Four researchers on Earth are spending a year on ‘Mars’
(Click on images to enlarge)
In the movie The Martian, Matt Damon plays an astronaut living on Mars with a small team of people. He gets left behind when the rest of the team leaves during an emergency. But the movie demonstrates how people set up a research base there, separate from their landing vehicle, to live and explore Mars for a month. They had to contend with a poisonous atmosphere, lighter gravity, and the time delay in sending and receiving messages to Earth. Damon's character had to contend with living far longer and needed to grow food there to survive until a rescue could come. But how do you train for any of that life on Mars? NASA is currently doing that right now here on Earth with a simulated habitat called Mars Dune Alpha.
Astronauts on the Apollo moon missions spent only a short time on the surface, living in a tiny lander.
- Apollo 11: 21 hr 36 minutes
- Apollo 12: 7 hr 45 minutes
- Apollo 14: 9 hr 22 minutes
- Apollo 15: 66 hr 54 minutes
- Apollo 16: 71 hr 2 minutes
- Apollo 17: 74 hr 54 minutes
Weeks-long or months-long space missions are a different story, and the Mars missions are different for a few reasons. One, although gravity is stronger there than on the Moon, it is still only one-third that of Earth. Two, the distance is much further to Mars, so returning is a much longer trip (about 7 months), and it will requires longer stays just so Earth is in the right position. See the positions of both planets and the time needed for the Perseverance spacecraft to get to Mars in 2020, below.
To prepare for crewed trips to Mars, NASA has begun a series of three missions to simulate living there. The program is called CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog), and the first one is underway. Four volunteers were selected to spend more than a year living in the Mars Dune Alpha habitat, which is a 1,700-square foot structure that contains "crew quarters, a kitchen, and dedicated areas for medical, recreation, fitness, work, and crop growth activities, as well as a technical work area and two bathrooms". The missions are called analog because they are on Earth not Mars, but they give NASA the chance to collect data on how people live and work under Mars conditions.
Mars Dune Alpha is built at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas using a 3D printer from the company ICON, which uses a proprietary material called Lavacrete. It took a month to build it. The video below explains some of the details and describes recruitment for the first CHAPEA mission, too. (The view you see in the video of the completed structure with sand dunes surrounding it and wind blowing is just a mock up, not the Houston facility.)
How will all of this simulate living and working on Mars? First of all, the volunteers will be completely isolated in Mars Dune Alpha. Outside will have an Earth atmosphere, but they will suit up for any extravehicular activities anyway. NASA will also not control the temperature outside of the shelter, unlike on Mars where it can be −10 to 62°F, or −20 to 17°C) in the daytime. Also, they won't be exposed to the radiation that gets through Mars' thin atmosphere. But, if they need to contact the outside world, there will be a delay in sending any messages just like the real conditions on Mars.
They will eat freeze-dried meals but will also have to grow their own food in special compartments. Leafy vegetables have already been shown to grow well aboard the International Space Station.
The whole Mars Dune Alpha facility will be surrounded by a "sandbox" of simulated Mars soil, and fake landscapes have been created to add to the realism. It looks like cameras on the dome will project the landscape. A harness and treadmill device will be used to give the feeling of walking long distances under one-third gravity.
Although the ICON 3D printing apparatus is too large to take aboard a spacecraft, some people still think using local Mars materials is likely the way to build structures there (and on the Moon). Keep in mind that every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cargo on the Space Shuttle costs $54,000, too. But how will they perform the 3D construction? That has not yet been explained, and NASA has a couple of years to figure it out, but perhaps aerial drones might help, as shown below.
So, who are these four volunteers?
- Kelly Haston (52) is mission commander. Haston has a PhD in biomedicine.
- Nathan Jones is an emergency medicine physician who will serve as the in-house doctor.
- Ross Brockwell is a structural engineer with a master’s degree in aeronautics.
- Anca Selariu is a specialist in infectious diseases and an officer in the U.S. Navy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anca Selariu, Nathan Jones, Kelly Haston, and Ross Brockwell entered the Mars Dune Alpha on June 25, 2023. For a 3-month update on the first CHAPEA mission, go to this link and watch the video from one of the volunteers.
This link shows how Ross Brockwell and the others trained for the mission, and some of his personal feelings toward the adventure.
Tour the mock Mars habitat where NASA "analog astronauts" will spend the next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment