 3D printed walls, this Martian habitat will be a place where the volunteers will practice their personal hygiene and health care, such as drawing blood. They will also exercise, grow food and collect geological samples.
Volunteer crew members will stay in the habitat for a year (Joy Addison/Fox News)
“We’re going to measure their performance, cognition and health over that year to really understand it and make sure we support it. And then we can take that information and give it to the vehicle planners,” said Dr. Douglas.
The habitat will soon be filled with all the supplies going to Mars. But there is one area of life on Mars that NASA was unable to simulate.
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“We are unable to simulate Mars’ gravity,” said Dr. Douglas.
That’s where Alex Baughman, a NASA human performance researcher, says virtual reality is coming into play.
NASA couldn’t simulate gravity on Mars (Joy Addison/Fox News)
“What we’ve created here is a space where we can simulate virtual reality spacewalks or Mars walks.” “We can also simulate a variety of other expected tasks that we might see on Mars, from geology, to removing dust from your spacesuit or solar panels, to repairing the habitat,” Baughman said.
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Once at NASA, the volunteers will undergo training similar to preparing for an actual mission to Mars. They will also have limited communication with family and friends, with the same delays they would have in space.
Two backup crew members will also be trained in case someone opts out or is unable to complete the year-long mission.
Joy Addison joined Fox News in 2022 as a Houston-based multimedia reporter.
