A Year on "Mars"

NASA-CHAPEA

EXPLORING “MARS”: Nathan Jones cleans equipment on a simulated “Marswalk” in the habitat’s 111-square-foot sandbox.

HOMEGROWN FEAST: After 150 days in the habitat, the crew celebrates Thanksgiving with food they grew themselves.

SPACESUITS ON: This “airlock” connects the cabin to the sandbox area.

NASA hopes to someday send astronauts to Mars. To study what it might be like for humans to live there, NASA built a replica of the Red Planet here on Earth in Houston, Texas.

For more than a year, four volunteers lived and worked in this simulated Martian habitat. The crew grew their own food, dealt with communication delays to “Earth,” and wore spacesuits whenever they left their cabin—all things they’d have to do on Mars. “We felt like we were really there,” says Nathan Jones, the team’s medical officer. The experience was so realistic he sometimes forgot he wasn’t actually on Mars!

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Skills Sheets (2)
Lesson Plan (1)
Text-to-Speech