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NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars
41–50 of 94 posts
Re: NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars
#42Better source: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-is-recruiting-for-yearlong... To qualify, you must be: * A U.S. citizen or permanent resident. * A non-smoker, age 30 to 55 years old, and proficient in English. * A viable candidate as an actual astronaut. For this, you usually need a master's degree in a STEM field, or you need to be a pilot or doctor or military officer.
You must also pass the medical screening, which prohibits a laundry list of common medications:
- blood pressure medications
- blood thinners
- seizure medications
- daily allergy medications
- diabetic insulin daily
- sleeping aids
- ADHD/ADD medications
- antidepressants
- anxiety medications
(Insert grumbling about "flight surgeon horseshit" here.)
Re: NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars
#43NASA missed an opportunity not conducting the study over the last 15 months. They could have recruited hundreds of millions of study participants with no additional costs or fundamental behavior alterations required.
Yeah they could have done it in Italy too
Re: NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is what was described about this simulation
I get that, I'm just saying why does it need to not have windows?
I don't know, but this reminds me of a saying they had in the army, something along the lines of "training must be so hard as to make the real thing feel like a break". Not having windows seems harder than the real thing. If you can go through that, you'll likely be ok during the real thing.
If the real thing goes wrong, it better not be worst than what you trained for.
Re: NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember the Biosphere 2 project from the early 90s which was everywhere in the news but didn't work out. "Biosphere 2 was only used twice for its original intended purposes as a closed-system experiment: once from 1991 to 1993, and the second time from March to September 1994. Both attempts, though heavily publicized, ran into problems including low amounts of food and oxygen, die-offs of many animals and plants i…
I actually think Biosphere 2 was quite successful. As an engineering project it failed, but in terms of research it provided a lot of useful data. The core issue with the design was actually concrete absorbing Oxygen from the interior air. That’s exactly the kind of issue you want to consider if we ever want to actually make sustainable habitats. Unfortunately, they never tried to make a biosphere 3, but I suspect th…
I think it's criminal how little research is being done in this area. Sustainable, closed ecosystems are very likely to be key to humanity's future survival and are a prerequisite for leaving Earth on any kind of long term basis.
Re: NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars
#46I wonder if this is a continuation of the same research the habitat podcast was based on: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/the-habitat The podcast was an interesting big brother style reality show depicting 6 people living inside a potential Mars habitat for a year as research for NASA. Descriptions sound very similar. May want to listen to the podcast before you volunteer :-)
I was going to mention this. Here's The Atlantic write-up on the project:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/hi-seas-...
The podcast was pretty entertaining and enlightening, and not too long. 6 (untrained) people in close quarters and isolation for a long time seems a recipe for mayhem. I know astronauts do long stints but they're trained and supported by people who share their purpose.
Re: NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars
#47Better source: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-is-recruiting-for-yearlong... To qualify, you must be: * A U.S. citizen or permanent resident. * A non-smoker, age 30 to 55 years old, and proficient in English. * A viable candidate as an actual astronaut. For this, you usually need a master's degree in a STEM field, or you need to be a pilot or doctor or military officer.
Every time they run one of these similations they ignore the common realworld analogue: sailors. All around the world are tiny communities of mostly men living inside metal boxes for months or years at a time. Historic voyages regularly lasted even longer than the proposed mars missions, and where much more dangerous. Astronaughts could learn much from common sailors.
Re: NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars
#48I don't see anything about compensation. How much do they pay? Considering the requirements they should very pay well for something like this.
Re: NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
One difference is that many potential participants in this experiment will have been living a somewhat restricted life for the past 15 months and will be less willing than usual to continue that experience
Assuming we don’t continue to have global pandemics in the near future
Variants combined with climate change could keep this going for a long time.
Re: NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is what was described about this simulation
I get that, I'm just saying why does it need to not have windows?
On Mars you have to deal with radiation because there is no magnetic field. The most realistic way to do that in early missions is by putting rock between the habitation module and the sky, either by burying it in regolith or by putting it in natural lava tubes. Either option makes windows difficult.
If this experiment shows that windows are vital, I'm sure there are ways to make it work. But otherwise windows are an unnecessary complication that we can figure out once we have experience with the more essential problems of living on Mars.