A one-minute shower after three days without bathing – it’s one of the inconveniences of being an astronaut on Mars.
Mars replicated on Earth, that is.
Boeing 777 engineer Kavya Manyapu has been at the Mars Desert Research Station in the Utah desert since March 26. The station simulates living conditions that astronauts will encounter when they’re sent to Mars.
Manyapu’s dream is to be an astronaut, as The Herald wrote about last month. Her two-week research trip in Utah will give her a good sense of what an astronaut’s mission to Mars would be like.
The station is prime research ground for figuring out the obstacles that astronauts will face in what will be a nearly two-year round trip to Mars.
Despite the short shower and the toilet trouble, Manyapu is in good spirits. The six members of the crew have been getting along well, roughly halfway through their two-week stay, she wrote in an email last week.
Manyapu and her fellow crew members already have faced one crisis: a broken toilet. And, according to yesterday’s crew report, one “Mars astronaut” has developed an eye infection.
Another interesting note: each crew that rotates through the Mars Desert Research Station tackles different research projects. Manyapu and crew are looking at how to use recycled water from the station and grow an edible cyanobacteria, which is a blue-green algae.
Stay tuned for more on Manyapu’s stay at the station.
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