A HOME DESIGNED TO BE AWAY
AN ALL-INDIAN TEAM HAS SET OUT TO EXPLORE WHAT MARS WILL BE LIKE TO LIVE ON
On Earth, there are few places that can replicate an alien environment 54.6 million kilometres away. These are not traditional picnic spots you can simply drive to in an SUV, expecting tranquility. At some sites you won’t survive the night without special gear. Which is why scientists and those training for long trips into deep space have been using these locations to prepare for journeys that have never been attempted by mankind before.
And on January 28, an allIndian team will set foot on one such site for 15 days. They will be cut off from the outside world — no phones, no transmissions, no email alerts. All six will reside in tight confines to study the effects of what life ‘elsewhere’ can do to human physiology and psychology. It’s scientific Bigg
Boss with spare oxygen tanks and without that actor guy.
Their destination is the Mars Desert Research Station, or the MDRS. It’s one of four facilities operated by the Mars Society and with its barren, almost lifeless surroundings in a Utah desert in the US, it makes for a perfect ‘Martian stunt double’. There are other “zones” — Chile’s Atacama desert is one of Nasa’s favourites because of its “sterile” environment. In Antarctica, there’s the frigid Lake Vostok which, scientists believe, could be home to undiscovered species who’ve been playing evolutionary hide-and-seek for the past 14 million years. There’s Canada’s Devon Island, the world’s largest uninhabited desert island, home to the 24-kilometrewide Haughton Crater where Nasa has been practising space drilling techniques since 1997.
Six scientists have also entered a dome atop the Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island for what will be an “isolation test”. The six scientists will perform geology experiments, work on limited vegetation and yes, have no contact with the outside world.
To add authenticity to Hotel Mars, communications with base will even be time-delayed, by 20 minutes. That’s how long a ‘hello’ from Earth takes to reach its presumed prehistoric twin. “Daily routines include food preparation from only shelf-stable ingredients, exercise, research and fieldwork aligned with NASA’s planetary exploration expectations,” the university said in a release.
WHY THE TROUBLE?
If you’re one of those wondering why astronauts need to go through these nightmarish simulations, Dr Mamatha Maheshwarappa, from Bengaluru, has a few answers. Mamatha is the commander for the all-Indian ‘Crew 174’ at the MDRS. The ‘174’ refers to the fact that there have been 173 teams, or crews, before them at the Utah site and each team comes with a specific mission parameter, or aim. The Indians hope to study ‘human contamination’ and the growth of plants, in inhospitable weather and terrain. Mamatha will be joined by Crew Scientist and Executive officer, Saroj Kumar, from Kanpur; Crew Biologist Sneha Velayudhan, from Bengaluru; Crew Engineer Arpan Vasanth, again from, Bengaluru; Sravani Vaddi from Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh and the geologist of the group, Sai Arun Dharmik, from Hyderabad. Each of the six are specialists in their particular fields. Mamatha has an MSc in Space Technology and Planetary Exploration and a PhD in Software Defined Radios (SDRs) for multi-satellite communications. She’s currently working with a project that’s in collaboration with the European Space Agency. Saroj is working with Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Centre on fusion propulsion technology, Sneha is specialising in advanced wireless communication systems, Arpan holds an MSc in commercial vehicle technology from the Technical University at Kaiserlslautern in Germany, Dr Sravani is a research fellow at National Center for Radio Astrophysics and Sai Arun holds a Master’s degree in Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Hyderabad. The trick will be combining all this talent, to achieve mission parameters. The heads will need to come together as a team for this one. “And that forms the biggest challenge,” Dr Mamatha tells us. “A trip to Mars is a few months long and after arrival, experiments will take at least a year. The return trip will take equally long. Which means a manned Mars mission will last at least three years. All through those three years, six people will have to make do with each other.
“An argument within tight confines could spell disaster for the mission. In tiny rooms, ignoring each other is not really possible. So the psychological aspect of these Mars simulations are crucial for success because you can’t work unless team integrity is solid,” Dr Mamatha says. The Indians will also be studying the effect Mars will have on vegetation. Part of Dr Mamatha’s mission includes the monitoring of the effect of vitamins on growth of fenugreek plants in a controlled martian analog environment carried out by Crew Biologist, Sneha Velayu-dhan. In simpler terms, Crew 174 will try and study possible plant growth on a planet that doesn’t even get half as much Sun as the Earth. The trick is to artificially inject Vitamin D into the crop and that’s one of the areas of research the team is planning to conduct at the MDRS.
“Entry into the MDRS programme is a fairly elaborate process. We consulted with several experts from around the world for inputs, data and equipment. Individuals can apply too but as teams, you can really commit to the programme. But all you need is a well thought-out research agenda. You have to clearly explain your angle to planetary exploration and how inputs discovered from your time at MDRS will one day help people make the big trip. For example, we will also study human contamination of extra terrestrial soil. One day, the Martian ecosystem will come in contact with microbes from Earth — brought there by humans. This contamination needs to be checked and studied. MDRS, in collaboration with NASA Astrobiology Institute, will allow us to create certain boundaries around the simulation hub and we will be able to tell how much contamination of soil is occurring due to human presence,” adds the team leader.
The other biggest challenge is to maintain the limited resources such as power, water, gasoline, spacesuit working conditions and Extra Vehicular Activities (EVA) which is handled by Arpan Vasanth, the crew engineer. Crew 174 hopes that this study will one day prevent possible mission-altering surprises, for the first arrivals.
Another test that needs to be passed is the way food is prepped, consumed and distributed. “MDRS will not serve prepared food. Instead, you will be given the very same ingredients that make up inter-planetary meals. So basically, we’re talking raw materials that need to be rationed and preserved. Everything is basic — some butter and some flour… that’s pretty much it. We can’t afford to have a fight over food. There’s also water reserves to worry about. Water on Mars still remains a slim, distant possibility and if team members insist on two showers a day we will have a problem, of considerable magnitude, on our hands.”
The MDRS then is almost the real deal. It was built in 2001 and the main building is a two-storey cylindrical structure eight metres in diametre. It can house seven crews. Within this space are workrooms, desks, airlock spaces that lead to tunnels into the other structures and a complete lab. It’s not your big hotel but it’s the closest to what you will one day live in, 54.6 million kilometres away.