{"id":95763,"date":"2025-08-25T23:13:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T23:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/95763\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T23:13:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T23:13:12","slug":"can-humans-live-on-mars-this-nasa-mission-intends-to-find-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/95763\/","title":{"rendered":"Can humans live on Mars? This Nasa mission intends to find out"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a little crowded inside the airlock at Mars Dune Alpha, where seven of us are packed in a space ordinarily meant for two, poised on the threshold between shelter and the unknown.<\/p>\n

Dr Suzanne Bell disengages the locking lever and swings the outer hatch wide open, revealing a landscape of rust-red dust and rocky cliffs beneath a brilliant white sky.<\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome to Mars,\u201d she announces.<\/p>\n

The atmosphere on Mars is less than 1 per cent of Earth\u2019s surface pressure and comprises largely carbon dioxide, with only trace amounts of oxygen. Minus a spacesuit, helmet and life-support systems, I would suffer rapid collapse and \u2014 within a couple of minutes \u2014 death by suffocation if this were a true red-planet scenario.<\/p>\n

Here in the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analogue (Chapea), a simulated Martian habitat at Nasa\u2019s Johnson Space Centre (JSC) in Houston, Texas, the stakes are lower and crew members face mock challenges without danger.<\/p>\n

Throughout their 378-day missions \u2014 one completed last year and another two to come \u2014 almost everything else here mimics life on Mars as envisaged by scientists and engineers. The purpose is to help researchers understand and mitigate the physical and psychological challenges and inform the design of future missions. <\/p>\n

\u201cMars is a hostile environment not inherently conducive to human life, so we need to learn how we can support crew to live and work there,\u201d said Dr Bell, a psychologist at Nasa and Chapea\u2019s co-investigator for behavioural health and performance research.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s Chapea crew leave their simulated Mars mission. The identities of this year\u2019s participants have yet to be announced<\/p>\n

NASA<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crew we select are incredibly astronaut-like individuals. They aren\u2019t just people who didn\u2019t have anything to do with their lives for a year. When we land a crew on Mars someday, the Chapea crew will have had a contribution to what we send, to how we monitor human health and performance, to the success of the mission. It\u2019s a critical project on the pathway to Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nasa and its international partners are working towards returning humans to the surface of the Moon in 2027 under the Artemis programme as part of a \u201cstepping stone\u201d approach to one day sending crew to Mars.<\/p>\n

The Moon is 250,000 miles away, a three-day journey from Earth. Mars, at its closest, is 33.9 million miles from Earth, and the trip will last seven to ten months each way, with a stay of up to 18 months in between.<\/p>\n

Inside Nasa\u2019s Mars simulator<\/p>\n

Mars Dune Alpha, located inside a hangar at JSC, provides just 1,700 sq ft of living space \u2014 roughly the size of a small to average-sized home \u2014 plus the 1,200 sq ft \u201csandbox\u201d, the mock surface environment that lies beyond the imitation airlock, encased by an inflatable dome.<\/p>\n

A crew of four, whose identities have yet to be announced, is due to move in in October.<\/p>\n

They must withstand challenges such as resource limitation, equipment failures, mock emergencies and the psychological stress of confinement and isolation, unable to step into \u2014 or even glimpse \u2014 the real world for 378 days.<\/p>\n

The crew of Chapea Mission One last year spoke<\/a> of missing nature \u2014 the green of the grass, the blue of the sky and the twinkling of oceans \u2014 and of longing to feel fresh air on their faces, hug family and friends and savour freedom.<\/p>\n

For 378 days they lived as Martians. Now they are back<\/a><\/p>\n

They carry out simulated spacewalks lasting up to six hours at a time, using virtual-reality headsets to enhance the visual landscape while hooked up to a special treadmill that replicates the ups and downs of the ground.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Treadmills simulate the terrain of Mars<\/p>\n

DANIELLE VILLASANA<\/p>\n

Tasks also include conducting robotic operations, including a drone and rover, undertaking daily chores such as habitat maintenance and cleaning \u2014 \u201cbecause that red dust gets everywhere\u201d, notes Chapea\u2019s project manager, Daniel Hernandez \u2014 and exercise routines in the fitness room.<\/p>\n

There is a crop-growth station in which to cultivate produce such as tomatoes, leafy greens, peppers and herbs, to supplement otherwise pre-packaged foods that are freeze-dried or thermostabilised \u2014 akin to supplies on the International Space Station (ISS).<\/p>\n

\"Harvested<\/p>\n

The crew will grow and harvest crops to supplement their diets<\/p>\n

NASA<\/p>\n

\"Simulated<\/p>\n

Communication with family and colleagues mimics the 22-minute time delay in space<\/p>\n

DANIELLE VILLASANA<\/p>\n

Unlike the ISS, however, which orbits Earth at an altitude of 250 miles and can be reached within hours, Chapea adopts a strictly Martian logistics regime \u2014 meaning the entire food supply for the year is pre-positioned, with no deliveries of fresh fruit and vegetables to relieve menu fatigue and boost morale.<\/p>\n

Chief among the challenges is the realistic time delay in communications.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe important thing here is that we have a resource-restricted environment, so just like when a crew is on Mars some day, there\u2019ll be up to a 22-minute communication delay each way for how they talk with mission control, how they talk with family and friends,\u201d Bell explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I message you as my family member, you\u2019re maybe out at a baseball game, you\u2019re shopping, you respond later \u2026 so 44 minutes is the minimum. There\u2019s also the time needed for the person to write the message \u2014 and if it\u2019s a communication with mission control, they have to problem-solve anomalies on the ground before they can send that message back.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of our tech demos have to do with artificial intelligence providing feedback to the crew, in order for them to troubleshoot different medical scenarios and understand better how a crew can autonomously respond in a positive way to emergencies while mission control is up to 22 minutes away. It may absolutely be too late by the time they ask for help and hear back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The habitat<\/a> was constructed using a 3D printer and resembles layer upon layer of rust-brown toothpaste squeezed from a giant tube. It is made of lavacrete, a concrete-like substance, but mass-hauling construction materials to Mars would be impractical, prohibitively expensive and require hundreds of spacecraft. Instead, future Martians will rely on in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU), harnessing materials found in space, such as dust and rock to 3D-print habitats, tools and furniture, and water extracted from ice deposits to sustain life and manufacture fuel for the journey home.<\/p>\n

Water is also recycled in Chapea \u2014 including the crew\u2019s own urine, like the ISS. Each crew member gets a small, private room with a single bed, desk, chair and shelving. The common lounge area has a table for mealtimes, four individual chairs and a television screen on which they can play pre-recorded movies and programmes.<\/p>\n

Remote teams of researchers monitor health and cognitive performance, blood samples are analysed, behaviour and psychology studied, calorie intake and burn rate measured, respiratory rates and water usage recorded.<\/p>\n

There are rules against external noise; the sounds of a door slamming outside and chatter in the hallways are strictly barred to maintain the fidelity of the Martian environment.<\/p>\n

Crew members are chosen using the same criteria as Nasa astronaut selection, including rigorous psychological examination.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeamwork is absolutely essential for Mars because there\u2019s no abort capability; you can\u2019t bring people back, you can\u2019t swap out people. So at the end of the day there will be challenges, there will be things we didn\u2019t expect and that crew has to get along and work together to solve it,\u201d said Bell.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll prepare as best we can, we\u2019ll send what we think needs to be sent \u2026 but at the end of the day you\u2019re on your own on Mars and they\u2019ll have to figure out whatever comes their way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a little crowded inside the airlock at Mars Dune Alpha, where seven of us are packed in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-95763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}