[imagesource:gencraftai]

NASA has invited the public to a chance to go to Mars – or, as close as you can get to Mars on Earth.

The space agency is seeking volunteers to test out living in the 1,700-square-foot habitat known as Mars Dune Alpha to determine, as realistically as possible, how living on Mars would affect humans.

Four volunteer crew members have already been living in that habitat, having entered in June 2023, and they will emerge in July of this year.

To understand what it might be like for humans to make it to the real Mars, and stick it out, behavioural ecologist Kelly Weinersmith joined All Things Considered host Scott Detrow for a conversation, per NPR.

Weinersmith is the co-author of A City On Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, And Have We Really Thought This Through? alongside her husband, Zach Weinersmith.

Kelly said it would be ‘incredibly difficult’ to live on Mars since it poses some really unique challenges, like its atmosphere is only 1% of the atmosphere that we have here on Earth. That means you will never be able to feel the Red Planet’s breeze on your skin as you will have to be constantly suited up. She said that also means that if your habitat ever depressurises and you don’t fix it fast enough, “you would probably not make it through that experience”.

NASA’s experiment is also a way to understand how Mars might impact the human body.

Even though humans have been orbiting Earth since the 1970s, with over 600 astronauts going to space, the space stations have always been under the protection of Earth’s magnetosphere.

“So they don’t get exposed to the radiation that space has to offer, which differs from what we have here on Earth. So we actually don’t know, for example, how much cancer risk would be increased in a place like Mars, which doesn’t have a strong magnetosphere like we have on Earth and doesn’t have a thick atmosphere to protect you.”

Mars’ sand, called regolith, is sharp and jagged and “laden with endocrine-disrupting hormones”, which will mess up your blood pressure and your heart rates. That means you can’t grow plants so easily either.

Detrow then asked Kelly why there is such a draw to live on Mars, all things considered. He pointed out how odd it is that it’s become this big scientific goal not just at NASA, but at big, private companies like SpaceX, and more beyond that.

Kelly said that to the sci-fi geeks out there, the idea of waking up on the surface of Mars and seeing a Martian sunrise sounds absolutely epic, “But there are people who have other specific reasons for going, and it sort of depends on the community that you’re talking to,” she said.

One perk is reducing pressure on planet Earth by moving people off and away. Then there is also the allure of starting new governments and new ways of life.

“A lot of [Mars folks] argue that Earth has become bureaucratic and wimpy and by going to Mars, we’d be able to start over again and sort of fix all the mistakes that we’ve made here on Earth.”

She noted that this community tends to be led by Elon Musk, who owns SpaceX:

“And Musk is also particularly excited about having a backup for humanity. So the idea that if humans are multiplanetary, if something happens to the humans on Earth, there’ll be a backup so humans can continue on even if something happens to Earth. So there’s a lot of different reasons for wanting to go to space, a lot of different camps, but for me, I think it’s mostly awesome.”

She also reckons, despite the drawbacks and the scientific evidence that life on Mars will surely be gruelling, the plan to go will not likely change.

[source:npr]