The landscape itself is without a doubt otherworldly,
barren,
rocky.
Mars at least for now remains a place untouched by
humans, but just so you know, this isn't Mars
Those tiny yellow specks on the hilltop
Those are humans and this is Hawaii on the shoulder of an active volcano.
Those humans are
volunteers who've departed earth
sort of.
What I miss most about my life back on earth is my fiancé. I miss all of those little moments during the the day
that you have together.
So we're here at
a mock Mars simulation. I think I can, speak for everybody that, we all would go to Mars you know
We're living the astronaut life here.
Six people, who last, year agreed to live together like
this for eight months as if they were actually in a habitat on faraway Mars.
And as it would be if they were on Mars, all of the video was taken by those at the habitat for CBC News.
Bye CBC, I love you!
All communications, our interviews, even emails are on a lengthy time delay.
So the whole thing is an exercise in kind of patience and humility and
doing, your best to find out what parts of you you need to pull out and amplify
and what parts you need to pull back a little bit so that you can, be the best crew
member, teammate for the rest of your crew members.
The experiment is funded by NASA.
As it considers an actual mission to the planet.
One of near countless projects underway with that goal.
So, they grow their own food.
Just like in the movies.
And they conduct science experiments just like they would on Mars.
But the key aspect is testing interactions and behaviours under stress.
Because in theory,
they're millions of kilometres from anyone else.
Supplies are sent in periodically but otherwise they're on their own.
No, matter the challenges big or small;
My worst moment was...
probably being stuck in the airlock with a lot of poo.
Forget about feeling the sun or a cool breeze.
Every time they go outside they have to suit up for real.
It's hard, sloggy.
But one conclusion, they've all reached, is that
getting to Mars is 100 per cent achievable.
It's definitely not a pipe dream. It sounds like a lot but I think we'll get there eventually.
In very little bit of time.
The pieces are out on the table it's putting that puzzle together that will happen relatively soon I believe.
I think that technically
We can absolutely go in my lifetime. I think that we could go.
We could start working now if we needed to.
It's a matter of how much risk are you willing to accept
for the people who go.
And this is where it's like feeling sitting outside
just looking at the rocks and being like, you know, what it really does feel like Mars.
Martha Lenio, now
back at her home in Waterloo, Ontario
Lived in that habitat on an earlier eight-month mission.
How did you not go stir-crazy?
(Laughs) Having very good crewmates.
She emphasizes that as engineers
work on the technical challenges of getting to Mars, it's equally important to sort out the
psychological ones.
The goal is to figure out how you
pick a crew, and support a crew, for these long-duration, isolated space missions,
so that they won't -- people won't go crazy and kill each other.
Because you're, going to be confined in a small space with five other people for up to three years.
So that does take a, fair bit of social ability.
And so there's studying you basically
Yeah we're the guinea pigs in a psychology experiment.
It's not like there isn't already stuff on Mars
NASA's viking explorer got there in the 1970s and sent back, these images
other robotic missions have followed
these images each of them stunning were taken not long ago
by NASA's latest Mars rover The Curiosity.
But getting people to Mars and then home safely to earth is a whole other matter.
So thousands of kilometres from that habitat in Hawaii at the Johnson Space Center in Houston,
NASA engineers whose job it is to think the unthinkable,
and who are busy on all kinds of things.
These, days include Mars on their
interplanetary to-do list
We're an electric spacecraft right so
We have solar arrays on the service model.
That's a mock-up of a space capsule called Orion.
Nujoud Merancy leads its development and gave us a peek inside.
It's about the size of two minivans.
And when it's finished?
Is meant to get astronauts out beyond earth's orbit for the first time since the days of Apollo.
Taking the first step toward Mars,
but that's the easy part.
Challenges in deep space
loom.
Radiation, illnesses, fuel, just one chance at a safe landing and then
the rest of it.
You're gonna need a big habitat, we're gonna need big solar cells
Systems, power, food, water.
All those things and then you're gonna need a rocket to get them back off the surface of Mars
So all of that has to be there even before the crew
arrives because you can't have it show up later.
And remember that time delay?
Communicating with earth?
So that means if I told you there's an emergency on the spaceship the ground team would not
know that it's happening until 12 minutes later, and if they had an instruction
to send back, it'd be another 12 minutes to get back.
If there's a fire, if there's a leak.
All of those things have to be dealt with, by the crew independently which is certainly a
challenge, we haven't faced in any human spaceflight so far.
And there's been a lot of challenges but the ground, is able to assist.
It sounds daunting.
It is.
But NASA's gigantic complex in Houston is littered with
evidence it's managed daunting challenges before.
That's a Saturn 5 at an on-site museum.
The kind of rocket they once used for that other dream: getting to the moon.
Meanwhile just down the street a ways, more evidence NASA's now looking much further afield.
We're told to please keep our voices quiet.
And these are -- that's what's going on behind us right now, these are the people in there.
Yes, that's correct.
We have surveillance cameras inside the habitat another habitat with
more volunteers inside this time as if in a spaceship flying toward an
asteroid. The kind of trip that might one day target Mars.
We had a tour of the simulated mission control with NASA's Andy Selth.
The thing about this is, unlike a normal "mission control" here, they are actually right there.
Yes
That's how close we are.
Yes. That's then we're about 30 feet away, yeah
For this test the volunteers are inside with no windows.
Just cameras and each other.
Ostensibly en route and isolated for 45 days.
Can we get a status?
NASA experts watch how they get along.
Unlike the habitat in Hawaii, for those simply flying through space
there's much less to occupy the time.
So their study to see how pure
monotony might affect their thinking and actions.
It's basically looking at human nature.
Seeing how it may unfold and then
kind of measuring it to ensure that it doesn't pose a risk to the mission.
And then there's the biggest challenge of all.
Money. On that, NASA's been busy.
With traveling exhibits,
promoting even the idea of spending the billions of dollars such a trip would cost.
Check, this
theoretical MARS vehicle.
A crowd-pleaser aimed at winning the hearts and minds of -- yep,
taxpayers and their kids.
Public, support is crucial.
Meanwhile private companies now play a key role as well.
Space X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk
famously is now a mega player in the push toward MARS and Musk himself a mega-promoter.
What I'm trying to achieve here is to make MARS seem possible. Make it
seem, as though it's something that, we can, do in our lifetimes and that you can go.
In other words, he says, dream big.
Working, alongside NASA SpaceX hopes to get to Mars by the middle of the next decade
So, what to make of all of this -- who better to, ask, than someone who theoretically could, go.
Canada's David Saint-Jacques.
Prepping for his imminent trip to the space station, he thinks
about this stuff a lot and bottom lines it this way;
Yes, risky. It will always be spaceflight, as may be the most dangerous thing humans have ever done, but
we have learned a lot in the process and that makes it worth it. So eventually
we will go to Mars when that risk balance kind of makes sense.
This is NASA. We make it possible right, and I'm an engineer
and that's my job, is to solve problems so I think these are all things we can do.
It's not easy, and we need a lot of people working on it to make it happen.
But I certainly think it's possible these are within the realm of human capability in my opinion.
Meanwhile they keep at it, finessing Orion, getting it shipshape balancing those risks
while considering all the other challenges.
Will there be the money for it? Says Saint Jacques there are many
important earthly priorities, but
the priority of course should never be space exploration,
there's other things that are more important right now, but always always keep a little sliver of the pie
for blue sky research.
For the arts.
for exploration.
Because that is we how progress.
So eventually it will become
reasonable and natural to
take a deep breath and dive and make the trip
And so, as that Hawaiian, experiment continues, now with a new crew out exploring make-believe Mars,
they take those deep breaths and they dream after all.
What a trip it would be.
Paul Hunter, CBC News.
Earth