Today, Chinese teenagers were given a five-hour tour of a space colony set against a desolate backdrop much like Mars. The base called Mars Base 1 Camp, covering an area about one-fifth of an American football field, is the brainchild of a media company and officials in Gansu, in collaboration China's space program, hoping to boost tourism in the region.
Aside from being a tourist attraction, the camp has collaborated with the Astronauts Center of China (ACC) to eventually turn the facility into an astronaut-training center.
A somewhat similar exercise was done last 2017 in Hawaii by HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) is partly funded by NASA and run by a University of Hawaii professor which lasted for 8 months. HI-SEAS is building on substantial previous research on teams working in isolation, including some based on the real-world example of crews on the International Space Station, and a 520-day simulated Mars mission called Mars500.
For the past months, they had been crammed into a 1,200 sq. ft. geodesic dome situated on an otherworldly plain of red dust and tumbled rocks. They only left the module in protective suits and had no fresh food. Their communication with other humans came with a twenty-minute delay.
All of this is similar to the conditions humans will experience when they first arrive on Mars, a future milestone being plotted by groups including NASA, SpaceX, and China's National Space Administration.
The goals of the mission included improving understanding of how teams work together in extreme conditions and testing methods for managing crew stress and improving resilience.
When it comes to settling in Mars, human questions are arguably as important as building rockets. Once crews reach the Red Planet, they'll have little, if any, help from Earth, so they'll need to know how to get along and solve problems on their own. And that moment is getting closer-SpaceX, for instance has said it will start testing another Mars-focused vehicle spring of this year.
Much has been said and done all throughout the years taking humankind one step at a time towards settling in the Red Planet, but as in all plans and simulations, the real deal will always be different. Preparation in every imaginable way has to be done for us to be ready for such an undertaking. In fact, perhaps we will never be prepared to move to a different planet even if that time comes. What about you, are you ready for Mars?
