UAE astronauts could participate in simulation of Mars mission

The Mars Society, a non-profit run by scientist Robert Zubrin, will send a crew of six scientists to a remote Arctic island for a year next summer as an elaborate simulation of a future human mission to the red planet.

DUBAI // Astronauts from the UAE could be part of the first detailed simulation of a manned mission to Mars.

The Mars Society, a non-profit group led by scientist Robert Zubrin, will send a crew of six scientists to a remote Arctic island for a year next summer as an elaborate simulation of a future human mission to the red planet.

The rew of six will live in an environment that resembles that of Mars’s on Devon Island, a vast empty land mass the size of Ireland in northern Canada.

The team will be required to conduct experiments outside the habitat wearing their spacesuits, and work in the laboratory through laggy video exchanges with an “Earth” science team.

The budget for the experiment is US$1 million (Dh3.67m), and if the UAE is willing to contribute to it, two of the crew members could be chosen by the UAE’s space agency.

“This would be the first full-scale dress rehearsal of a human Mars exploration mission,” said Dr Zubrin. “The UAE could easily make this possible, and it would draw the attention of the world.”

The goal is to make the crew as isolated and self-reliant as possible.

“Through this, we will learn about what will work on Mars and what wouldn’t,” said Dr Zubrin.

He also criticised the Mars-500 mission, a psychological experiment between Russia, Europe and China that was a similar Earth-based simulation of a manned Mars mission. It monitored the behaviour of a small crew isolated in what was supposed to resemble a 520-day manned return mission to Mars.

“Those people were not isolated,” he said. “If anyone developed appendicitis they could have just walked out the door. They were not under any mission pressure and they were never in any danger.

“This is a much more realistic simulation of a Mars mission, where you’re actually trying to get something done in the face of all these difficulties, rather than just sitting in a room and playing chess for a year.”

However, he said the experiment was useful in drawing the world’s attention – a spotlight the UAE could share if it helped fund the Mars Society mission. “Despite its limitations, that Mars-500 simulation was covered in all the world’s press,” said Dr Zubrin. “This is going to be a far more powerful Mars simulation, and far more exciting and more valuable. It will truly draw the attention of the world and would be a tremendous leveraging of funds, given the modest cost of such an endeavour.”