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Pent-Up NASA Scientists Simulate Life On Mars
Six scientists funded by NASA are about to begin six months of simulated life on Mars. In Hawaii. They will make their home in a dome simulator that’s just 36 feet wide and 20 feet tall, designed to closely simulate the Red Planet’s conditions.
(Astronauts on Mars - in Hawaii)
“We’re hoping to figure out how best to select individual astronauts, how to compose a crew and how to support that crew on long-duration space missions,” Dr. Kim Binstead, a University of Hawaii science professor and the project’s principle investigator, said in a press statement. “Right now, all of our eggs for life are in one basket. I think it’s a good overall strategy for us as a species to spread out further.”The scientists will wear devices around their necks to measure their moods and proximity to other team members...
The team will even have an artificial 20-minute delay in communications, the time it would take for an email to reach Earth from Mars.
“I can give you my personal impression which is that a mission to Mars in the close future is realistic. I think the technological and psychological obstacles can be overcome,” Cyprien Verseux, a French astrobiologist who served in a previous Mars dome experiment, told Phys.org.
The Hawaiian Mars simulation is almost unique because of its remote accessibility, Mars-like weather and geography, and proximity to the summit of the world’s largest active volcano.
It's not an exact match, but I was reminded of Dr. David H. Keller's 1932 short story The Pent House, in which a millionaire creates an entirely sealed environment for two lucky Manhattanites to live for five full years. In the story, it is feared that a space-borne plague will wipe out humanity; this is his plan to save an Adam and an Eve.
(The Pent House from Amazing Stories, December 1932)
"...I am building, and am just about finished with it, a seventy-story apartment house. On the top is a pent-house which is rather unusual in architecture and size. It is really most complete in every way, and entirely self-sustaining as far as all service is concerned. That gives it complete isolation. It is really a lonely island in the air; but instead of a sky for a roof it has a roof of glass, opaque glass of a very satisfactory thickness.
(Read more about Keller's pent house)
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