Illustration by Isabel Seliger

Can humans endure the isolation of Mars?

NASA expects the first human expedition to Mars to occur by 2040. The mission faces a long list of technical hurdles, but perhaps the greatest challenge is the trauma of isolation.

Enter CHAPEA — Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog — an experiment that began on June 25 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. CHAPEA is testing whether four crew members can overcome the psychological torment of Martian life by isolating them for 378 days. The crew members are enacting, as closely as possible, the lives of Martian colonists, eating astronaut food and conducting basic experiments under surveillance from mission control.

But some observers of the space program argue that the psychic perils of separation from the social world are well understood. What, they wonder, does NASA hope to learn from CHAPEA that it does not already know?