This June 25 four astronauts they will put on their suits, enter a 150 square meter building and spend an entire American year with only themselves for company. It will not be in the solitude of space, but in a hangar of the POT In Houston.
The aim is to address the psychological and social challenges that the first visitors from marswhere the isolation and severity of the environment will take life to unknown extremes.
Everything will happen in one raised structure with 3D printer from a substance that simulates regolith, the heterogeneous and dispersed layer that covers the Martian surface. With clean spaces, simple furniture and bright lighting, it includes small single rooms, a common space for meals and meetings, a sofa, work area, kitchen and two bathrooms. They will eat dehydrated food and will be forced to ration their water.
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Crew, Kelly Haston, Alyssa Shannon, Ross Brockwell and Nathan Jones, you will be able to communicate with your loved ones and mission control, but with a delay of 20 minutes, just as if you were 200 million kilometers from home. Through the window they will see an inhospitable and lifeless landscape, thanks to a reconstruction made with wall photos of Tuesday and a few kilos of red sand.
The experience will help POT understand how to help volunteers feel comfortable, get along, and deal with loneliness and homesickness.
Commander Haston acknowledged that “reaching the end of the year with a full crew and no desertions would be a great achievement. It sounds doable, but it is very difficult.” His strategy will go through meditation to combat anxiety and a collection of videos of familiar places and audios of his family, to face the eerie silence of the Martian environment.
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The psychologist craig haney told the magazine cabling that those responsible for the agency should pay special attention to symptoms such as irritability, mood swings, and sleeping and eating patterns.
For Kim Binsted, head of another start-up in the POT who took advantage of life in extreme conditions, this time in the Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa, “if something goes wrong with the crew psychologically or sociologically, it could be as disastrous as a rocket explosion.”
In that case, and unlike what will happen in future Martian explorations, the exit door will always be at hand.
MVB JL
