NASA recruits volunteers to simulate life on Mars

Notice to amateurs, NASA is recruiting. Be careful, don’t expect a free ticket to space. The volunteers will remain confined for a year, all under the watchful eye of the American government agency which will endeavor to scrutinize their every move. Focus on the three axes of the process.

1Recruit targeted profiles

The four future confined will live in a kind of prefabricated 150 square meters. This module will be installed at the NASA space center in Texas where engineers will reproduce the conditions of an extraterrestrial mission. Three One-year test missions are planned. The first is due to start in the fall of 2022.

Yes you want to apply, know that NASA is looking for Americans, non-smokers, aged 30 to 55 and especially graduates in mathematics, physics, biology or engineering.

2Study the effects of isolation

We have to imagine that if one day a crew is sent to Mars, it will remain for almost two years millions of kilometers from Earth. And that’s not counting the trip which can last more than six months. NASA therefore wants to study the effects of isolation on humans. It plans to simulate communication cuts with the outside world. The volunteers will have to live independently, manipulate robots, solve technical problems, move around with diving suits.

3Send humans to Mars and the Moon

The idea behind this experiment is twofold. After these tests, NASA hopes to send men and women to Mars. For the time being, the US space agency only sent robots there with the Curiosity and Perseverance missions. Other devices are therefore being developed to send astronauts there. They are called Orion and Space Launch System.

A ship and its rocket which, before going to Mars, must take the direction of the Moon. This is the famous Nasa Artemis program. The first launch is scheduled for next November. It will bea test flight without an astronaut. Americans hope to send the next people to the moon in 2024. TOith, perhaps, a certain Thomas Pesquet.