Nasa starts year long isolation to simulate Mars trip

It's Mars Jim , but not as we know it ...


Following on from NASA's last experiment which lasted 8 months this trip is scheduled for 12 months and will see the crew members live life as if they were on the Red Planet.
The team is made up of a French astrobiologist , German physicis and 4 Americans , a pilot, an architect, a journalist and a soil scientist.

The six volunteers will spend the next 12 months living in a 1,000sq ft dome situated on the slopes of an extinct volcano in Hawaii , they will be allowed to go outside but only with permission from ground control and only when wearing a spacesuit .... otherwise they'd die , because .... Mars !

I wish them luck and patience and hope this is the one small step that brings the dream of a Martian colony closer to becoming a reality.

Here's a video that shows the bio-dome inside and out and the brave explorers who will live within it for the next year.


Good luck guys , and watch out for those sand worms.

a reply to: gortex

Three guys and three girls, thats exactly two love triangles.

Good luck…

it's small steps, but every tiny inch closer to actually putting people on mars is going in the right direction. flip yes, good work science types!

originally posted by: continuousThunder
it's small steps, but every tiny inch closer to actually putting people on mars is going in the right direction. flip yes, good work science types!

Going to Mars, but we don't even have a base on the moon. I would think a moon base would be the logical jumping off point for further planet exploration. But it's been 40 years since man was on the moon. Why?

Russia will also conduct a "Moon" experiment, but with an all-female crew. Will it end up with "handbags at ten paces"? We'll have to wait and see.

www.nasaspaceflight.com...

a reply to: olaru12

whatever, you know? outward is upward.
i'm sure there's all sorts of weird things going on and of course logically we should have a flourishing moon base first
but that doesn't seem to be happening
so signs that something else IS can only be a good sign

We haven't gone back to the moon because we were told by "them" not to.

At first I was going to be a smart-a** and say "hey, wait, is that guy surfing the internet?" - but then I thought "can they?". Turns out they can and it makes perfect sense - apparently they'd keep local servers updated with popular web-sites, other sites would take 6-45 minutes to load...

www.mars-one.com...

Oh, and btw, apparently they've also figured out how to beam the internet to the moon via lasers:

www.smithsonianmag.com...

Wonder if that'd work on Mars...

I had to mention the movie Bio-dome, if you haven't seen it then I suggest you watch funny take on this situation

a reply to: gortex

The fundamental problem with this experiment is that the people will know they can leave in a year. Even though the psychological stress of isolation is there, there is the hope, waiting for the 12 months to end, like a jail sentence.

Going to Mars is completely different. Return is highly unlikely, and that will create even more psychological stress in itself, and which cannot be duplicated in an earth based experiment—unless they were to trick them into thinking they were actually going to—and had arrived on—Mars.

a reply to: gortex
Actually, Mauna Loa is an active volcano. Not extinct. Not dormant.
Last eruption was in 1984.

a reply to: Liquesence

Return is highly unlikely,

Why?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Liquesence

Return is highly unlikely,

Why?

I've posted this previously, but once arriving at, and landing on, Mars, the technology (namely the craft) to leave the surface of Mars and break through the atmosphere in order to return to return makes it unlikely that the first people on Mars will be able to do that and to leave. That's the short answer.

a reply to: Liquesence

That's the short answer.

That's not an answer.
Was it unlikely that the technology to return men from the Moon existed before they were sent?

Right now the technology to get people safely to Mars does not exist. Does that mean it won't? Does that mean that people will be sent before the technology to return them exists? Is there a Mars race that I am not aware of?

originally posted by: wildespace
Russia will also conduct a "Moon" experiment, but with an all-female crew. Will it end up with "handbags at ten paces"? We'll have to wait and see.

www.nasaspaceflight.com...

maybe an international crew would be something to think about

a reply to: blacktie

It's pretty likely that the first manned Mars mission will be multinational.
But this is not training for a Mars mission, it is a research experiment.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Liquesence

That's the short answer.

That's not an answer.
Was it unlikely that the technology to return men from the Moon existed before they were sent?

Right now the technology to get people safely to Mars does not exist. Does that mean it won't? Does that mean that people will be sent before the technology to return them exists? Is there a Mars race that I am not aware of?

That *is* an answer, and a good one. The moon example a bad one for the simple reason that the moon does not have an atmosphere or a gravitational pull like or as great as Earth or Mars.

Technology has improved, but the basics around which the technology have improved are essentially the same. The technology *does* exist to get us to Mars, but no, not necessarily "safely." As far as "return" technology, it's not the technology simply to "return" but the technology to escape from Mars, escape velocity, breaking through and withstanding the atmosphere its conditions, etc. Without a craft that could land on the surface and still launch, with little or no launch pads, etc, one would have to build from the ground up *on* Mars this technology, or assemble it, which would be very involved for the first few colonists, therefore unlikely.

As far as a Mars race, no one said there was one. My original post was simply about the psychological stress of knowing one will return versus knowing that one will not likely return, which cannot be duplicated in an earth-based experiment unless the people were tricked.

a reply to: Liquesence

Without a craft that could land on the surface and still launch, with little or no launch pads, etc, one would have to build from the ground up *on* Mars this technology, or assemble it, which would be very involved for the first few colonists, therefore unlikely.

How about sending it there autonomously (getting better and better at doing that), prior to the manned mission? No water, no food, just the ascent vehicle. Send the consumables separately as well.

Figuring out how to get men back from the Moon was no small feat. Yet you seem to have little sense of what men can do.

But again, you seem to be assuming that people would be sent there with no means of return. I disagree.

a reply to: Liquesence

"just ask a Martian" or "just have a Martian do it for you"

something like that?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Liquesence

Without a craft that could land on the surface and still launch, with little or no launch pads, etc, one would have to build from the ground up *on* Mars this technology, or assemble it, which would be very involved for the first few colonists, therefore unlikely.

How about sending it there autonomously (getting better and better at doing that), prior to the manned mission? No water, no food, just the ascent vehicle. Send the consumables separately as well.

Figuring out how to get men back from the Moon was no small feat. Yet you seem to have little sense of what men can do.

But again, you seem to be assuming that people would be sent there with no means of return. I disagree.

Might have worked in the book The Martian, but might take many decades, perhaps even a century, to implement in real life. I also think the Moon is a bad example, as it has no atmosphere and weak gravity. It seems the only feasible way to send humans to Mars is for them to establish a colony there, grow their own food, and grow old there.