NASA begins isolation experiment to simulate Mars mission

As part of the new NASA project, a team of six scientists began an experiment on long-term isolation in one of the Hawaiian islands. The goal is to study the possibility of flying to Mars in difficult conditions, when a person is in a confined space for many months. The study will help NASA to better understand human behavior and its performance during long space flights.

Before sending a team of astronauts to Mars, the space agency (and not only it) wants to make sure that people can withstand such a flight and autonomous life on the planet. The base where the flight simulation will be conducted is located on the Hawaiian Islands, it was decided to place it at an altitude of 2.5 km above sea level on Mauna Loa Mountain on the Big Hawaiian Island.

Team members will be isolated for a period of eight months, external contacts are not available to them. Of course, communication with representatives of the project will be maintained, but the “colonists” and representatives of the “Flight Control Center” will be able to talk with each other only through telecommunications. Moreover, communication specialists will create artificial delays in order to simulate as fully as possible the communication of real astronauts with the real PCO, when the signal arrives with a delay of several minutes. As for Mars, the signal from there to the Earth is 20 minutes. Then the same - back. So the delay is just a couple of tens of minutes.
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The dome house, where the participants of the “expedition to Mars” will live, was named HI-SEAS (Hawai'i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation). The dome is compact, but here we managed to place all the most necessary things. The project team will receive energy from a solar array (10 kW). Energy will be stored in the daytime in the battery system. At night and in cloudy weather, this energy will be gradually consumed. In addition, the station has a generator that runs on hydrogen fuel cells. The total power of the generator is also 10 kW. It starts when the energy in the battery is reduced to 10%. Plus, there is another spare generator that runs on propane. He can work several days in a row if necessary. Of course, propane is a limited resource, but in the extreme case it can be used to supply the station with energy. The total gas volume stored at HI-SEAS is 4 m ³ .

Water will be delivered to the inhabitants of the station. Its total volume in two tanks is 4 m ³ . To maximize the conditions to the real, the water supply at the station is reverse. That is, the water that has already been used, after cleaning, re-enters the system. Toilets at the station do not use flushing, another system works (which one is not reported).

The team that supports the station’s work, studies the living and working conditions of the project participants, examines their psycho-physiological condition, includes 40 people.

Researchers must prepare food for themselves every day, perform physical exercises, conduct research and communicate with "operators." NASA plans to carry out a real space flight to Mars by the year 2030. “We would like to understand how best to select astronauts, how to form a team and how to support this team during long flights in space,” said Kim Binstead, a research professor at the University of Hawaii, who was the project's research director.

She also said that she considers the time frame for the implementation of the Mars mission to be quite realistic, and would like to hope that the agency’s management will not change anything in the future. We are talking about possible changes in the plans of NASA due to the new US president and the almost complete renewal of the administration.

A team of six people was selected after careful analysis of more than 700 candidates who expressed a desire to participate in the project. “When we started, my biggest fear was that we could repeat the not-too-successful Biosphere-2 experience,” says test team leader James Bevington.

"Biosphere-2" is a structure that simulates a closed ecological system, built by Space Biosphere Ventures and billionaire Edward Bass in the Arizona desert (USA). The number "2" in the title is intended to emphasize that the "Biosphere-1" is the Earth. There is an alternative version about the “first Biosphere” - this is how the American pavilion Biosphere was called at the World Expo 67, at one time not less famous than Atomium. This version is supported by a noticeable external similarity in the construction of the Biosphere and Biosphere-2. The main task of "Biosphere-2" was to find out whether a person can live and work in a closed environment. In the distant future, such systems can be useful both as autonomous settlements in space, and in the event of extreme deterioration of living conditions on Earth.

During the implementation of this project, team members began to quarrel, divided into several teams. This complicated the already not too successful project. The fact is that initially the full autonomy of the sphere was assumed. Inside the laboratory were placed grass, trees, shrubs, which allowed us to get 46 kinds of different plant foods. In addition, the participants got at their disposal such domestic animals as goats, chickens, pigs. In artificial reservoirs there was a fish. Therefore, difficulties with food, as the initiators of the project believed, should not have arisen.

But due to the fact that after a few weeks, microorganisms and insects began to grow in the biosphere unexpectedly quickly and in large quantities, the team lost most of their crops. Toxic chemicals, under the terms of the project, it was impossible to use. Project participants began to lose weight, it became difficult to breathe. The first experiment ended in complete failure and had to be stopped. A few years later it was decided to repeat the experience, only without the participation of people. The situation repeated itself - microorganisms, ants and other representatives of the “fauna” of the sphere began to flourish. Under the glass roof of the complex, water regularly condensed and artificial rain poured. And due to the fact that there was no wind in the area, the trees became fragile and began to break. As a result, the second stage of the experiment had to be completed.

The participants of the “Martian project” tried to take into account the problems of “Biosphere-2” and create an environment in which the repetition of the described situation is impossible. The project itself is funded by NASA. The agency has allocated $ 2 million for this purpose. Now NASA continues to implement the space flight program to Mars and is doing everything so that the planned work is performed on time and on time. “Mars is one of the best places in the solar system to search for signs of life that existed in the past or that exists now,” say the project participants.

Representatives of the team will wear special sensors that will be able to assess the general emotional state of a person, as well as estimate the distance to other participants. Also in the project it is planned to use virtual reality technology in order to fully emulate the conditions that will surround a person on Mars.

When leaving the dome, the astronauts will wear space suits. Even the most short-term access to the outer space will require clothing in a spacesuit. As for food, the products of the astronauts are almost exclusively deep-frozen, previously dehydrated. There are some canned and some other products, but this type of stock is not too much.

The total area of ​​the dome is divided into separate rooms - kitchen, laboratory and bathroom.

The project itself is not completely unique, as other, similar projects have been and are being implemented in the world. But here - full-fledged state funding, serious scientific training, a plan to adopt the experience gained during a real flight to Mars and life on the surface of the Red Planet.

Among other experiments that are planned, the following will be performed:

• Study the activity and sleep of team members. Experts hope to get information about how the participants will change their daily routine, how much their mood will change. In order to assess the physical activity of team members, it is also planned to use smart watches or bracelets. The team members will regularly answer the questions of various questionnaires, which will allow fixing any problems / changes in the psychological mood of the “Marsonauts”.
• It is also extremely necessary to study the occurrence of stressful situations. The fact is that during a long space flight or work in the conditions of the dome on Mars there is a high probability of people getting stress. We also plan to use wearable devices to capture such moments. In addition, participants will regularly evaluate the composition of urine and perform other medical tests.
• An important element of the mission will be the determination of the possibility of working with 3D printing. Participants will be provided with a 3D printer, which, according to the authors of the project, will help to obtain tools and parts that can not be delivered from Earth. Undoubtedly, in the process of work, something will break, and even the simplest broken part will not be replaced (some important elements will be supplied and stored in warehouses, but it is simply impossible to duplicate everything).

Well, when on Mars?

As mentioned above, NASA is going to send a manned spacecraft to Mars by 2030. This whole mission is divided into several stages. The first stage is the study of various aspects of life on Mars in terrestrial conditions and on the ISS. This stage is now being implemented.

The second stage is a man visiting the moon. Now NASA has plans to develop a super-heavy launch vehicle, which will send people to the Moon. Of course, this stage of the mission may be questionable, but so far there have been no fundamental changes. At this stage, another important step is planned - this is the delivery of the asteroid to the moon's orbit. The probe-machine will deliver it, and already in orbit people will begin to study the asteroid.



And the third stage is the landing of people on Mars, possibly with the subsequent creation of a Mars base. One of the variants of such a mission is the creation of a temporary base on Phobos or Deimos. From here, people and equipment will be sent to the red planet. At this stage, it is planned to actively use 3D printing, which is why the “colonists” in the dome-house are testing this technology as applied to life in a closed space without the possibility of technological assistance from the outside.

The mission to Mars itself is, according to the agency, only a start, after which a leap into deep space should follow.

Not just NASA

A similar project a few years ago began to implement Russian scientists. He was named "Mars-500" , the project started in the summer of 2010. In the course of several hundred days of the stay of "cosmonauts" on an autonomous basis, experts studied the effect that a long flight can have on the human body. Interesting results were obtained. For example, scientists have learned that astronauts do not have breathing problems under conditions close to cosmic, but their blood clotting rate and cholesterol concentration decrease.

Psycho-physiological problems did not arise. With stress, all participants in the project coped perfectly. The project "Mars-500" was recognized as successful and useful in terms of deep space exploration.

I would like to hope that all past and current work on life emulation in a spacecraft and Mars will not be in vain and will still be useful to those astronauts who, after a couple of decades, still go to conquer the red planet - Mars.