Doctor Readies for Year-Long Simulated Mars Mission

A couple of years ago, Nathan Jones, MD, stumbled across an interesting article online that posed the question, “Do you want to go to Mars?”

NASA was recruiting volunteers for an important mission. However, it wouldn’t involve boarding a rocket and launching into space. Rather, a small and specialized team would be selected to travel to Houston, where they would live in a simulated Mars setting for 1 year.

Jones, an emergency medicine physician at Springfield Memorial Hospital in Illinois, was intrigued. “Every kid dreams of walking on the moon, or Mars,” he told MedPage Today.

So, he followed the link to the NASA application and “filled it out one night without really having planned to,” Jones recalled.

Beginning next month, Jones will join three other crew members for what is being called Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, or CHAPEA. The ground-based mission is the first of three planned Mars surface simulations, NASA said in announcing its inaugural crew. During the year-long mission, Jones and the other crew members will live and work in a 3D-printed, 1,700-square-foot habitat.

Jones will serve as medical director of his mission, while other crew members include a research scientist and member of the Mohawk Nation of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Canada who will serve as commander, a structural engineer and public works administrator who will serve as the flight engineer, and an advanced practice nurse who will serve as the science officer.

While Jones said he doesn’t know all the specifics of the work he and his fellow crew members will be taking on, he explained it will involve studying isolation and the human mind, as well as areas like geology, food systems, and exercise.

Other planetary tasks are likely to include simulated ventures using virtual reality headsets in spacesuits and flying exploration drones, he said, as well as checking in with Mission Control, of course.

Indeed, it is expected to be important work when it comes to readying for the future.

“The simulation will allow us to collect cognitive and physical performance data to give us more insight into the potential impacts of long-duration missions to Mars on crew health and performance,” said Grace Douglas, PhD, CHAPEA’s principal investigator, in a statement. “Ultimately, this information will help NASA make informed decisions to design and plan for a successful human mission to Mars.”

And it comes as little surprise that a physician would be selected as an essential member of the team.

Jones recalled reading an astronaut survey previously published in Acta Astronautica that highlighted the need for physicians to be included on a mission to Mars.

“I can say that’s one of the things that made me most interested in the mission — the fact that I really like finding problems and trying to fix them,” he said, noting that this mindset is front-and-center in his work in emergency medicine, in which there are limited resources and time, and it’s critical to come up with good working solutions.

“That has well prepared me for the challenge they’re going to ask of us,” he added. “It’s obviously something that medicine needs to be considering as future expansion of our scope.”

One particular part of the challenge is that Jones will be away from his wife and children for the duration of the mission, though family members will be able to have video contact with each other. The communication will be delayed to simulate the time it would take to send a signal between Earth and Mars at the speed of light. However, Jones said that he and his family have come up with creative ways to interact while he’s away, like playing games back-and-forth over the time delay.

He also noted that a physician’s work schedule is not entirely different from what he will be stepping into with the mission.

“My schedule has been difficult compared to what most families would probably appreciate — missing holidays, weekends,” he explained. “It has been an interesting preparation that we never really intended it to be.”

Jones said that his family is on board with how unique the opportunity is, and how much it will ultimately provide in terms of the experiences he will be able to share.

Although he said that the thought of actually venturing into space one day has crossed his mind, he tempered it. “At the same time, you wonder if, after a year, maybe I’ve done enough and spent enough time away from family.”