Nasa is looking for four people to ‘live on Mars’ for a year – and applications are open now
- Nasa is taking applications to live for a year in Mars Dune Alpha, a Martian habitat created by a 3D-printer at Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas
- The paid volunteers will work a simulated Martian exploration mission complete with spacewalks, limited communications and restricted food
Want to find your inner Matt Damon and spend a year pretending you are isolated on Mars? Nasa has a job for you.
To prepare for eventually sending astronauts to Mars, Nasa began taking applications Friday for four people to live for a year in Mars Dune Alpha. That is a 1,700 sq ft Martian habitat, created by a 3D-printer, and inside a building at Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas.
The paid volunteers will work a simulated Martian exploration mission complete with spacewalks, limited communications back home, restricted food and resources and equipment failures.
Nasa is planning three of these experiments with the first one starting in the fall next year. Food will all be ready-to-eat space food and at the moment there are no windows planned. Some plants will be grown, but not potatoes like in the film The Martian. Damon played stranded astronaut Mark Watney, who survived on potatoes.
“We want to understand how humans perform in them,” said lead scientist Grace Douglas. “We are looking at Mars realistic situations.”
