Ever dreamed of being one of the first humans to step foot on Mars? Well, NASA is making that dream a bit more realistic by seeking brave souls to join its yearlong Mars simulation starting spring 2025.
CHAPEA 2 (that’s NASA lingo for Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) aims to study living on Mars before the real crews blast off in the 2030s. NASA wants to iron out the kinks now – on Earth.
So what’s in it for the lucky four chosen to play Martian for a year? Glory, adventure…and presumably a paycheck. Details are hush-hush, but it is a paid gig.
These faux astronauts will live smack in the middle of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in a specially-constructed habitat, complete with communication glitches, equipment failures, limited water and all the other horrors of life on Mars.
It’s not all freeze-dried potatoes though. When not performing tasks like simulated spacewalks or remote-controlling robots, there’s time for movie nights or ping-pong tournaments inside the cozy 1,700 square foot module.
And it’s not all singles mingling either. Couples and friends can apply together to make the isolation more bearable. Choose your yearlong roomies wisely though. Tempers may flare around month eight when Bob forgets to clean the bathroom again.
Think you have the right stuff for mission Mars simulation? Check out the application at CHAPEA.org before April 2nd. Just be ready for some intense physical and psychological evaluations if you make the first cut.
This analog mission, the second of three planned, will help NASA prepare actual astronauts for a future multi-year round trip to Mars. Before sending humans 35 million miles away into the great unknown, it seems smart to give things a test run here on good old Planet Earth first!
