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Volunteers who lived in a NASA-created Mars replica for over a year have emerged

Joe Hernandez

In this image made from video provided by NASA, CHAPEA commander Kelly Haston speaks in front of other crew members at Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday. NASA/AP hide caption

Four volunteers who spent more than a year living in a 1,700-square-foot space created by NASA to simulate the environment on Mars have emerged .

The members of the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog mission — or CHAPEA — walked through the door of their habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday to a round of applause.

NASA is looking for volunteers to test its Mars simulator for a year

“Hello. It’s actually just so wonderful to be able to say hello to you all,” CHAPEA commander Kelly Haston said to the assembled crowd.

Haston and the other three crew members — Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell and Nathan Jones — entered the 3D-printed Mars replica on June 25, 2023, as part of a NASA experiment to observe how humans would fare living on the Red Planet.

The volunteers grew their own vegetables, maintained equipment, participated in so-called Marswalks and faced stressors that actual space travelers to Mars could experience, including 22-minute communication delays with Earth.

The 378-day endeavor was the first of three NASA missions the space agency has planned to test how humans would respond to the conditions and challenges of living on Mars, where it says it could send astronauts as soon as the 2030s. NASA’s second CHAPEA mission is scheduled for the spring of 2025, and the third is slated to begin in 2026.

Why NASA wants human guinea pigs to test out Martian living

After emerging from isolation on Saturday, CHAPEA science officer Anca Selariu reflected on why she and others chose to dedicate themselves to this particular effort.

“I’ve been asked many times: Why the obsession with Mars? Why go to Mars?” Selariu said. "Because it’s possible. Because space can unite and bring out the best in us. Because it’s one defining step that Earthlings will take to light the way into the next centuries.”

NASA has conducted other isolation experiments before, including simulated journeys through space of roughly 30 days and underwater missions lasting up to three weeks at a time.

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Crew of NASA’s earthbound simulated Mars habitat emerge after a year

Four NASA volunteers who spent over a year sealed inside a simulated Mars habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Texas finally ended their mission on Saturday.

In this image made from video provided by NASA, Kelly Haston, a crew member of the first CHAPEA mission, speaks in front of other members, from left to right, Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones, and Anca Selariu, Saturday, July 6, 2024, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The crew of a NASA mission to Mars emerged from their craft after a yearlong voyage that never left Earth. The four volunteers crew members spent more than 12 months inside NASA’s first simulated Mars environment at Johnson Space Center in Houston, coming out of the artificial alien environment Saturday. (NASA via AP)

In this image made from video provided by NASA, Anca Selariu, a crew member of the first CHAPEA mission, speaks in front of other members, from left to right, Kelly Haston, Ross Brockwell, and Nathan Jones, Saturday, July 6, 2024, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The crew of a NASA mission to Mars emerged from their craft after a yearlong voyage that never left Earth. The four volunteers crew members spent more than 12 months inside NASA’s first simulated Mars environment at Johnson Space Center in Houston, coming out of the artificial alien environment Saturday. (NASA via AP)

In this image made from video provided by NASA, NASA Deputy Director Flight Missions Kjell Lindgren, center, speaks in front of the crew members of the first CHAPEA mission, from left to right, Kelly Haston, Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones, and Anca Selariu, after they emerged from their craft, Saturday, July 6, 2024, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The crew of a NASA mission to Mars emerged from their craft after a yearlong voyage that never left Earth. (NASA via AP)

In this image made from video provided by NASA, the crew members of the first CHAPEA mission, Kelly Haston, center, shakes hands with NASA Deputy Director Flight Missions Kjell Lindgren, second right, as other crew Ross Brockwell, emerges from their craft, Saturday, July 6, 2024, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The crew of a NASA mission to Mars emerged from their craft after a yearlong voyage that never left Earth. The four volunteers crew members spent more than 12 months inside NASA’s first simulated Mars environment at Johnson Space Center in Houston, coming out of the artificial alien environment Saturday. (NASA via AP)

In this image made from video provided by NASA, the crew members of the first CHAPEA mission, Kelly Haston, third right, Ross Brockwell, center, Nathan Jones, left, and Anca Selariu, not in photo, emerge from their craft, Saturday, July 6, 2024, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The four volunteers crew members spent more than 12 months inside NASA’s first simulated Mars environment at Johnson Space Center in Houston, coming out of the artificial alien environment Saturday. (NASA via AP)

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The crew of a NASA mission to Mars emerged from their craft after a yearlong voyage that never left Earth.

The four volunteer crew members spent more than 12 months inside NASA’s first simulated Mars environment at Johnson Space Center in Houston, coming out of the artificial alien enviroment Saturday around 5 p.m.

Kelly Haston, Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell and Nathan Jones entered the 3D-printed habitat on June 25, 2023, as the maiden crew of the space agency’s Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog project.

Haston, the mission commander, began with a simple, “Hello.”

“It’s actually just so wonderful to be able to say ‘hello’ to you all,” she said.

Jones, a physician and the mission medical officer, said their 378 days in confinement “went by quickly.”

The quartet lived and worked inside the space of 1,700 square feet (157 square meters) to simulate a mission to the red planet, the fourth from the sun and a frequent focus of discussion among scientists and sci-fi fans alike concerning a possible voyage taking humans beyond our moon.

The first CHAPEA crew focused on establishing possible conditions for future Mars operations through simulated spacewalks, dubbed “Marswalks,” as well as growing and harvesting vegetables to supplement their provisions and maintaining the habitat and their equipment.

They also worked through challenges a real Mars crew would be expected to experience including limited resources, isolation and delays in communication of up to 22 minutes with their home planet on the other side of the habitat’s walls, NASA said.

Two additional CHAPEA missions are planned and crews will continue conducting simulated spacewalks and gathering data on factors related to physical and behavioral health and performance, NASA said.

Steve Koerner, deputy director of Johnson Space Center, said most of the first crew’s experimentation focused on nutrition and how that affected their performance. The work was “crucial science as we prepare to send people on to the red planet,” he said.

“They’ve been separated from their families, placed on a carefully prescribed meal plan and undergone a lot of observation,” Koerner said.

“Mars is our goal,” he said, calling the project an important step in America’s intent to be a leader in the global space exploration effort.

Emerging after a knock on the habitat’s door by Kjell Lindgren, an astronaut and the deputy director of flight operations, the four volunteers spoke of the gratitude they had for each other and those who waited patiently outside, as well as lessons learned about a prospective manned mission to Mars and life on Earth.

Brockwell, the crew’s flight engineer, said the mission showed him the importance of living sustainably for the benefit of everyone on Earth.

“I’m very grateful to have had this incredible opportunity to live for a year within the spirit of planetary adventure towards an exciting future, and I’m grateful for the chance to live the idea that we must utilise resources no faster than they can be replenished and produce waste no faster than they can be processed back into resources,” Brockwell said.

“We cannot live, dream, create or explore on any significant timeframe if we don’t live these principles, but if we do, we can achieve and sustain amazing and inspiring things like exploring other worlds,” he said.

Science officer Anca Selariu said she had been asked many times why there is a fixation on Mars.

“Why go to Mars? Because it’s possible,” she said. “Because space can unite and bring out the best in us. Because it’s one defining step that ‘Earthlings’ will take to light the way into the next centuries.”

This story has been updated to correct that the crew members lived in 1,700 square feet of space, not 17,000.

Scientists Just Emerged From a Year in Isolation After an Epic NASA-Funded Mars Simulation

The longest-running NASA experiment of its kind designed to simulate living conditions on Mars has come to an end, with six volunteers emerging from a year-long stay in a sealed dome in Hawaii.

For 365 days , the HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) crew lived in isolation in a geodesic dome on the barren slopes of the Big Island's Mauna Loa, with the rocky, sparse terrain outside chosen for its similarity to the red planet's natural environment.

During the year, the team members could only leave their sealed habitat wearing space suits, and their only contact with the outside world came in the form of emails – which were delayed for 20 minutes either way, so as to emulate how long actual emails would take to send between Earth and Mars.

The experiment – funded by NASA and run by the University of Hawaii – is the longest yet in a series of ongoing HI-SEAS simulations designed to see how scientists cope with the extreme, long-term isolation that would have to be endured by astronauts and researchers during a real-life Mars mission.

While previous jaunts have seen scientists enclosed in the habitat for up to eight months, this team set a new NASA record by lasting an entire year.

But they're nowhere near the effort of Europe and China's Mars–500 team , who participated in a similar experiment between 2007 and 2011, and managed to last a staggering 520 days in a Mars simulation.

The tone from the latest HI-SEAS crew is upbeat and optimistic, suggesting that the emotional and technical rigours of a long-term stay in a sealed-off space dome are not unviable for future travellers to the red planet.

"I can give you my personal impression which is that a mission to Mars in the close future is realistic," said one of the team, French astrobiologist Cyprien Verseux . "I think the technological and psychological obstacles can be overcome."

In addition to Verseux, the crew consisted of a physicist, an architect, a soil scientist, a neuroscientist, and an engineer.

This bunch not only had to contend with being isolated from the rest of humanity, but also with having to live in such close proximity to each other in extremely confined quarters – the dome measures just 11 by 6 metres (36 by 20 feet).

"It is kind of like having roommates that just are always there and you can never escape them," mission commander Carmel Johnston told media this week, "so I'm sure some people can imagine what that is like, and if you can't then just imagine never being able to get away from anybody."

Everything the crew survived on during their year 'on Mars' they had to bring with them, meaning they essentially ate a lot of things like powdered food and canned tuna.

In addition to serving as guinea pigs so we can better understand the psychological effects of spending so long in a sealed environment, the researchers also ran a number of experiments, such as examining how to extract water from arid terrain, which could end up meaning the difference between life and death on Mars.

"Showing that it works, you can actually get water from the ground that is seemingly dry," said German researcher Christiane Heinicke . "It would work on Mars and the implication is that you would be able to get water on Mars from this little greenhouse construct."

But the biggest challenge was staving off boredom, with the team having to devise ways of keeping themselves entertained, such as learning salsa dancing and playing the ukulele.

"We were always in the same place, always with the same people," Verseux said .

His advice to new volunteers who will take part in new long-term HI-SEAS isolation experiments beginning in 2017 and 2018? "Bring books."

The team is now being debriefed, and research looking at how well they fared psychologically during their 12 months of isolation is expected to be published in the coming months.

And the sweet part of the deal for us is that, since NASA recently made all the research it funds available for free , we won't have to wait too long to find out just what happens during a year in (almost) space.

But for now, the researchers are entitled to a holiday, and what better place to enjoy a little R&R than Hawaii? And you don't just have to take it from me:

Congrats to NASA and the scientists taking us a step closer to Mars. Now enjoy Hawaii and get a shave ice! https://t.co/lFZjSnn38x — President Obama (@POTUS44) August 29, 2016

Watch CBS News

NASA's simulated Mars voyage ends after more than a year

July 7, 2024 / 11:50 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Four volunteers have emerged from NASA's simulated Mars environment after more than a year spent on a mission that never actually departed Earth.

The volunteer crew members spent more than 12 months inside NASA's first simulated Mars habitat at Johnson Space Center in Houston, which was designed to help scientists and researchers anticipate what a real mission to the planet might be like, along with all of its expected challenges. The crew exited the artificial alien environment on Saturday around 5 p.m., after 378 days.

Kelly Haston, Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell and Nathan Jones entered the 3D-printed habitat on June 25, 2023, as the maiden crew of the space agency's Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog , or CHAPEA, project. The group consisted of a research scientist, a structural engineer, an emergency medicine physician, and a U.S. Navy microbiologist, respectively, who were selected from an applicant pool to head up the project's first yearlong mission. None of them are trained as astronauts.

Once they emerged, Haston, the mission commander, began with a simple, "Hello."

"It's actually just so wonderful to be able to say 'hello' to you all," she said.

Jones, a physician and the mission medical officer, said their 378 days in confinement "went by quickly."

The quartet lived and worked inside the space of 17,000 square feet to simulate a mission to the red planet, the fourth from the sun and a frequent focus of discussion among scientists and sci-fi fans alike concerning a possible voyage taking humans beyond our moon.

The first CHAPEA crew focused on establishing possible conditions for future Mars operations through simulated spacewalks, dubbed "Marswalks," as well as growing and harvesting vegetables to supplement their provisions and maintaining the habitat and their equipment.

They also worked through challenges a real Mars crew would be expected to experience including limited resources, isolation and delays in communication of up to 22 minutes with their home planet on the other side of the habitat's walls, NASA said.

Two additional CHAPEA missions are planned and crews will continue conducting simulated spacewalks and gathering data on factors related to physical and behavioral health and performance, NASA said.

Steve Koerner, deputy director of Johnson Space Center, said most of the first crew's experimentation focused on nutrition and how that affected their performance. The work was "crucial science as we prepare to send people on to the red planet," he said.

"They've been separated from their families, placed on a carefully prescribed meal plan and undergone a lot of observation," Koerner said.

"Mars is our goal," he said, calling the project an important step in America's intent to be a leader in the global space exploration effort.

Emerging after a knock on the habitat's door by Kjell Lindgren, an astronaut and the deputy director of flight operations, the four volunteers spoke of the gratitude they had for each other and those who waited patiently outside, as well as lessons learned about a prospective manned mission to Mars and life on Earth.

Brockwell, the crew's flight engineer, said the mission showed him the importance of living sustainably for the benefit of everyone on Earth.

"I'm very grateful to have had this incredible opportunity to live for a year within the spirit of planetary adventure towards an exciting future, and I'm grateful for the chance to live the idea that we must utilise resources no faster than they can be replenished and produce waste no faster than they can be processed back into resources," Brockwell said.

"We cannot live, dream, create or explore on any significant timeframe if we don't live these principles, but if we do, we can achieve and sustain amazing and inspiring things like exploring other worlds," he said.

Science officer Anca Selariu said she had been asked many times why there is a fixation on Mars.

"Why go to Mars? Because it's possible," she said. "Because space can unite and bring out the best in us. Because it's one defining step that 'Earthlings' will take to light the way into the next centuries."

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MIT’s MOXIE experiment reliably produces oxygen on Mars

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On the red and dusty surface of Mars, nearly 100 million miles from Earth, an instrument the size of a lunchbox is proving it can reliably do the work of a small tree.  

The MIT-led Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE, has been successfully making oxygen from the Red Planet’s carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere since April 2021 , about two months after it touched down on the Martian surface as part of NASA’s Perseverance rover and Mars 2020 mission.

In a study published today in the journal Science Advances, researchers report that, by the end of 2021, MOXIE was able to produce oxygen on seven experimental runs, in a variety of atmospheric conditions, including during the day and night, and through different Martian seasons. In each run, the instrument reached its target of producing six grams of oxygen per hour — about the rate of a modest tree on Earth.

Researchers envision that a scaled-up version of MOXIE could be sent to Mars ahead of a human mission, to continuously produce oxygen at the rate of several hundred trees. At that capacity, the system should generate enough oxygen to both sustain humans once they arrive, and fuel a rocket for returning astronauts back to Earth.

So far, MOXIE’s steady output is a promising first step toward that goal.

“We have learned a tremendous amount that will inform future systems at a larger scale,” says Michael Hecht, principal investigator of the MOXIE mission at MIT’s Haystack Observatory.

MOXIE’s oxygen production on Mars also represents the first demonstration of “in-situ resource utilization,” which is the idea of harvesting and using a planet’s materials (in this case, carbon dioxide on Mars) to make resources (such as oxygen) that would otherwise have to be transported from Earth.

“This is the first demonstration of actually using resources on the surface of another planetary body, and transforming them chemically into something that would be useful for a human mission,” says MOXIE deputy principal investigator Jeffrey Hoffman, a professor of the practice in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “It’s historic in that sense.”

Hoffman and Hecht’s MIT co-authors include MOXIE team members Jason SooHoo, Andrew Liu, Eric Hinterman, Maya Nasr, Shravan Hariharan, Kyle Horn, and Parker Steen, along with collaborators from multiple institutions including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which managed MOXIE’s development, flight software, packaging, and testing prior to launch.  

Seasonal air

The current version of MOXIE is small by design, in order to fit aboard the Perseverance rover, and is built to run for short periods, starting up and shutting down with each run, depending on the rover’s exploration schedule and mission responsibilities. In contrast, a full-scale oxygen factory would include larger units that would ideally run continuously.

Despite the necessary compromises in MOXIE’s current design, the instrument has shown it can reliably and efficiently convert Mars’ atmosphere into pure oxygen. It does so by first drawing the Martian air in through a filter that cleans it of contaminants. The air is then pressurized, and sent through the Solid OXide Electrolyzer (SOXE), an instrument developed and built by OxEon Energy, that electrochemically splits the carbon dioxide-rich air into oxygen ions and carbon monoxide.

The oxygen ions are then isolated and recombined to form breathable, molecular oxygen, or O 2 , which MOXIE then measures for quantity and purity before releasing it harmlessly back into the air, along with carbon monoxide and other atmospheric gases.

Since the rover’s landing in February 2021, MOXIE engineers have started up the instrument seven times throughout the Martian year, each time taking a few hours to warm up, then another hour to make oxygen before powering back down. Each run was scheduled for a different time of day or night, and in different seasons, to see whether MOXIE could accommodate shifts in the planet’s atmospheric conditions.

“The atmosphere of Mars is far more variable than Earth,” Hoffman notes. “The density of the air can vary by a factor of two through the year, and the temperature can vary by 100 degrees. One objective is to show we can run in all seasons.”

So far, MOXIE has shown that it can make oxygen at almost any time of the Martian day and year.

“The only thing we have not demonstrated is running at dawn or dusk, when the temperature is changing substantially,” Hecht says. “We do have an ace up our sleeve that will let us do that, and once we test that in the lab, we can reach that last milestone to show we can really run any time.”

Ahead of the game

As MOXIE continues to churn out oxygen on Mars, engineers plan to push its capacity, and increase its production, particularly in the Martian spring, when atmospheric density and carbon dioxide levels are high.

“The next run coming up will be during the highest density of the year, and we just want to make as much oxygen as we can,” Hecht says. “So we’ll set everything as high as we dare, and let it run as long as we can.”

They will also monitor the system for signs of wear and tear. As MOXIE is just one experiment among several aboard the Perseverance rover, it cannot run continuously as a full-scale system would. Instead, the instrument must start up and shut down with each run — a thermal stress that can degrade the system over time.

If MOXIE can operate successfully despite repeatedly turning on and off, this would suggest that a full-scale system, designed to run continuously, could do so for thousands of hours.

“To support a human mission to Mars, we have to bring a lot of stuff from Earth, like computers, spacesuits, and habitats,” Hoffman says. “But dumb old oxygen? If you can make it there, go for it — you’re way ahead of the game.”

This research was supported, in part, by NASA.

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Press mentions, time magazine.

A number of MIT spinouts and research projects – including the MOXIE instrument that successfully generated oxygen on Mars, a new solar-powered desalination system and MIT spinout SurgiBox – were featured on TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023 list.

USA Today reporter Zoe Wells spotlights the Mars MOXIE device developed by MIT researchers, which “has already made 122 grams of oxygen, comparable to 10 hours of breathable air for a small dog. MOXIE produced 12 grams of oxygen per hour at 98% purity, which exceeded NASA's original expectations.”

The Boston Globe

MIT researchers have used the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) to successfully generate oxygen on Mars, reports Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe . “This is the first demonstration of actually using resources on the surface of another planetary body and transforming them chemically into something that would be useful for a human mission,” says Prof. Jeffrey Hoffman. “It’s historic in that sense.”

The Washington Post

Washington Post reporter Pranshu Verma highlights how MIT researchers have demonstrated that the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) can convert carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen on Mars. “It’s what explorers have done since time immemorial,” explains Prof. Jeffrey Hoffman. “Find out what resources are available where you’re going to and find out how to use them.”

The Guardian

MIT researchers’ Mars Oxygen in-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) has been successfully generating breathable oxygen on Mars, reports The Guardian . “It is hoped that at full capacity the system could generate enough oxygen to sustain humans once they arrive on Mars, and fuel a rocket to return humans to Earth,” writes The Guardian .

CNN reporters Katie Hunt and Ashley Strickland spotlight how the MIT-led Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) has been successfully generating oxygen on Mars during seven experimental test runs in a variety of atmospheric conditions. “A scaled up MOXIE would include larger units that could run continuously and potentially be sent to Mars ahead of a human mission to produce oxygen at the rate of several hundred trees,” they write. “This would allow the generation -- and storage -- of enough oxygen to both sustain humans once they arrive and fuel a rocket for returning astronauts back to Earth.”

New Scientist

During day and night, in the wake of a dust storm and in extreme temperatures, the MIT-led Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) was able to generate about 100 minutes of breathable oxygen in 2021 on Mars, reports Jacklin Kawn for New Scientist . “At the highest level, this is just a brilliant success,” said Michael Hecht, principal investigator of the MOXIE mission at MIT’s Haystack Observatory.

The MIT MOXIE experiment, which traveled to Mars aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover, has been able to create oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, reports Sarah Wells for Vice. “This experiment is also the first to successfully harvest and use resources on any planetary body, a process that will be important not only for Martian exploration but future lunar habitats as well,” writes Wells.

Bloomberg News reporter Martine Paris writes that the MIT MOXIE experiment has been converting carbon dioxide from the Martian environment into oxygen since the Perseverance rover landed on Mars. “Seven times last year, throughout the Martian seasons, Moxie was able to produce about six grams (0.2 ounces) of oxygen per hour,” writes Paris.

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Science | November 2021

Inside the Experiment to Create Mars on Earth

A hostile landscape. Cramped quarters. Dehydrated food. A photographer takes part in an attempt to live on another planet

A rainbow appears after a storm on the faux-Martian habitat.

Photographs by Cassandra Klos

Text by Jennie Rothenberg Gritz

When Cassandra Klos was growing up in rural New Hampshire, it was easy to see the stars. She traced the constellations with her finger and imagined how it would feel to travel among them. As a college art student, she launched a photo project about Betty and Barney Hill, a New Hampshire couple who claimed to have been abducted by aliens.

Then Klos went on her first mission to Mars.

To be clear, no earthling has actually set foot on the red planet. NASA is hoping to send a crew there in the 2030s, as is China, and the private company SpaceX is working to establish a permanent Martian presence with starships ferrying humans back and forth to Earth. “We don’t want to be one of those single-planet species,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in April , outlining the company’s ambitions. “We want to be a multi-planet species.”

First, though, there’s some figuring out to do. Designing the right spacecraft and living spaces is part of the challenge. There are also prosaic, but important, questions. How will people shower with a limited supply of water? What will it take to grow fresh greens to supplement the steady diet of dehydrated food? And with civilians from different backgrounds living together in close quarters, will Martian habitats end up resembling the set of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit , where hell is other people?

The two-week mission Klos joined in 2015 was designed to explore those kinds of questions. It took place at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, four hours south of Salt Lake City, but everyone spoke and acted as though they were actually on Mars. A group of six people lived in a two-story cylindrical building. The commander, a former member of the Army National Guard, kept the participants on a strict schedule of fixing electrical systems, taking inventory, tidying up the facilities and sampling the soil. Everyone was assigned a special role: Klos’ was to prepare reports to share with the public. The health safety officer kept tabs on the crew’s well-being, and the engineer monitored levels of carbon dioxide and solar power. 

Before stepping outside in a spacesuit, Klos and the others had to get permission from mission control back on “Earth” (actually a coordinator stationed in a nearby town). That person would send information about the winds and weather, and determine how long each person could stay outside the base. Sometimes dust storms rolled in, cutting off the solar power supply just as they would on Mars. Klos was allowed to bathe only once a week, using a couple of buckets of water. She was enchanted.

“This is not performance art,” says Klos. “These are real scientific endeavors. Sometimes people make the critique that we’re role-playing too much. But the goal is to really live the way people are going to live on Mars so scientists can figure out how to make it work when we get there.” 

There are about a dozen such habitats around the globe, hosting simulations that run anywhere from two weeks to a full year. One of these is run by NASA’s Human Research Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. But other facilities are funded by private organizations. The Mars Society , established by Brooklyn-born aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, operates the habitat in Utah, where Klos returned for another mission in 2017, and another in the Canadian Arctic. Klos also took part in a mission at the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS . The facility is run by the International MoonBase Alliance , a group founded by the Dutch entrepreneur Henk Rogers. 

HI-SEAS is located on Hawaii’s big island at 8,200 feet above sea level, on top of the active volcano Mauna Loa. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is collaborating with the facility to gather information about volcanic caves and the microbes that live in those Mars-like conditions. HI-SEAS is also studying the limitations of doing that kind of work while wearing heavy spacesuits. It’s hard enough for astronauts to hold a screwdriver in a gloved hand while repairing the International Space Station, but if people are going to be clambering on Martian rocks looking for microbes, they’ll need the right gear. 

The missions are open to people who have no background in science, engineering or astronaut training. After all, the goal is to send ordinary folks into space, so it’s worth finding out whether ordinary folks can coexist in Mars-like conditions here on Earth. Each two-story habitat at a simulation facility has usable floor space of only about 1,200 square feet—the size of two small apartments stacked on top of each other—which isn’t much room for six people who can’t just breeze out for a walk around the block. 

To get a spot on a Mars or Moon simulation, you have to propose a project that the leaders believe is useful. One recent HI-SEAS participant focused on 3-D printing, looking at ways to create bricks out of volcanic rock. Another studied hydrogen fuel cells. Yet another tried out different methods for growing hydroponic lettuce. Many projects focus on psychological research, looking at how various foods, exercises and smells influence people’s moods while they’re crammed together in a pressurized capsule. 

Preparations for Mars may prove to have benefits for life on Earth. Earlier research for space travel paved the way for medical advances such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The data we’re gathering now about surviving on solar power, conserving water and growing plants in arid conditions could be useful here at home as our climate changes.

The director of HI-SEAS, the 32-year-old astrobiologist Michaela Musilova, says she makes an effort to assemble diverse crews, using the internet to recruit teachers, journalists and artists like Klos. On a mission Musilova led in the fall of 2020, she ended up with crew members who supported opposing candidates in the November presidential election. “That made for very interesting dynamics,” she says. But Musilova says her teams are most innovative when their members come from different backgrounds. The range of perspectives is great for problem-solving, and the variety of personal stories can help combat boredom. And people who are eager to spend time on Mars, simulated or otherwise, tend to have certain things in common, including a willingness to live with strangers in close quarters and an enthusiasm for future space explorations. 

“We all have our quirks,” Musilova says. “We’re all going to make mistakes and annoy other people. But when someone is having a bad day, we go out of our way to cheer them up. When someone is being a pain in the ass, we’re able to have some empathy.” If living together on Mars can make us into better versions of ourselves, that might be the greatest breakthrough of all. 

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Cassandra Klos | READ MORE

Cassandra Klos is a fine art photographer who from 2015 to 2017 was the artist-in-residence at the Mars Desert Research Station in Hanksville, Utah.

Jennie Rothenberg Gritz | READ MORE

Jennie Rothenberg Gritz is a senior editor at Smithsonian magazine. She was previously a senior editor at the Atlantic .

Exploring Mars Together

NASA is reimagining the future of Mars exploration, driving new scientific discoveries, and preparing for humans on Mars.

Fascination with the Red Planet began with early astronomers in ancient Egypt. The Babylonians and the Greeks tracked the motion of the planet, while Galileo made the first telescope observations of Mars. Even today, when we look into the night sky and see the pale red dot above us, it inspires us to wonder about this nearby world.

NASA is reimagining the future of Mars exploration, driving new scientific discoveries, and preparing for humans on Mars. NASA’s Mars Exploration Program will focus the next two decades on its science-driven systemic approach on these strategic goals: exploring for potential life, understanding the geology and climate of Mars, and preparation for human exploration.

The Future of Mars Plan

NASA’s Mars Exploration Program is focusing on its future - delivering profound scientific investigation with a new strategic paradigm designed to send lower-cost, high-science-value missions and payloads to Mars at a higher frequency.

Industry Engagement

The Mars Exploration Program is conducting preliminary activities to engage industry in understanding both NASA and commercial capabilities and needs.

Mars Exploration Program

The Mars Exploration Program is a science-driven program that seeks to understand whether Mars was, is, or can be, a habitable world.

The Future of Mars Plan 2023-2043

How We Explore Mars

To discover the possibilities for life on Mars, NASA uses science-driven robotic missions enabling us to explore Mars in ways we never have before.

Mars 2020: Perseverance Rover

The Mars 2020 mission Perseverance rover is the first step of a roundtrip journey to return Mars samples to Earth. (2020-present)

Mars Sample Return

NASA and ESA are planning ways to bring the first samples of Mars material back to Earth for detailed study. (Launching NET 2027)

Curiosity Rover

Curiosity is investigating Mars to determine whether the Red Planet ever was habitable to microbial life. (2011-present)

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

MRO explores the planet's atmosphere and terrain from orbit. It is also a crucial communications hub.

Mars News and Features

NASA’s Perseverance Rover to Begin Long Climb Up Martian Crater Rim

Here’s How Curiosity’s Sky Crane Changed the Way NASA Explores Mars

NASA Trains Machine Learning Algorithm for Mars Sample Analysis

NASA Invites Media, Public to Attend Deep Space Food Challenge Finale

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Scientists Find Intriguing Mars Rock

Discover More Topics From NASA

Mars: Facts

Mars Resources

NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover Extracts First Oxygen From Red Planet

Technicians at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory lower the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instrument into the belly of the Perseverance rover.

After a two-hour warmup period, MOXIE began producing oxygen at a rate of 6 grams per hour. The rate was reduced two times during the run (labeled as “current sweeps”) in order to assess the status of the instrument. After an hour of operation the total oxygen produced was about 5.4 grams, enough to keep an astronaut healthy for about 10 minutes of normal activity.

The milestone, which the MOXIE instrument achieved by converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, points the way to future human exploration of the Red Planet.

The growing list of “firsts” for Perseverance, NASA’s newest six-wheeled robot on the Martian surface, includes converting some of the Red Planet’s thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into oxygen. A toaster-size, experimental instrument aboard Perseverance called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment ( MOXIE ) accomplished the task. The test took place April 20, the 60th Martian day, or sol, since the mission landed Feb. 18.

While the technology demonstration is just getting started, it could pave the way for science fiction to become science fact – isolating and storing oxygen on Mars to help power rockets that could lift astronauts off the planet’s surface. Such devices also might one day provide breathable air for astronauts themselves. MOXIE is an exploration technology investigation – as is the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer ( MEDA ) weather station – and is sponsored by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) and Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.

Get the Latest JPL News

“This is a critical first step at converting carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator STMD. “MOXIE has more work to do, but the results from this technology demonstration are full of promise as we move toward our goal of one day seeing humans on Mars. Oxygen isn’t just the stuff we breathe. Rocket propellant depends on oxygen, and future explorers will depend on producing propellant on Mars to make the trip home.”

For rockets or astronauts, oxygen is key, said MOXIE’s principal investigator, Michael Hecht of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory.

Your browser cannot play the provided video file(s).

Illustration of the MOXIE instrument, depicting the elements within the instrument.

To burn its fuel, a rocket must have more oxygen by weight. To get four astronauts off the Martian surface on a future mission would require approximately 15,000 pounds (7 metric tons) of rocket fuel and 55,000 pounds (25 metric tons) of oxygen. In contrast, astronauts living and working on Mars would require far less oxygen to breathe. “The astronauts who spend a year on the surface will maybe use one metric ton between them,” Hecht said.

Hauling 25 metric tons of oxygen from Earth to Mars would be an arduous task. Transporting a one-ton oxygen converter – a larger, more powerful descendant of MOXIE that could produce those 25 tons – would be far more economical and practical.

Mars’ atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide. MOXIE works by separating oxygen atoms from carbon dioxide molecules, which are made up of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms. A waste product, carbon monoxide, is emitted into the Martian atmosphere.

The conversion process requires high levels of heat to reach a temperature of approximately 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit (800 Celsius). To accommodate this, the MOXIE unit is made with heat-tolerant materials. These include 3D-printed nickel alloy parts, which heat and cool the gases flowing through it, and a lightweight aerogel that helps hold in the heat. A thin gold coating on the outside of MOXIE reflects infrared heat, keeping it from radiating outward and potentially damaging other parts of Perseverance.

In this first operation, MOXIE’s oxygen production was quite modest – about 5 grams, equivalent to about 10 minutes’ worth of breathable oxygen for an astronaut. MOXIE is designed to generate up to 10 grams of oxygen per hour.

This technology demonstration was designed to ensure the instrument survived the launch from Earth, a nearly seven-month journey through deep space, and touchdown with Perseverance on Feb. 18. MOXIE is expected to extract oxygen at least nine more times over the course of a Martian year (nearly two years on Earth).

These oxygen-production runs will come in three phases. The first phase will check out and characterize the instrument’s function, while the second phase will run the instrument in varying atmospheric conditions, such as different times of day and seasons. In the third phase, Hecht said, “we’ll push the envelope” – trying new operating modes, or introducing “new wrinkles, such as a run where we compare operations at three or more different temperatures.”

“MOXIE isn’t just the first instrument to produce oxygen on another world,” said Trudy Kortes, director of technology demonstrations within STMD. It’s the first technology of its kind that will help future missions “live off the land,” using elements of another world’s environment, also known as in-situ resource utilization .

“It’s taking regolith, the substance you find on the ground, and putting it through a processing plant, making it into a large structure, or taking carbon dioxide – the bulk of the atmosphere – and converting it into oxygen,” she said. “This process allows us to convert these abundant materials into useable things: propellant, breathable air, or, combined with hydrogen, water.”

More About Perseverance

A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology , including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

https://www.nasa.gov/perseverance

News Media Contact

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson / Clare Skelly

Headquarters, Washington

202-385-1287 / 202-358-1501 / 202-515-6654

[email protected] / [email protected] / [email protected]

Andrew Good

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-2433

[email protected]

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How NASA's Curiosity rover changed Mars landings forever (photos)

"It might be the right kind of crazy."

Imagine trying to land an SUV-sized rover on another world. That's definitely enough of a challenge on its own, but picture doing so while the rover hangs perilously beneath a hovering sky crane, connected by just a handful of clothesline-like nylon cables. 

Within minutes and with no external help, the spacecraft must slow down from 13,000 mph (21,000 kph) to zero, ensuring that the sky crane gently lowers the rover onto the surface wheels-first, ready to conduct the science mission it was designed for. You only have one shot at the landing, during which the Red Planet's rotation will spin the rover out of view of Earth , preventing you from directly communicating with it — and learning of its success or failure — for a brief but agonizing stretch.

Sounds like one for the science fiction books, doesn't it? Yet scientists and engineers at NASA succeeded in such a daring feat 12 years ago this month, when just such an unprecedented, death-defying dive brought a new robotic resident to Mars — Curiosity — and set the stage for future missions to the Red Planet.

'Seven minutes of terror'

NASA's first three Mars rovers — Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity — landed enveloped by massive, inflated airbags that bounced more than 15 times on the Red Planet's surface before slowing to a stop. However, for the car-sized Curiosity, the math showed that existing airbags wouldn't work. And even if they did, there wasn't a known material capable of handling the rover's 1-ton weight.

Related: Curiosity rover: The ultimate guide

Oh, how Mars landings have changed.Pathfinder used giant airbags to land on the Red Planet. A decade later, @NASAJPL developed the sky crane maneuver to safely land @MarsCuriosity and @NASAPersevere.More on this engineering evolution: https://t.co/YPfZSLq6TQ pic.twitter.com/dvxja7gV46 August 8, 2024

So the only way for Curiosity to be lowered to the surface was using a rocket-powered sky crane, which itself had to be deployed seamlessly midway during the mission's descent through the Martian atmosphere . But the mission team was not sure how to suspend a rover as large as Curiosity without it swinging dangerously. Drawing inspiration from similar sky cranes that ferry cargo helicopters on Earth, the team eventually added similar technology to Curiosity's jetpack, such that it sensed the swinging and controlled it. 

"All of that new technology gives you a fighting chance to get to the right place on the surface," Al Chen of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, who played a crucial role in the entry, descent and landing (EDL) phase for the Curiosity mission, said in a recent NASA statement .

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Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Curiosity's complicated, nail-biting landing attempt, which left some of the mission personnel emotionally terrified , has been dubbed the " seven minutes of terror ."

Although Curiosity was guided and checked upon by its team of 400 scientists and engineers throughout its eight-month space cruise, the $2.5 billion mission was pretty much on its own during the seven-minute EDL. The last command from Earth was sent two hours prior. Plus, due to the time delay between the two planets, scientists wouldn't know if Curiosity landed safely or crashed until about 15 minutes after the event occurred. 

"As far as the amount of control that the team has during entry, descent and landing, it's identical to the control that anybody watching at home has," JPL's Adam Steltzner, who was leading the EDL phase for Curiosity, told reporters shortly before Curiosity's landing attempt. "We're all along for the ride."

That ride was deemed flawless soon after the six-wheeled Curiosity touched down as planned in the 96-mile-wide (154 km) Gale Crater, and its 10 science instruments worked perfectly. Scientists and engineers who sat in mission control at JPL jumped up and down in jubilation when they received confirmation that Curiosity had landed safely.

'The right kind of crazy'

When the novel sky-crane EDL approach began taking shape in the early 2000s as the only way to land a heavy rover on Mars, it was so frighteningly daring that few scientists or engineers were sold on the idea, not the least because NASA had recently experienced some high-profile Red Planet failures .

The idea that the proposed mission would place the jetpack above the rover rather than below it, as was conventionally done, was particularly concerning to many people, recalled JPL Fellow Rob Manning, who worked on the initial concept in 2000.

"People were confused by that," he said in the NASA statement. "They assumed propulsion would always be below you, like you see in old science fiction with a rocket touching down on a planet."

But a lander's thrusters would not only stir up debris during descent, making it difficult for Curiosity to descend; they could also even dig a hole in the ground that the rover wouldn't then be able to drive out of. By placing thrusters above the rover, the mission team ensured that the wheels touched down directly on the surface, saving the extra weight of ferrying a landing platform on an already-heavy spacecraft.

"We talked about it to no end," Steltzner told Astronomy's Eric Betz . "If this didn't go right, there would be nowhere to hide, because every joe six-pack on the street would be saying that they knew it wouldn't work."

NASA's then-Administrator Mike Griffin told the mission team that the idea was crazy, "but it might be crazy enough to work. It might be the right kind of crazy."

Related: NASA: Huge Mars rover's sky crane landing was 'least crazy' idea

What's that about sticking the landing? 🥇12 years ago, my landing on the Red Planet required 76 pyrotechnic devices and had zero margin for error – and my team absolutely nailed it. Do you remember the drama of those "7 Minutes of Terror"? pic.twitter.com/5iZd7PSQax August 5, 2024

— Mars missions: A brief history

— Landing on Mars: Keep straight and fly right for Martian touchdown success

— 'An oasis in the desert': NASA's Curiosity rover finds pure sulfur in Martian rocks

The novel technology turned out to be so successful that in 2021, NASA used the same skycrane method to successfully land another rover, Perseverance , which just last month had the science community — and the world — buzzing with its discovery of a Martian rock that may host signs of ancient life. 

Scientists say the same technology could be repurposed for bigger spacecraft headed not just for Mars but elsewhere in the solar system , too. "In the future, if you wanted a payload delivery service, you could easily use that architecture to lower to the surface of the moon or elsewhere, without ever touching the ground," Manning said in the NASA statement.

As for Curiosity , the rover continues roving through Mars' landscape in search of signs of ancient habitable conditions , more than 12 years after its pioneering touchdown.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Sharmila Kuthunur is a Seattle-based science journalist covering astronomy, astrophysics and space exploration. Follow her on X @skuthunur.

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Scientists Seeking Life on Mars Heard a Signal That Hinted at the Future

In 1924, a radio receiver built for the battlefields of World War I tested the idea that humans were not alone in the solar system, heralding a century of searches for extraterrestrial life.

Credit... Señor Salme

Supported by

By Becky Ferreira

Becky Ferreira is writing a book about humanity’s hunt for alien life and visited the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation to see the radio receiver that is at the heart of this article.

• Aug. 20, 2024

At sunset on a late summer weekend in 1924, crowds flocked to curbside telescopes to behold the advanced alien civilization they believed to be present on the surface of Mars.

“See the wonders of Mars!” an uptown sidewalk astronomer shouted in New York City on Saturday, Aug. 23. “Now is your chance to view the snowcaps and the great canals that are causing so much talk among the scientists. You’ll never have such a chance again in your lifetime.”

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

During that weekend, Earth and Mars were separated by just 34 million miles, closer than at any other point in a century. Although this orbital alignment, called an opposition , occurs every 26 months, this one was particularly captivating to audiences across continents and inspired some of the first large-scale efforts to detect alien life.

“In scores of observatories, watchers and photographers are centering their attention on that enigmatic red disk,” the journalist Silas Bent wrote on Aug. 17, 1924. He added that it might be the moment to “solve the disputed question of whether supermen rove his crust, and whether those lines, which many observers say they have seen, really are irrigation canals.”

Scientists plotted for years to make the most of the Martian “close-up.” To aid the experiments, the U.S. Navy cleared the airwaves, imposing a nationwide period of radio silence for five minutes at the top of each hour from Aug. 21 to 24 so that messages from Martians could be heard. A military cryptographer was on hand to “translate any peculiar messages that might come by radio from Mars.”

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The Earth's deepest living organisms may hold clues to alien life on Mars

To understand the life that might survive deep below Mars' surface, we can look to some of the deepest, and oldest, forms of living organism on our own planet.

Mars isn't just the red planet: it's also a wet planet. On 12 August, US researchers reported evidence of a vast reservoir of liquid water , deep in the rocky crust of the planet.

The data came from Nasa's Mars Insight Lander, which recorded more than 1,300 Marsquakes over four years. Researchers led by Vashan Wright, a geophysicist at the University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, studied the seismic waves that reached the lander and concluded that they had passed through layers of wet rock . While the surface of Mars is a barren desert, Wright's data suggests considerable volumes of water are locked up in rocks between 11.5 and 20km (7.1-12.4 miles) down.

"If they are correct," says Karen Lloyd, a subsurface microbiologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, "I think this is a game-changer."

Underground water on Mars opens up the possibility of underground life on Mars. The last few decades have revealed that there is an enormous biosphere hidden deep within the Earth. It now seems the same could be true on Mars. Martian life, if it exists, could well be subterranean.

The deep biosphere

For over 30 years, biologists have accumulated evidence that life persists deep underground on Earth. Researchers have drilled deep into the sea floor and the continents, finding life in buried sediments and even amongst layers and crystals of solid rock.

Most of these dwellers in the dark are single-celled microorganisms, specifically bacteria and archaea. These two huge groups are the oldest known forms of life on Earth: they have existed for over three billion years, long before animals and plants.

Within the last 20 years, it has also emerged that the deep biosphere is highly diverse. "There's actually quite a lot of different types of organisms living deep underground," says Cara Magnabosco, a geobiologist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

Bacteria are divided into large groups called phyla: only a few dozen of these groups have been formally identified, out of an estimated 1,300 . "Pretty much all of these phyla can be found underground," says Magnabosco.

Not that they are evenly distributed. A 2023 meta-analysis found that most ecosystems under land were dominated by two phyla , Pseudomonadota and Firmicutes . Other types of bacteria were much rarer, but they included phyla that had never been seen before.

Because it is pitch-black, these microbes cannot get energy directly from sunlight, as photosynthetic organisms at the surface do. "The really important thing to note is that they don't depend, by and large, on the Sun," says Lloyd.

They also aren't receiving any other inputs such as nutrients from above. Many of these deep ecosystems are "completely disconnected from the surface", says Magnabosco.

Instead, these ecosystems are based on chemosynthesis. The microbes get their energy by performing chemical reactions, taking in chemicals from the surrounding rocks and water. For instance, they may use gases such as methane or hydrogen sulphide as their source material. "The subsurface has many, many different chemical reactions," says Lloyd. "A lot of us spend a lot of time finding new reactions that support life."

Chemosynthetic microbes may seem alien because they are rare in the sunny surface areas where we spend our time and are confined to the depths of the sea and the solid underground. But they are some of the oldest kinds of living organisms on Earth . Some hypotheses about the origin of life suppose that the first life on Earth was chemosynthetic.

While single-celled microbes dominate the subsurface, there are a few rare animals. A 2011 study identified nematode worms in fracture water from 0.9-3.6km (0.6-2.2 miles) down in South African mines. The water seemed to have been there for at least 3,000 years, suggesting the nematode population could be millennia old. A 2015 follow-up found flatworms, segmented worms, rotifers and arthropods in fissure water 1.4km (0.9 miles) down: the water there was up to 12,300 years old. The animals were feeding off a thin film of microbes on the rock surface.

To us, the deep underground seems like an extremely challenging place to live. Compared to the surface, the microbial populations are sparse – but there is also an awful lot of rock to live in. In 2018, Magnabosco and her colleagues estimated the scale of the biomass living under continents , by combining data on numbers and diversity of cells from drilling sites around the world. They estimated that there are 2 to 6 × 10^29 cells living underneath Earth's continents. In comparison, there are only about 10^24 stars in the observable universe .

"We have a very numerically large number of cells beneath our feet," says Magnabosco. In fact, she says, about 70% of all the bacteria and archaea on Earth are underground .

Quite how deep the biosphere extends is not yet clear. Life presumably has an upper temperature limit but we don't know exactly where it lies. Nothing can live on the surface of molten lava, but some microbes can endure surprising heat: an archaean called Methanopyrus kandleri can survive and reproduce at 122C (252F).

Go far enough underground and pressure also becomes an issue. The type of rock is also significant, because it affects the chemical reactions that can occur and thus the types of chemosynthetic microbes that can live there. "But I can't give you a number [on how far down life exists] because we haven't hit it yet, because we just haven't drilled that deep," says Lloyd. The limit may be surprisingly deep: a 2017 study of samples from a mud volcano suggested life could exist 10km (6.2 miles) below the seabed .

Some of this life is lived extremely slowly. "There are definitely large parts of the subsurface, primarily underneath our oceans, where nothing really happens for millions of years," says Lloyd. With no new nutrients coming in from above, and no way to escape, the microbes in these places have very little food. "That means they just don't have the energy necessary to make new cells," she says. Instead they slow their metabolisms and are almost in stasis. "It's actually quite reasonable that a single cell could live for thousands of years or longer."

It's this kind of life – reliant on chemical reactions between rocks and water, and possibly with an extremely slow metabolic rate – that might plausibly be found in the water-rich rocks deep beneath the surface of Mars.

Martian microbes

So far there is no solid or direct evidence of life on Mars, despite decades of uncrewed missions to the red planet. The surface is dry and cold, and no living organism has ever wandered into shot of a Mars rover camera.

However, features like canyons strongly suggest that Mars did have running water on its surface billions of years ago. Some of that water was probably lost to space, but Wright's team concluded that much of it is underground.

"We know that water is a prerequisite for life as we know it," says Lloyd. So perhaps the Martian surface used to be habitable, and now only the subsurface is. "I've always preferred the notion that life would be buried somehow," she says.

Like the slow microbes living deep under Earth's oceans, Martian microbes may be clinging to life despite scant nutrients. "The same sort of processes that happen in our subsurface can happen on Mars," says Magnabosco.

The most suggestive evidence of life to date is the plumes of methane in the Martian air , which vary with the seasons . On Earth, methane is often made by microorganisms – so the gas could be a waste product from underground life. However, Lloyd urges caution. "There are many non-life reasons why there could be plumes of methane," she says.

Furthermore, there are many other obstacles to life in the Martian subsurface . "Life doesn't just need water," says Lloyd. "It needs energy and a place to be, so it needs a habitat." We don't yet know if the pores in the Martian rock are large enough for microbes. Likewise, the chemical makeup of the deep rocks is crucial, as they would be the source of chemical energy.

For Magnabosco, "the biggest uncertainty" about life on Mars "is whether or not it emerged". Because we don't know how the first living things formed from inanimate material, we don't know if conditions on Mars were ever suitable for the emergence of life . "If life was able to develop on Mars," she says, "it has a very good chance of still surviving and being on Mars today."

If this Martian deep biosphere exists, how could we find it? The obvious idea is to drill into Mars, but we would need to drill down 10km (6.2 miles) or more – a heavy lift even on Earth. Doing that on a planet that lacks breathable air or running water? "It's much, much more difficult," says Magnabosco.

More like this:

•  The deepest hole ever dug

•  Could we have carried life to Mars?

•  How the pursuit of alien life is hotting up

However, it should be possible to build up the supporting evidence. Nasa's planned Mars Sample Return mission would bring Martian rocks back to Earth: such samples might contain traces of life .

"Chasing the methane would be really helpful," says Lloyd. At present, we don't know where the gas is coming from. "If we find that the water pockets are associated with the methane plumes," that would be suggestive of life, she says.

Finally, if Mars really does have water moving around, we could take advantage of that. On Earth, features like hot springs bring water from deep underground to the surface . "Mars has mud volcanoes," says Lloyd. "There are places on Mars that you can go where you actually have deep subsurface samples that have been exhumed and brought up to the surface."

It may well be decades before we get a definitive answer. That answer might be frustrating: Mars is much less tectonically and hydrologically active than Earth, which suggests that life is either sparse or non-existent. "We could be looking for life that has not been alive for a long time," says Lloyd. In that case, all we might find is fossil evidence, rather than living organisms. "Either way, it's life on Mars," she says.

Michael Marshall is a freelance science and environment journalist, and author of The Genesis Quest: The geniuses and eccentrics on a journey to uncover the origin of life on Earth .

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NASA is seeking applicants to participate in its next simulated one-year Mars surface mission to help inform the agency’s plans for human exploration of the Red Planet. The second of three planned ground-based missions called CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) is scheduled to kick off in spring 2025.

Each CHAPEA mission involves a four-person volunteer crew living and working inside a 1,700-square-foot, 3D-printed habitat based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The habitat, called the Mars Dune Alpha, simulates the challenges of a mission on Mars, including resource limitations, equipment failures, communication delays, and other environmental stressors. Crew tasks include simulated spacewalks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, exercise, and crop growth.

NASA is looking for healthy, motivated U.S. citizens or permanent residents who are non-smokers, 30-55 years old, and proficient in English for effective communication between crewmates and mission control. Applicants should have a strong desire for unique, rewarding adventures and interest in contributing to NASA’s work to prepare for the first human journey to Mars.

The deadline for applicants is Tuesday, April 2.

https://chapea.nasa.gov/

Crew selection will follow additional standard NASA criteria for astronaut candidate applicants. A master’s degree in a STEM field such as engineering, mathematics, or biological, physical or computer science from an accredited institution with at least two years of professional STEM experience or a minimum of one thousand hours piloting an aircraft is required. Candidates who have completed two years of work toward a doctoral program in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, completed a medical degree, or a test pilot program will also be considered. With four years of professional experience, applicants who have completed military officer training or a bachelor of science degree in a STEM field may be considered.

Compensation for participating in the mission is available. More information will be provided during the candidate screening process.

As NASA works to establish a long-term presence for scientific discovery and exploration on the Moon through the Artemis campaign, CHAPEA missions provide important scientific data to validate systems and develop solutions for future missions to the Red Planet. With the first CHAPEA crew more than halfway through their yearlong mission, NASA is using research gained through the simulated missions to help inform crew health and performance support during Mars expeditions.

Under NASA’s  Artemis  campaign, the agency will establish the foundation for long-term scientific exploration at the Moon, land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the lunar surface, and prepare for human expeditions to Mars for the benefit of all.

For more about CHAPEA, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/chapea/

Rachel Kraft Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1100 [email protected]

Anna Schneider/Laura Sorto Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111 [email protected] /[email protected]