Mars Dome Project: Six People To Stay In A Dome For A Year To Practice For Mars
NASA has just locked down six volunteers in a dome as part of preparation for a Mars mission.
The willing members include people from various professions -- an astrobiologist, a physicist, a pilot, an architect, a journalist and a soil scientist. BBC reports that this isolation experiment was kicked off on August 28.
The six people will actually be enclosed in the confines of the dome for a whole year, and will have to stick it out with each other. Although this sounds like a scary prospect, NASA has pulled off experiments like this in the past and they've been quite a success. This is done to simulate the experience of being on an actual Mars mission, and according to experts a mission of this nature could take between one to three years. BBC reports that these six people will leave without access to fresh air, fresh food or privacy.
Speaking to the BBC, Kim Binstead, a NASA investigator, did admit that "interpersonal conflicts" were the one thing that were hard to avoid in such scenarios.
"I think one of the lessons is that you really can't prevent interpersonal conflicts. It is going to happen over these long-duration missions, even with the very best people," Binstead said.
According to Gizmodo, the last time an experiment of this nature took place was with the Mars 500 Project, which had a more complicated and horrifying premise. Six-person crews were stuck inside steel tubes for 18 months, and surprisingly all went smoothly on that ride.
We hope this new crew is ready to rumble, in the best of ways.
