WASHINGTON: Sealed inside a habitat in Texas and cut off from the outside world for over a year, Kelly Haston was the commander of a first-of-its-kind simulation for Nasa to prepare for a future mission to Mars.

From conducting mock “Marswalks”, to tending to a vertical garden and occasionally grappling with boredom — Haston expressed pride in advancing the cause of space exploration while admitting the experience made her reconsider the reality of life on the Red Planet.

“Going to space would be an amazing opportunity,” the 53-year-old biologist said. “But I would say that it would be harder having experienced this, to know how it feels to leave your people.”

The overarching goal of the experiment, called CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) Mission 1, is to better understand the impacts of isolation on a crew’s performance and health.

The project lasted 378 days and concluded in early July. After all, a round-trip to Mars could easily take more than two years, factoring in the transit time of six to nine months and the time Nasa hopes to spend on the planet.

For Haston, the hardest part was clear: “I could have been in that habitat for another year and survived with all of the other restrictions, but your people — you miss your people so much.” Communications with the outside world were delayed by twenty minutes each way, simulating how long it takes a radio signal to travel between Earth and Mars.

They were also some limits on sending and receiving videos, to account for bandwidth restrictions.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2024