Six volunteers locked themselves away in a network of metal tubes for the next 105 days on Tuesday in an experiment to study the human stresses of a manned mission to Mars.
Four Russians and two Europeans — a mix of cosmonauts, doctors, an engineer and an airline pilot — shut the metal hatch behind them, sealing themselves inside a habitat at Russia’s Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow.
The three-month endurance test is a trial run for a planned 520-day mock Mars mission by the European and Russian space agencies later this year to study the effects of prolonged isolation on the human body and mind.
April 9th, 2009
Volunteers Locked Away in Mock Mars Mission
March 30th, 2009
Volunteers flock to space experiment
What would you be prepared to do for money? For $6,500 (£4,500) a month, to be precise?
How about the following: locking yourself inside a small metal container for three months without any communication with the outside world, with electronic monitors attached to various parts of your body and with frozen baby food and cereal bars for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
To add to the fun you’ll have five companions who will do everything possible to stop you trying to escape before the three months are up.
Meanwhile, from a control room outside, a team of scientists will monitor your every move checking for any signs that you are starting to crack up.
And banish all hope of finding solace through alcohol or tobacco. Both are strictly forbidden.
January 13th, 2009
Mars on a Shoestring (A thought paper by Eric Knight) Remarkable Technologies
On the return flight from a meeting at NASA headquarters a couple of years ago, my mind was reflecting upon the Space Shuttle program…its milestones…its tragedies…and its soon-to-be fleet retirement. (As of this writing, the Space Shuttle fleet is slated for retirement by September 30, 2010.)
While gazing out over the clouds through the airplane window, a number of thoughts swirled in my head:
Instead of retiring the Space Shuttle, and simply moth-balling the orbiters at museums and “rocket parks” around the country, could we give the fleet a heroic assignment? A grand mission commensurate with their thirty years of service? Something that would be truly historic — even through the lens of time a millennium from now?
December 16th, 2008
Report urges timetable for human mission to Mars New Scientist
The Obama administration should set a concrete schedule for human Mars missions, and make sure new hardware developed for NASA’s return to the Moon can be adapted for missions to other destinations, a new report says.
With a new US president set to take charge of the White House and many questions hanging over NASA’s future, many have been trying to advise the agency about where it should go from here.
President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team has been very tight-lipped, but if the Obama administration takes its cue from the preponderance of advice it’s getting, then human missions to Mars may well move up in priority.
Back in November, the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group, released a report called “Beyond the Moon”, which called for delaying new missions to the Moon and channelling more resources into paving the way for human missions to Mars instead.
Now, an independent group of space experts, led by David Mindell of MIT, is calling for a timeline for human Mars missions, and urging that any Moon hardware be designed with other destinations in mind as well.
November 15th, 2008
Focus on Putting Humans on Mars, Group Argues
NASA and other spaceflight programs worldwide should focus on putting people on Mars, not the moon, an advocacy group for space exploration said in a new plan announced today.
“The U.S. landed humans on the Moon nearly 40 years ago,” said Louis Friedman, executive director of The Planetary Society. “Returning to the moon has not sufficiently excited the public and will require resources that will be badly needed elsewhere in the space program.”
The plan, “Beyond the Moon: A New Roadmap for Human Space Exploration in the 21st Century,” included four key elements:
November 7th, 2008
Magnetic shield for spacefarers
Future astronauts could benefit from a magnetic “umbrella” that deflects harmful space radiation around their crew capsule, scientists say.
The super-fast charged particles that stream away from the Sun pose a significant threat to any long-duration mission, such as to the Moon or Mars.
But the research team says a spaceship equipped with a magnetic field generator could protect its occupants.
Lab tests are reported in the journal Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion.
The approach mimics the protective field that envelops the Earth, known as the magnetosphere.
October 27th, 2008
Astronauts To Vote From Space
In this day and age, people engage in their right to vote from all over the world. But this Nov. 4, few ballots will have traveled as far as those cast by two NASA astronauts.
Commander Edward Michael Fincke and Flight Engineer and Science Officer Greg Chamitoff are living and working onboard the International Space Station. Though they are 220 miles above Earth and orbiting at 17,500 miles per hour, they will still be able to participate in the upcoming election. A 1997 bill passed by Texas legislators sets up a technical procedure for astronauts — nearly all of whom live in Houston — to vote from space.
October 1st, 2008
Lunar endurance mission to act as ‘boot camp’ for Mars New Scientist
NASA chief Mike Griffin has outlined the punishing lunar endurance mission that would have to be completed before NASA could ever consider sending humans to Mars.
Speaking on NASA’s future mission priorities at this week’s International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, Scotland, Griffin said that Mars is not automatically the next destination simply because humans have already been to the Moon. “The total human experience on the Moon is less than 27 human working days – on a world that is the size of Africa,” he says. “So whether the Moon is a stepping stone to Mars or a place of interest in its own right depends on knowledge we don’t have yet.” To improve that knowledge, and to test the logistics and human factors of potential Mars missions in the bargain, Griffin proposes an elaborate lunar mission experiment. It would mimic the travel and landing time of a Mars mission by using the International Space Station as a mock Mars spaceship – and the Moon as a surrogate Mars.
August 19th, 2008
‘TEMPO 3’ Artificial Gravity Satellite On Mars Society’s To-Do List InformationWeek
A tethered spacecraft will spin through increasingly hi-fidelity testing in a lab, in zero gravity, and eventually space, as part of the next project chosen by the Mars Society.
The Mars Society announced Tuesday that the Tethered Experiment for Mars inter-Planetary Operations (TEMPO 3 or TEMPO cubed) is the favorite proposal chosen from members’ ideas for the group’s next project. The project aims to supplement research on the feasibility of long-term space flight for humans. Mars Society president Robert Zubrin said that while space agencies around the world have “chosen to study the effects of zero gravity on humans with no end in sight,” his group seeks to develop technology to provide humans with gravity in space.
“Similar problems existed in the past, when aircrews flew at high altitude and low oxygen levels,” he said in a news announcement. “The technological solution of providing oxygen was frowned upon by aviation doctors in favor of trying to ‘negate the effect’ of the low oxygen through medication. Today, flight crews use oxygen at high altitudes, and we expect astronauts to travel with gravity.”
August 6th, 2008
4Frontiers Corporation Awarded Florida Grant to Investigate Mars Greenhouse Materials 4Frontiers Corporation
4Frontiers Corporation, a NewSpace technology, entertainment & education company, is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a $25,000 research grant from the Florida Space Grant Consortium (FSGC), as part of the Florida Space Research & Education Grant Program. This grant will assist 4Frontiers in pursuing its technology roadmap for Mars settlement technologies. The project’s goal is to study the performance of various transparent materials which have been selected as potential candidates for use in future Mars greenhouses. The research will involve the construction of small chambers that incorporate these materials, simulating a Mars greenhouse. The chambers will then be placed within a larger chamber which will simulate the environmental conditions found on the Martian surface. The project will investigate heat transfer and stress performance of these materials under the unique conditions specific to the red planet.