200 days in China’s ‘moon lab’ pushes students to the lunar limit
Four occupants weather blackouts and confined living in Beijing campus module for 28 weeks as China races into space
Chinese students spent 200 days in a row in a “lunar lab” in Beijing, state media said on Friday, as the country prepares for its long-term goal of putting people on the moon.
Four students crammed into a 160 square metre (1,720 sq ft) cabin called “Yuegong-1”, or Lunar Palace, on the campus of Beihang University, testing the limits of humans’ ability to live in a self-contained space, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The volunteers lived in the sealed lab to simulate a long-term space mission with no input from the outside world.
Liu Hong, the module’s chief designer, said the experience tested them to the limit, especially on three occasions when the lab experienced unexpected blackouts.
The experience “challenged the system as well as the psychological status of the volunteers, but they withstood the test”, Liu said.
The facility treats human waste with a bio-fermentation process, and volunteers grew experimental crops and vegetables with the help of food and waste by-products.