Incidentally, Toulouse students are far from the first to have managed to be part of a unique experience. The Martian station is not empty and regularly receives crews of scientists and engineers from around the world. “RG” spoke with our compatriot Anastasia Stepanova, who lived on “Mars” for several months.
Anastasia Stepanova, crew member of the international space projects “Mars-160” and SIRIUS-19, space journalist, engineer:
Anastasia Stepanova before the “flight” to the Moon as part of the second crew of the SIRIUS-19 experiment in Moscow (2019). Photo: RAS Biomedical Problems Institute
– There are two Martian stations: one is located in Utah, the other in the Arctic on the uninhabited island of Devon. Basically, all expeditions take place in Utah, because it is very expensive to send something to the Arctic (there are expeditions every 5-10 years). Usually the crews come for two weeks, maximum one month, but we had a special mission – 160 days. We spent 80 days in Utah and as many in the Arctic. In 2016, our mission began at the Mars Research Station in Utah. The main objective was to study the red planet, the search for life or its traces on Mars, so the main research was in exobiology and geology. We were looking for extremophiles – microorganisms that survive in extreme conditions, such as high temperatures, active solar radiation, drought and anything that, in principle, exists in the desert or in the Arctic. In addition, we have carried out various engineering projects.
I was the team reporter and basically did all the journalistic work. There were other guys who also wrote their essays, filmed video reports, and they got published as well. In addition, there was a biologist in the team. She taught us how to do various lab tests, and a few months later I was appointed her assistant. It is important here that everyone understands who is doing what, and if something happens to a crew member, there will be someone who can replace them and continue working so as not to compromise the entire mission. We have therefore had cross-training in many professions.
Anastasia Stepanova on a mission as part of the Mars 160 project in the Utah desert (2016). Photo: Mars Desert Research Station
We woke up at seven in the morning and went to a communal breakfast. It was important that all meals were held together, that we communicated and formed a friendly team. The crew is diverse in terms of age, nationality and gender. It seems to me that we managed to prove that if you select professionals and those who support their work and dream of spaceflight, then neither a cultural barrier nor other obstacles will interfere with well-coordinated teamwork. After breakfast, for several hours, we filled out various reports, prepared for extravehicular activity. As part of this, we put on 14-kilogram space suits and went out to do various research or engineering work. Two crew members remained at the station, four left to explore the “Red Planet”. Those who remained were always in contact with the departing crew: if something happened, they had to be ready to help. During the day everyone had their own projects, engineering or science. So we studied gypsum minerals and found extremophiles there. It is quite possible that we could thus find traces of life on Mars. There’s a lot of gypsum on the Red Planet, and scientists believe that when we finally get there, we’ll be able to take samples that will show microorganisms were there thousands of years ago.
There is a communal kitchen on the second floor of the station. The “colonizers” only eat lunch together to coordinate the team. Photo: mdrs.marssociety.or
In addition, we distributed the duty: who cooks, who washes the dishes. Once a week they cleaned the whole station and constantly monitored how much water and food we had – resources were limited.
Two crew members remained at the station, four left to explore the “Red Planet”
< p class="">As for communication with Earth, we were in constant communication with Station Director Shannon Rupert and Mars Society President Robert Zubrin and coordinated with them on all important matters. At the same time, our phones weren't working, so we could only communicate by mail. If we sent a letter to the in-flight support center, the guys there would deliberately wait a while before responding. This was done to simulate the delay that occurs when sending a message over a distance of hundreds of millions of miles. At night, the inhabitants of the "Martian station" in Utah can admire the starry sky. But first you have to put on a 14-kilogram spacesuit. Photo: Reuters
Similar projects are being implemented here in Russia. In Moscow there is the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBP RAS), where the very first simulation of a space flight took place in 1967 – the experiment “A year in a ship”. Since then, the IBMP has been constantly engaged in the medical and biological aspects of spaceflight, isolated psychological research. In recent years, the IBMP, in collaboration with NASA, has launched a series of experiments that simulate a flight towards the moon. The first SIRIUS experience took place in 2017 and lasted 2 weeks. I participated in the second experiment in 2019, it was designed for 4 months. Last year, the experiment ended for 8 months. All this takes place at the station located in Moscow at the Institute of Biomedical Problems and is called the “Ground Experimental Complex”. It is cylindrical in shape, consists of different modules. The station is completely sealed with its own pressure, atmosphere, complex system The testers enter it, the hatch closes behind them, and for many For many months they do not see sunlight, do not communicate with outside people at the station. Mission members are screened to understand how extreme conditions such as isolation, simulated flight, affect your body. They study both psychology and physiology. While participating in the Utah mission and the IBMP, I realized that sometimes the illusion is very real, and sometimes it really does feel like being in space.
