Three men and one woman will enter the 158 sq m capsule at the US space agency\u2019s Johnson Space Centre in Houston on October 19, hoping to provide foundational data for human habitation of the Red Planet.<\/p>\n
Ross Elder, Ellen Ellis, Matthew Montgomery and James Spicer will live and work like astronauts for 378 days before leaving the Mars Dune Alpha habitat on October 31, 2026.<\/p>\n
The endeavour forms part of a series of Earth-based missions designed to replicate the same isolation, resource limitations, equipment failures and communication delays that astronauts will experience during future Mars missions.<\/p>\n
The Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analogue (CHAPEA) missions will involve simulated walks on the Martian surface, research experiments and attempts to grow a vegetable garden under replicated Mars conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d said principal investigator at CHAPEA Grace Douglas.<\/p>\n
Nasa has stated its intention to send astronauts to Mars as early as the 2030s, with the journey to the Red Planet taking six to seven months each way.<\/p>\n
\nEvery day seemed to be a new revelation about something<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Before that, Nasa will be sending crewed missions to the moon as part of its Artemis programme.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Nasa gears up for crewed Artemis missions, CHAPEA and other ground analogues 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\u2019s resources \u2013 all before we send humans to Mars,\u201d Sara Whiting, project scientist with Nasa\u2019s Human Research Programme, said.<\/p>\n
The US space agency has already completed one 378-day CHAPEA mission, which successfully concluded on July 6 last year.<\/p>\n
After stepping out of the 3D-printed habitat, Nasa volunteer Anca Selariu said the experience had given her a new perspective on problem-solving and life in general.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day seemed to be a new revelation about something; about Earth, about art, about humans, about cultures, about the history of life in the universe \u2013 what little we know of it,\u201d Ms Selariu said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs much as I appreciate having information at my fingertips, I will miss the luxury of being unplugged in a world that now validates humans by their digital presence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three men and one woman will enter the 158 sq m capsule at the US space agency\u2019s Johnson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,1024,133,1543],"class_list":{"0":"post-52187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-nasa","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}