Highlighting its intent to send humans to Mars, NASA has announced that it will soon be embarking on a year-long simulation of a Mars mission using four research volunteers.
Ross Elder, an experimental test pilot in the U.S. Air Force; Ellen Ellis, a colonel and acquisitions officer in the U.S. Space Force; Matthew Montgomery, a hardware engineering design consultant; and James Spicer, a technical director in the aerospace and defense industry, will enter the 1,700-square-foot Mars Dune Alpha habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on October 19.
They’ll live and work like astronauts for 378 days before completing their mission on October 31, 2026.
During their time in the specially designed habitat, NASA will evaluate various health and performance factors as part of preparations for future crewed missions to the red planet.
Over the course of the year, the volunteers will carry out scientific research and operational tasks, including simulated Mars walks, growing a vegetable garden, robotic operations, and so on. They’ll test technologies specifically designed for Mars and deep space exploration, too, including a potable water dispenser and diagnostic medical equipment.
To make it as real as possible, they’ll also be forced to deal with challenges like resource limitations, equipment failures, communication delays, isolation and confinement, and other stressors, with their responses carefully monitored by NASA so that it can better plan for the first human mission to Mars.
The habitat has around nine rooms, including private bedrooms, a shared bathroom, and an area where everyone can get together for meals and other social activities. There’s also a small area next to the habitat that simulates the Martian surface for the Mars walks.
This is the second one-year Mars simulation mission conducted through CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) after the first one involving a different group of volunteers ended in July last year.
“As NASA gears up for crewed Artemis missions, CHAPEA and other ground analogs are helping to determine which capabilities could best support future crews in overcoming the human health and performance challenges of living and operating beyond Earth’s resources — all before we send humans to Mars,” said Sara Whiting, a project scientist with NASA’s Human Research Program at NASA Johnson.
Grace Douglas, CHAPEA principal investigator, said the simulation “will allow us to collect cognitive and physical performance data to give us more insight into the potential impacts of the resource restrictions and long-duration missions to Mars on crew health and performance. Ultimately, this information will help NASA make informed decisions to design and plan for a successful human mission to Mars.”
There’s no solid timeline for when NASA might embark on its first crewed mission to Mars, though some believe it could take place as early as the 2030s using SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.