Haven't signed into your Scholastic account before?
Teachers, not yet a subscriber?
Subscribers receive access to the website and print magazine.
You are being redirecting to Scholastic's authentication page...
Announcements & Tutorials
Renew Now, Pay Later
Sharing Google Activities
2 min.
Setting Up Student View
Exploring Your Issue
Using Text to Speech
Join Our Facebook Group!
1 min.
Subscriber Only Resources
Access this article and hundreds more like it with a subscription to Science World magazine.
Article Options
Presentation View
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!
This table shows how conditions on Earth compare with those on Mars. What do you think will be the most difficult challenge for humans to overcome if they want to live on Mars?
SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (IMAGES)
SOURCE: NASA