ＮＡＳＡ、火星滞在シミレーション施設を公開

【ヒューストンＡＦＰ＝時事】米航空宇宙局（ＮＡＳＡ）は１１日、火星滞在シミュレーション用の施設を公開した。被験者が１年間滞在し、火星探査に向けた課題を探る。（写真はＮＡＳＡの健康・パフォーマンス探査研究で使われる模擬火星滞在施設「マーズ・デューン・アルファ」の屋外部分。テキサス州ヒューストンにて。）
　施設は、テキサス州ヒューストンのＮＡＳＡの宇宙センター内に設置された。模擬実験「健康・パフォーマンス探査研究」を３回行う予定。
　実験は今夏から始まる。公募で集められた４人の被験者の心身の健康状態を観察し、長期にわたって閉鎖環境に置かれた人間の適応力への理解を深める。
　実験を率いるグレース・ダグラス主任研究員は、得られたデータを基に、宇宙飛行士の「リソースの使い方」についてこれまで以上に理解できるようになるだろうと語った。
　被験者は「マーズ・デューン・アルファ」と名付けられた１６０平方メートルの基地の中で暮らす。バスルームが２か所、葉物野菜を育てる垂直菜園、医務室、団らん室に加え、幾つかの仕事部屋が備わっている。
　ランニングマシンもあり、被験者が試料やデータを収集したり、インフラを建設したりするために長距離を歩くシミュレーションを行う。地球よりも重力が小さい火星の環境を体感するため、ハーネスを着けてつり下げられる形でマシンの上を歩く。
　最初の被験者は発表されていないが、「ＮＡＳＡの宇宙飛行士候補の選考基準」と同じ審査が行われ、ＳＴＥＭ（科学・技術・工学・数学）の知識が重視されるという。
　「マーズ・デューン・アルファ」は３Ｄプリンターを使って建造された。ダグラス氏は「（３Ｄ印刷は）他の惑星や月面に滞在施設を造るための技術の一つとして検討している」と話した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/04/12-16:50）

Four small rooms, a gym and a lot of red sand -- NASA unveiled on Tuesday its new Mars-simulation habitat, in which volunteers will live for a year at a time to test what life will be like on future missions to Earth's neighbor.
The facility, created for three planned experiments called the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA), is located at the US space agency's massive research base in Houston, Texas.
Four volunteers will begin the first trial this summer, during which NASA plans to monitor their physical and mental health to better understand humans' fortitude for such a long isolation.
With that data, NASA will better understand astronauts' resource use on Mars, said Grace Douglas, lead researcher on the CHAPEA experiments.
We can really start to understand how we're supporting them with what we're providing them, and that's going to be really important information to making those critical resource decisions, she said on a press tour of the habitat.
Such a distant mission comes with very strict mass limitations, she added.
The volunteers will live inside a 1,700 square-foot (160 square-meter) home, dubbed Mars Dune Alpha, which includes two bathrooms, a vertical farm to grow salad, a room dedicated to medical care, an area for relaxing and several workstations.
An airlock leads to an outdoor reconstruction of the Martian environment -- though still located inside the hangar.
Several pieces of equipment astronauts would likely use are scattered around the red sand-covered floor, including a weather station, a brick-making machine and a small greenhouse.
There is also a treadmill on which the make-believe astronauts will walk suspended from straps to simulate the red planet's lesser gravity.
We really can't have them just walking around in circles for six hours, joked Suzanne Bell, head of NASA's Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory.
Four volunteers will use the treadmill to simulate long trips outside to collect samples, gathering data or building infrastructure, she said.
The members of the first experiment team have yet to be named, but the agency stated that selection will follow standard NASA criteria for astronaut candidate applicants, with a heavy emphasis on backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and math.
Researchers will regularly test the crew's response to stressful situations, such as restricting water availability or equipment failures.
The habitat has another special feature: it was 3D-printed.
That is one of the technologies that NASA is looking at as a potential to build habitat on other planetary or lunar surfaces, Douglas said.
NASA is in the early stages of preparation for a mission to Mars, though most of the agency's focus is on upcoming Artemis missions, which aim to return humans to the Moon for the first time in half a century.