Four people will soon experience a one-week stay in what could be the most realistic Martian base on Earth.
The (SAM) base has been built on the grounds of Biosphere 2, an ambitious experiment in controlled ecology built in southern Arizona, and it repurposes some of the original structures of that project.
Unlike the other numerous Mars base analogues that have been built around the world, the SAM facility will be fully pressurised and hermetically sealed, just as a real lunar or Mars base would be 鈥� although at a far lower pressure differential with the outside. This means that the 鈥渁stronauts鈥� aboard SAM will have to wear pressurised spacesuits and pass through airlocks every time they leave the habitat and go 鈥渙utside鈥�. The outdoor portion is a fully enclosed but not pressurised yard, complete with rocks and soil similar to those on Mars, and will soon also have a harness system to simulate Martian gravity.
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The structure incorporates the newly restored Biosphere 2 Test Module, an almost 50-square-metre hermetically sealed greenhouse built in 1987. This now houses SAM鈥檚 greenhouse, which is intended to provide some of the inhabitants鈥� food supply, as well as a key part of its waste and water recycling system, and its oxygen production and carbon dioxide removal systems.
Attached to that are two new sections, made from converted shipping containers. One contains a lab and workshop area, and the other contains the living quarters, with a kitchen, sleeping quarters for four and a common area.
The first crew of four, who will enter the structure on 27 April for a one-week stay, include a doctor, photographer, aerospace engineer and a communications specialist who is blind and will test the accessibility of the enclosure鈥檚 monitoring systems.
The experiment can provide important data that wasn鈥檛 obtained from any of the previous Mars analogue bases, says , SAM鈥檚 director of research. While initially dependent on resources imported from outside, SAM, like a real Mars base, will transition to a more self-sufficient system for producing food while recycling air and water.
鈥淎s the plants mature in the hydroponic systems, there鈥檒l be less and less reliance on those mechanical blowers and chemical agents that remove CO2 from the air,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 something that nobody has ever demonstrated in one facility鈥� That鈥檚 the fundamental driving force behind why we built SAM.鈥�
Article amended on 23 April 2023
We have corrected when spacesuits will need to be worn and the size of the Biosphere 2 Test Module
