NASA is taking volunteers from outside of their program to test life on Mars. Volunteers will eat, sleep and exercise within the habitat for one year as they would on the red planet.
Four volunteers will live in NASA's Mars habitat for one year, helping the space center collect data for its first mission to the planet in outer space.In June, four volunteers from outside of NASA with backgrounds in science and engineering will start a mission on Mars, but, it's a simulation at the Johnson Space Center. Inside the Mars habitat, the volunteer crew will eat, drink, and exercise in the simulation.
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."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 which will be more Mars realistic" Dr. Douglas said.
From the sand to the 3-D printed walls, this Mars habitat will be a place where the volunteers will practice their personal hygiene and healthcare like drawing blood. They will also exercise, grow food, and collect geology samples."We are going to be measuring their performance, cognition, and their health over that year to really understand and make sure that we're supporting it. And then that information we can take and give to the vehicle planners" Dr. Douglas said.
The habitat will soon be packed with all the supplies that will go to Mars. But, there is one area of life on Mars NASA couldn’t simulate.That's where Alex Baughman, a NASA human performance researcher says virtual reality comes into play. "What we've created here is a space where we can simulate virtual reality space walks or Mars walks.
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