NASA has unveiled images of its recently constructed Mars simulation habitat, where four volunteers will live for a year to get a sense of what it will be like to go to Mars in the future.
The habitat for the Mars simulation featured four tiny rooms, a gym, and a sea of red sand. The facility is situated at NASA’s research center in Houston, Texas, and has been given the name Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA).
The first trial will start in the summer, and NASA will keep an eye on the participant’s physical and emotional well-being to learn more about how resilient people are in such isolation.
The volunteers will live in a 1,700-square-foot residence named “Mars Dune Alpha,” which has two bathrooms, a workstation area, a garden where crops can be grown, and a room for medical services.
The “outdoor” reproduction of the Martian environment has been done in an airlock. On the red sand-covered floor are the tools that astronauts would use, such as a brick-making machine, a weather station, and a small greenhouse. (Valium)
Volunteers can practice walking while hanging from straps on a treadmill inside the habitat to simulate walking in the lower gravity of Mars. The volunteers will use the treadmills to collect samples and acquire information on the building’s infrastructure.
Another element of the Mars simulation habitat is that it is 3D printed. According to Grace Douglas, chief researcher for the CHAPEA trials, “that is one of the technologies that NASA is looking at as a potential to build a habitat on other planetary or lunar surfaces.”