Before Elon Musk , Jeff Bezos and other space partisan can ship humans to Mars as easily as an Amazon Prime delivery , we need to figure out they ’ll fare on a foreign satellite . Luckily , NASA and the University of Hawaii have been all over this , fundingseveral successful iterationsof an experiment call Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation ( HI - SEAS ) , in which a bunch of “ spaceman ” live in Mars - alike conditions in a dome on a Hawaiian volcano . On Sunday , the fifth howdy - SEAS endeavor ended , signify a work party of six “ astronauts ” have leave behind the solace of a genuine house of cards to recognize the fresh hell that is Earth right now .
The bunch entered their dome on January 19th , 2017 . Over the course their pseudo - Martian visit , the team feed nonperishable solid food ( and some veg grown in a research lab ) and live in incredibly cramped quarters ( 1,200 square - feet , or 111 - square time ) . To be fair , in New York City , that ’s an $ 3,000 / a calendar month studio in Williamsburg with gobs of “ natural kindling . ”
Somehow , the astronauts managed to not go all Lord of the fly on each other , despite grizzle in each others ’ fart for eight calendar month . consort to Space.com , the astronauts even had to wear down spacesuits alfresco when conduct scientific experiment , in addition to performing daily usage as they would on Mars . At the death of their delegacy , the gang indulgedin some ananas and melon tree . at long last , it seemed like a succeeder — another Hi - SEAS mission is already slate for 2018 .
“ farsighted - full term space locomotion is absolutely possible , ” Laura Lark , IT specialist for this Hi - SEAS mission , aver in avideo about the experiment . “ There are sure technical challenges to be get over . There are sure enough human factors to be count on out , that ’s part of what HI - SEAS is for . But I call back that overpower those challenges is just a matter of effort . We are dead capable of it . ”
Hopefully the gang is n’t too tempted to crawl back into their dome after 20 minutes of reading the intelligence . We need their optimism now more than ever .
[ Space.com ]
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