Are you looking for something different to do? Are you bored with your current surroundings and lifestyle? Want an opportunity to share a unique yearlong experience with three strangers? If so, it is time to take your protein pills and put your helmet on.

NASA is looking for volunteers to spend 365 days on a ground-based simulated mission to Mars. It is called ground-based because you will not actually be rocketed in a capsule headed to the red planet. Instead, you will be in a confined 1,700 square foot habitat. 

To approximate what it would be like to live on Mars, the space agency is seeking applicants for its one-year Mars surface mission. It will begin in the spring of 2025. It is one of three ground-based experiments called “crew health and performance exploration analog” or CHAPEA. The goal is to study the effects of a long duration space mission on human health and performance. The simulation will take place inside a 3D printed habitat that is called the “Mars Dune Alpha.”  The whole setup is at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The habitat has been specially designed to mimic living conditions and challenges of a real Mars expedition. They will be hit with resource limitations, equipment failures, communication delays and environmental stress. The volunteers will be kept very busy. They will have to complete various tests such as simulated space walks, robotic operations, habitation maintenance, crop growth and exercise. I imagine they will be wired from head to toe, constantly on camera and observed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In this simulation NASA hopes to gain insights and data that will help prepare for the first actual human journey to the Red Planet.

There is already one crew halfway through their yearlong simulation. With all the stress thrown at them by NASA technicians and at the same time learning to live in a confined environment with three perfect strangers, to me it sounds like the melding of the TV shows Survivor with Big Brother.

I understand them being thrown technical issues like power outages, water shortages, communication breakdowns, but I’m wondering how they’re going to simulate a spacewalk. In the past to simulate a gravity free space walk astronauts go in a plane that is specially equipped to do sudden dives to make them feel weightless.

This is not for everyone. The applicants for the job must 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.” To qualify as an applicant, you must be healthy, motivated and a U.S. citizen with permanent residence. You must be a non-smoker between the ages of 30 and 55 years old. You also must be proficient in English for effective communication between crewmates and mission control. NASA is looking to find volunteers who are willing and able to spend a year in confinement, isolation and extreme conditions. The crew has to be diverse, resilient, adaptable and cooperative. They also have to undergo psychological evaluation before and during the mission. Psychological evaluation will also come from the friends of the applicants who will tell them “You need to have your head examined because you are crazy to do this.”

If you meet the qualifications in the previous paragraph, you also must follow additional standard criteria for astronaut candidate applicants. That means interested applicants must have relevant education and work experience to be considered. Although it seems that checking the levels of their education would be fairly easy, what possible work experience would qualify you for a mission? Are they looking for DYI types such as those with plumbing experience to fix the zero-gravity toilet? If they are looking for applicants who can quickly assemble things in case of emergency, maybe they should seek out the people that invented the Rubik’s Cube.

If any of my readers are interested in the CHAPEA program and you think you meet the qualifications, you can apply online at https:/chapea.nasa.gov by April 2. 

If selected, you’ve made the grade, and it will be ground control to Major Tom time.

Hudson Cooper is a resident of Sullivan County, a writer, comedian and actor.