A New Project Known as Astroland Attempts to Recreate a Human Settlement on Mars
During the FITUR tourism fair hosted by Madrid last week, Francisco Martín the head of industry, trade, and tourism for the northern region of Cantabria stated that an increasingly infinite Cantabria now reaches as far as Mars. This was part of a new project known as Astroland. A meeting point between science and tourism, Astroland’s goal is to replicate the conditions of a human colony on Mars.
A meeting point between science and tourism, Astroland’s goal is to replicate the conditions of a human colony on Mars. Participants will be taught skills that include caving, climbing and hydroponics since the mock settlement will be held inside a cave in Arrendondo, at the foot of green hills close to the fish-filled waters of Santoña, instead of on a hostile, atmosphere-free planet situated about 225 million kilometers from Earth.
Astroland is funded by €2 million of private investment and is the work of Banco Santander’s business incubator. It should be open to space “travellers” — or crew, as Astroland CEO David Ceballos calls them — by June 15, 2019. The idea is to send ten missions with ten people on each one by the end of the year. Participants must be 18 years or older, and they must pay €10,000 per person. Furthermore, there is a selection process, and one must start by registering on the website www.astrolandagency.com.
If chosen, participants will be taught skills such as caving, climbing, and hydroponics, which is the cultivation of plants in a nutrient-rich, water-based solution. Training sessions include psychology, coaching, and contingency plans — everything that would make life on Mars viable.
The cave in Arredondo measures 1.5 km in length and 60 meters in height. Inside are high-pressure capsules that will function as laboratories and bedrooms. Clean-energy sources will be used, and the air will be purified as it would be if it were a cave on Mars. Ceballos explained that the most expensive part of the project was obtaining the licenses.
Ceballos also added that the idea is to test the technology that could very well be necessary on the real Red Planet one day and to make breakthroughs that could be used on Earth like Velcro was in its day.
Astrolanders will not be permitted to leave their capsules without wearing their polymer space suits, which were built with the help of the University of Design, Innovation, and Technology (ESNE) and which are anti-bacterial, flexible, and abrasion-resistant. The helmet is currently being worked on. Before entering the capsules, the crew will have to go through a disinfecting unit.
Once the crew is “clean,” they will be monitored at all times and given different tasks to perform as per their skills from a control center in the Science and Technology Park of Cantabria, in Santander. Kind of like Houston explained Ceballos.
Moreover, to recreate the real Mars, all communications will take eight minutes to reach the crew. Only one message per team member is permitted to the outside world during their stay, which must be a minimum of three days. Astrolanders will also be forced to wear special diapers that will be biodegradable to keep the human footprint on the cave — and on Mars — to a minimum. Studying the mechanics of this is actually the missions’ first goal.
Ceballos also stated that they chose a cave because any colony on Mars would have to be underground since Mars’ surface is swept by fierce winds and the temperature is very low — around -60ºC — while the radiation is very high.
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