ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 1 (UPI) — NASA wants four people to test the limits of human isolation by placing them in a simulated Mars habitat for a year, cut off from the world except for delayed communication and possible simulated spacesuit walks.
The simulation, planned for Johnson Space Center in Houston, won’t be the first time the space agency attempts to mimic a stay on Mars, but it will be one of the longest.
NASA seeks applicants between 30 and 55 years old who are willing and able to perform a daily routine that could include taking cognitive tests, performing indoor exercise, eating prepackaged food, engaging in limited social media and working on indoor gardens of leafy greens.
“NASA has a lot of good data on astronauts in the space station for up to six months. We’ve got a lot of good health data, performance data,” Michele Parker, a NASA project manager, told UPI.
“But we don’t have a lot of data beyond that six-month mark, or associated with challenges that we would experience on Mars, especially for the communication delays and limits on fresh food,” Parker said.
Such delays could be up to 45 minutes, she said, to simulate the period when Mars is farthest from Earth at 249 million miles.
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The isolation and limited resources apparently don’t seem so odious to many people. NASA officials said they’re surprised by a flood of interest in advance of the Sept. 17 deadline for applications.
“I think a lot of people are excited about Mars,” Parker said.
Project begins in 2022
The first round of the project is to begin in fall 2022. The volunteers — to be called crew members — won’t interact with anyone except via delayed transmissions like they would experience on the Red Planet.
The simulation’s primary goal is to collect health and performance data from the crew, so NASA can learn how those who someday travel to a base on Mars might react to isolation, Parker said.
“We’ll be figuring out how these challenges and constraints, for humans in a Mars environment, affect performance,” she said.
Exactly what kinds of data and how it will be collected may not be disclosed because of privacy concerns, she said. While astronauts on the International Space Station station collect blood, urine and fecal samples, researchers still are meeting to determine medical tests needed during the simulation.
The men and women chosen will be required to check in daily and report how they are feeling. Eight more crew members may be chosen for future missions in 2024 and 2025.
Testing food storage
A major goal of the program would be to test food storage for a year, which might provide insight into health and psychological issues, Parker said.
“We will test a Mars-realistic spaceflight food system, because fresh delivery of food is a regular highlight for astronauts living at the space station — and that won’t be possible on Mars,” she said.
The stored food will be supplemented with greens grown on the simulated base to provide fresh flavors and nutrition.
Such indoor gardening and other activities will occur in a 1,700-square-foot module — Mars Dune Alpha — that will be 3D-printed by Texas-based ICON Technology.
Mars is calling! Applications are open to participate in a rare and unique opportunity: the first one-year analog mission in a habitat to simulate life on a distant world, beginning Fall 2022.
The habitat will be a demonstration of new building methods, Melodie Yashar, director of building design and performance at ICON, said in an interview.
“Both NASA and ICON have a vested interest in demonstrating how 3D printing can be used for a Mars habitat,” Yashar said.
That’s because sending construction materials to Mars will be nearly impossible, but 3D printing may be able to use Martian dust or rocks to build structures, she said.
The design of a habitat for lengthy isolation also is crucial, she said.
“NASA had a specific interest in separating recreational areas from working areas, and [having] redundant restrooms within both areas so that they could be evaluated for optimum location in such a habitat,” Yashar said.
Time apart
The habitat — about the size of an average American home — will allow crew members to find time apart from each other and from workspaces to diffuse tension, she said. It will have four private bedrooms, dedicated workstations, medical stations and food-growing stations, with shared living and kitchen area in-between.
“The general idea is that the crew quarters are in the far end of the habitat. You go from the crew quarters to the main recreation area and then the working quarters, and then finally the airlock, which will allow you to exit the habitat,” Yashar said.
The roof and ceiling will arch upward in the middle, meaning each room will have a different ceiling height and feel “to avoid spatial monotony and crew member fatigue,” the company said.
Some furniture will be movable to allow for differences in daily routine. Crew members will be able to set levels for lighting, temperature and sound control to help “regulate the daily routine, circadian rhythm, and overall well-being of the crew,” according to Icon.
Besides food and resource limitations, challenges may include dealing with equipment failures, performing simulated spacewalks and conducting scientific research, according to NASA.
Hobbies and routines are recommended methods to cope with isolation, Lisa Stojanovski, a science communicator and participant in a 2018 Mars simulation in Hawaii, told UPI. Her simulation, intended to last four months, was sponsored in part by NASA and run by the University of Hawaii.
“I took my knitting needles just to have that kind of relaxing hobby to fall back on,” Stojanovski said. “Personalizing your space with things like photographs and letters from the home or your favorite pillow also is going to be important.”
Her simulation, however, was cut short after four days when a crew member suffered a medical emergency.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used two different cameras to create this panoramic selfie, comprised of 60 images, in front of Mont Mercou, a rock outcrop that stands 20 feet tall on March 26, 2021, the 3,070th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. These were combined with 11 images taken by the Mastcam on the mast, or “head,” of the rover on March 16. The hole visible to the left of the rover is where its robotic drill sampled a rock nicknamed “Nontron.” The Curiosity team is nicknaming features in this part of Mars using names from the region around the village of Nontron in southwestern France. Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
