NASA built Earth replica of Mars base: 4 volunteers will live a year
NASA has built an Earth replica of the Mars base to prepare for future missions to the Red Planet. The world copy of the Mars habitat has been produced, and four volunteers will live in isolation from the world for a year in the 160 square meter «Mars habitat.» They will be living in four rooms with lots of red sand, doing the same work that would be done on Mars for a year. Moreover, they will do sports on the treadmill and indoor bike to stay in shape and grow vegetables to supplement their food rations.
The habitat was produced with 3D printers, and real bases for Mars missions are also planned to be built this way. In the first place, NASA is focusing on the Moon missions, aiming to land on the Red Planet in the early 2030s and collect samples. The experiment, which will start in the summer, will have its participants decided in the coming weeks.
Apart from this, California Institute of Technology experts combined thousands of photos from the NASA archive to create an interactive 3D map of the Martian surface. The digital map shows important geographical features on the Red planet, as well as the locations of Mars explorers.
It is exciting to see that efforts and preparation for space exploration are actively in progress. NASA’s work on building a Mars base replica and the 3D Mars surface mapping will pave the way to a better understanding of the Red Planet and human colonization in the future.
