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.”
The application process opened on Friday and they are not seeking just anybody. The requirements are strict, including a master’s degree in a science, engineering or mathematics field or pilot experience. Only American citizens or permanent US residents are eligible. Applicants have to be aged between 30 and 55, in good physical health with no dietary issues and not prone to motion sickness.
That shows Nasa is looking for people who are close to astronauts, said former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. And, he said, that is a good thing because it is a better experiment if the participants are more like the people who will really go to Mars. Past Russian efforts at a pretend Mars mission called Mars 500 did not end well, partly because the people were too much like everyday people, he said.
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For the right person this could be great, said Hadfield, who spent five months in orbit in 2013 at the International Space Station, where he played the guitar, sang and recorded a cover video of David Bowie’s Space Oddity.
“Just think how much you’re going to be able to catch up on Netflix,” he said. “If they have a musical instrument there, you could go into there knowing nothing and come out a concert musician, if you want.”
There could be “incredible freedom” in a “year away from the demands of your normal life.”
Attitude is key, said Hadfield, who has a novel The Apollo Murders coming out in the autumn. He said the participants need to be like Damon’s Watney character: “Super competent, resourceful and not relying on other people to feel comfortable.”
