NASA's Curious Universe - A Year in Mars Dune Alpha

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

To prepare for the day when humans travel to Mars, NASA is conducting a one-year experiment in a Mars simulation environment. So what’s it like to spend a year in CHAPEA, the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog? In this season finale episode, travel through the airlock with voice recordings made by the four-person crew, including what it feels like—and smells like—inside their realistic 3-D printed habitat and how virtual reality gives them the sensation of walking on the Red Planet. NASA's Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast. Discover more adventures with NASA astronauts, engineers, scientists, and other experts at nasa.gov/curiousuniverse

Hello, Earthlings. Hello. It is September 18th. This is Anka and Nate, and we are currently in the airlock. There is air in the airlock right now, thankfully. This is what Mars airlock. This is a message from Mars Dune Alpha. Inside this habitat, four intrepid crew members are surviving in a foreign, isolated home.

They work together. they eat together, and occasionally when they need to suit up and leave the safety of their habitat, they go through the airlock. This is where we put on our spacesuits, and it's where we equalize pressure to either exit or reenter the habitat. If you're thinking to yourself, I thought there weren't any humans on Mars. Yep, you're right. But this mission will help us get there. It's called Chippea.

crew, health, and performance exploration analog. Before NASA sends humans to Mars for real, we're practicing here on Earth at a specially designed Mars habitat at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas. The crew gave us an inside look. We have a window that we use, air quotes around the word window,

that it used a TV with a video feed of the outside of our habitat. And we can see the Martian sunrise, with it out the window, and then the sun basically goes over our head, and we eventually see the shadow of our habitat on the ground, and eventually throughout night we see the stars. And it's really pretty. If I could sum up Chapia in just a couple of words,

the words would be almost Mars. This is NASA's curious universe. Our universe is a wild and wonderful place. I'm your host, Patty Boyd, and in this podcast, NASA is your tour guide. In this episode, we go inside Chappia. NASA scientists and researchers want to know what happens when astronauts are cooped up for a year with the same three people

and have to manage the stress of surviving in a Mars-like environment. Chappia will shed light on those questions, like a dress rehearsal for life on Mars. So what's it like to live in Mars Dune Alpha for more than a year? We'll find out through dispatches recorded by crew members during the mission. We'll also learn what it sounds like and smells like inside their Mars habitat. Hear how the crew uses virtual reality to make Mars spacewalks feel as lifelike as possible. And explore how the Chippea crew is paving the way for the first human mission to Mars.

It's been more than 50 years since humans' last left footprints on the moon. NASA is getting ready to send astronauts back. Not only will the Artemis program put the first woman on the moon, it's going to establish a long-term presence that we've never had before. And we're not stopping there. You know, we've worked so hard in the space program to get to the moon, to try and go back to the moon, and we've been working really hard to try and make that path achievable

to then go on to Mars. Like any NASA mission, Chappia involves a big team working together. Besides the crew members in the Mars habitat, there are engineers who designed the Mars environment, including red dirt for spacewalks, experts in behavioral health who helped pick the crew, and a mission control team acting as their lifeline, and one scientist outside the habitat who oversees it all. I'm Dr. Grace Douglas. I'm the principal investigator for the crew health and performance exploration analog or Chapia. Grace is based at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas. Chappia builds on decades of research into human spaceflight,

and it follows NASA's long-term plan to go back to the moon and beyond. It was a very wide effort to make sure that we were getting all of the expert perspectives for what we believe a Mars mission will look like to make it as realistic as possible. At NASA, we don't do anything until we practice, practice, and practice some more. That goes for living on Mars, too. The Chappia mission started in June, 2023, and it runs until the summer of 2024. Just like on Mars, the four Chippea crew members can't leave their habitat, except for short excursions outside in a space suit.

And like astronauts on the International Space Station, the crew crew The crew has limited food and water, limited time, and a task list to accomplish each day, like conducting science experiments or maintaining equipment. Also, it's not easy to communicate with Earth. If there's an emergency, the crew can't pick up the phone and call mission control. When we close the door in that habitat, they are in there for the year. We also can simulate the time delay. We're expecting a lengthy time delay with all communications for a Mars mission.

So instead of voice communications, everything is written or sent by video. And there's limits on how much data can be sent. All of those factors add stress, the kind of stress that a real Mars crew will also feel. One of the things the investigators are measuring is how that stress impacts the crew's health and performance. Of course, there are some things about the Martian environment you can't simulate in Texas. Mars has about a third the gravity of Earth. A person who weighs 150 pounds here would only weigh about 56 pounds on Mars.

You also can't really fake the Martian atmosphere, which has almost no oxygen. If you stepped outside without a spacesuit, you'd be toast. Even the surface of Mars is different. It's covered in a rocky, dusty layer, called regolith. Things like the regolith, they don't have to be 100% simulated to get that data. Things like the spacesuit, don't need to be 100%.

We need to get the load on the crew, the kind of experience that that crew would feel and have to work within in order to do their activities. So we're able to do that fairly well with these simulations. Throughout the experiment, Grace's team is measuring health and performance data. That includes collecting blood samples as well as measuring cognitive performance. Going to Mars involves a balance, between the resources you have and the risks you're willing to take.

All of that data will help NASA make the best decisions to keep the crew healthy and for mission success. With the experiment set up, Grace needed a crew, four capable people willing to leave their jobs and families here on Earth for a leap into the unknown. NASA opened up the program to the public and more than 4,000 people applied. So Grace's team had to choose the best of the best.

We have a similar process to what astronauts would have to go through for a selection for a mission like this, because it is expected to have a lot of the similar attributes and stresses that astronauts would experience and challenges that they would experience. We met the crew three months into their time in the Mars simulation. Since there's no live communication, they recorded voice memos about their experience. Just like astronauts, the Chupia crew had to fit certain physical criteria. They also have backgrounds in science or engineering. And they signed up to leave behind Earth and everything on it,

including their friends and families for more than a year. All four of them were intrigued by this new challenge. I was browsing NASA's webpage, and that's how I came across the announcement. This is Unka Solariu. And why I wanted to be a part of it? Because going to Mars is a natural next step for here. humanity. It's just a requirement for human evolution, in my opinion. And I've always wanted to somehow participate. Anka is a microbiologist in the U.S. Navy. In Shapia, she's the science officer,

the person in charge of research that happens inside the habitat. My job is to do analysis of geology samples that we collect from the Mars surface, also perform some biology experiments trying to grow crops. Yeah, I also came across it online, a write-up on the web for it. And then I think the big thing kind of propelling me would be kind of just a sense of adventure and, you know, just getting to contribute to that next step to Mars. That's Nate Jones. His background is emergency medicine.

So he's Chappia's medical officer. It's my job to ensure that biological information can be collected and that the specimens are all ready to go. It's my job to send them off to NASA for analysis after they've been collected. If a medical emergency were to occur to a crew member, I would provide immediate medical assistance. Up next is Ross Brockwell. On earth, he's an engineer who works in city planning. I'm the flight engineer for Chappia Mission One. I'm responsible for many of the habitat systems, so making sure that they're operating properly in maintenance activities and schedules are kept.

And last, but definitely not least, is Kelly Hasten. She's a stem cell biologist, and she's the commander for Chappia. A lot of people ask what does the commander do? And to be honest, it's not the most glamorous job. So every single crew member takes part in all of our activities. So we all do similar things most of the time. Life in Chappia revolves around the habitat, aka Mars Dune Alpha. The whole thing is 1,700 square feet, or about the size of a medium one-story house.

Each crew member has their own small bedroom. Plus, there's a communal area and a few specialized work spaces. NASA experts think that in the future, we might be able to 3D print buildings from the Martian soil. So the walls and ceiling of Mars Dune Alpha are all 3D printed out of a red, concrete-like material. People often ask what it smells like. It doesn't actually have a lot of smell. And one of the reasons is that most of the items that we brought in or that were supplied to us as things that we'll use during the mission

are made to not have a scent. It turns out that strong scents can be harmful to some of the machines that make space travel possible, like water reclamation systems. In our normal life, we're used to our laundry detergent having a scent and maybe wearing perfumes or having hand creams that smell. very strongly. And in this case, we actually have very little of those things. So the number one thing we probably smell is food and only when we're eating. I do have a bar of soap that I keep that does have a particular smell that I like, though, and sometimes that's a way to sort of like

feel comforted. All over the habitat, the crew hears a steady stream of machine noises, like this sound, of a 3D printer in action, which they can use to make parts for their equipment, In the workspace, there's also a bank of instruments and machines charging. It takes a lot of noisy machinery to keep the habitat running. You hear a constant hum. I like to imagine it as the engine of Mars, you know, the heart of Mars. I think there's just a whole lot of white noise. It's actually, we kind of, I think, have tuned it out by now in general.

But I do remember when I first came into the habitat, just how noisy it was, air through vents, fans. computer, the PCs, running their fans and all those sort of things, and quite a bit of white noise. This is Kelly. We are in the exercise bay of Dune Alpha, and this is the sounds of a crew member doing a workout on the rowing machine. In microgravity, astronauts lose muscle mass and bone density without regular exercise. It's crucial to give the crew a way to stay in shape.

So one of the specialized rooms in the habitat is a small exercise area. There's also a medical day, which looks more or less like an exam room at the doctor's office. Each day starts in the common area. That's when the crew goes over their assignments. We do get up each day around the same time, around 6 a.m. We start our day. We congregate in the kitchen, have a meal. But then each day can be really diversely different.

Inside the habitat, the crew is growing a few crops so that they can have fresh food. So some days include gardening. On other days, they conduct geological experiments on the simulated Martian surface. But the crew's favorite days are when they get to leave the habitat. Normally, they wear Earth street clothes. But when it's time to leave the habitat, they don a spacesuit and head out through the airlock. These spacewalks are called EVAs, or extra-vehicular activity. Here's Kelly again.

We are in a sort of simulated spacesuit-type. outfit. So you really get that sense of being out in the Martian environment and experiencing the physical load of moving around in a heavy space suit with gloves on. Just outside the habitat, the crew has an area called the sandbox. It's a domed room that mimics the surface of Mars, right down to the red dirt and walls with pictures of red hills that fade off into the horizon. The sandbox gives the crew a chance to walk around in their spacesuits and complete missions, like maintaining equipment or studying the Mars surface. Anka says some EVAs are even more immersive,

with virtual reality goggles that put you inside the Martian landscape. I love going on the EVAs because they really feel for me like I am walking on the surface of Mars. It feels kind of slightly difficult because we have. We have a simulated space suit. So we're on the treadmill, and then we have VR goggles on. And that enables us to actually have the physical feeling of activity, as well as seeing Mars at the same time. The Martian landscape in VR is just really, really nice.

It's beautiful. And oftentimes I will look out as I'm walking and really appreciate the vistas of the different mountains we're looking at or different landscapes, and it's really cool to be there. Until humans make it to the real Mars, this is about as close as anybody will get to walking on the red planet. I would say Mars is very sandy. Sand everywhere, dust everywhere.

I will say that the EVA days are long days. They're hard days. We get worn out. It's really amazing how fun it is out there, how hot and sweaty you get. Usually we come in and our EVA flight suits are soaked. and sweat and to the point where this kind of a gross picture

but afterwards like a day later you can come and see these black flight suits and they are just caked in white salt and sweat humans certainly contain a lot of salt don't they? So we have to take steps to mitigate that in all the crew normally

works five and a half days a week similar to astronauts on the International Space Station. So what does the crew do with the rest of the time? Well, even on simulated Mars, you need to unwind after a long day. We do get downtime. We have a few board games in here, and we also watch a little bit of TV together. So we were able to bring in a certain amount of data, and we all collaborated to bring in different shows and movies. So we pick a show and we watch it together. So it's kind of interesting to both work and play with the same three people for a full year. And we also get some

alone time where you can spend time by yourself. I'm a big reader, so I read a lot, and I also like to do crafts. So I'm doing some knitting, I'm learning to crochet. Several of us have musical instruments and spend some time playing those in our downtime. The Chappia crew members ended up here because they're overachievers. They knew what they were signing up for, a year of isolation, a year away from their friends and families. A year with no sunlight, trees, or fresh air. But even if you volunteer for that, it's still difficult to actually do it. Here's Anka and Ross.

I really miss driving. I miss seeing trees. I miss seeing green. I miss the colors, the seasons. I miss everything about Earth. So once Chippia ends, what Earth? activity and my most looking forward to well I'm definitely looking forward to to jump in the ocean and lying out in the sunlight I'm really looking forward to

enjoying nature in general everything our own planet provides us also the crew can't talk to their families in real time they send emails back and forth and sometimes they can include attachments like video or audio messages I think you realize how much you rely on people without even realizing it. I didn't think it was easy to be away from my family, but you think you're going to manage it. But it is actually really, really hard. If you were to send an audio postcard to a family member right now, Nate, what would you tell them? Just that we're having a great time.

And I hope that they're doing well and enjoying their time on earth. How about you, Walker? I would say thank you for everyone who is helping me with my life outside. And thank you everyone who's sending me articles on the latest physics discoveries and other news of Earth. It's really meaningful for us to have that communication. And it makes us feel like we still belong to people's lives. So thank you. It will be a few more months until the crew returns to Earth in July 2024.

After that, their portion of the experiment is done, but Chappia is just beginning. This mission is Chepia won. Grace, the lead scientist, is already planning to run the mission again. We really need to repeat it with different crews, with different individuals, and understand statistically what was an anomaly versus what's an outcome that we can expect to see over and over again. In the next few years, a new crew will repeat the mission as Chappia 2, and then again with Chappia 3. So the researchers don't want to give away too many details about the experiment.

Over time, the science team will publish research papers with findings about crew health and performance throughout the year. Grace says that rigorous data is what it takes to build the path to Mars. It's all steps to getting them there. So our crews that are part of this now, our team members that are supporting the mission, we're all part of it. When I imagine the day that the first human

will leave a footprint on Mars, I see an entire world stopping and watching. I see the world of humans being infused with hope. When the first humans do walk on more, their names will join Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, and other pioneers who push humanity further. The Chappia crew knows they won't get the same recognition, but they're building the foundation for the first human mission to Mars, whether those future astronauts know it or not. I guess it would be pretty cool if that first crew was aware of us and they were appreciative

of the efforts we put into this study. And I actually kind of hope that if we do our job well here, they won't think about us at all. You know, science is an iterative process. You iterate on things. You make small discoveries that build and build. You know, some people are lucky and have really big discoveries, but oftentimes it's little tiny pieces. And I think that this study is an example of that. The first Morris crew doesn't have to remember the names of the Chappia crew.

But I know this. They will definitely be representing. in her spirit, the same spirit that the first humans that saw a body of water and carved a boat, a rudimentary boat out of a log. Every day I'm amazed and grateful to be here. I'm amazed that I can actually contribute to the same exploration that we have been carrying on for all these decades and centuries in millennia since we've appeared on the planet. This decade, NASA astronauts following in the same spirit of exploration will leave the first

footprints on the moon in more than 50 years. The Artemis program will open up a new chapter of human exploration with consistent access to the moon. And after that, we'll look even further. Who will eventually take that first step on Mars? We don't know. As Artemis brings humans back to the moon, that Mars astronaut may be dreaming of about their own place in the stars.

The Chappia crew is taking one small step so that whenever the time comes, humans can make our next giant leap. This is NASA's Curious Universe. This episode was written and produced by Jacob Pinter. Our executive producer is Katie Conan's. The Curious Universe team includes Christian Elliott, Maddie Olsen, and Michaela Sosby.

Our theme song was composed by Matt Russo and Andrew Santeguita, of System sounds. Christopher Kim is our show artist. Special thanks to Anna Schneider, Greg Wiseman, and the Chippia team. If you want to know even more about Chippia, we've got you covered with another NASA podcast. Check out Houston We Have a podcast. Every month hear a new audio update from the Chippia crew. And follow Houston We Have a podcast for in-depth coverage of NASA's human spaceflight program. Thank you for tuning in to the sixth season of NASA's curious universe. We've enjoyed taking you along with us as we've explored our wild and wonderful universe,

from dark matter and dark energy to the hum of the sun, and so much more. We're taking a break, but we'll be back soon with more adventures. Until then, you can continue exploring with NASA by visiting nassah.gov, and find even more NASA podcasts in your future. favorite podcast app or at nassah.gov slash podcasts. If you like NASA's Curious Universe, please let us know by leaving us a review and sharing this episode with a friend. And remember, you can follow NASA's Curious Universe in your favorite podcast app to get a notification each time we post a new episode.

Yeah, NASA was kind enough to provide us with quite a few pictures of nature and it was a great thought. Though I am wondering why they chose to put the picture of the one alligator in my room. I'm not sure if they were trying to tell me something with that or not.