2023-12-19 12:00:00
This year, in mid-April, a team of Catalan scientists traveled to a remote corner of the Utah desert to simulate what a future manned mission to the red planet would be like. His trip was the first of the Hypatia project: an initiative created to develop research projects, promote scientific dissemination and increase the visibility of women scientists. Now that their journey has successfully ended, the machinery is put back into motion to prepare for the next mission. According to the promoters of this project, Hypatia II will take off in 2025 and, from now on, The crew of this future Martian expedition is being sought. Interested parties can submit their candidacy from now until January 31, 2024.
The selection process will focus on women scientists of different ages and disciplines.
He selection process to choose who will keep the precious ‘alien’ tickets It just opened. At the moment, as explained by those responsible for the mission, they are looking for “women scientists of different ages and disciplines” willing to develop research projects, carry out Martian experiments and, above all, with the ability to inspire new generations. The technical requirements include: Being over 18 yearsidentify as a woman, have a relationship with some discipline in the STEAM branch (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) and have a good level of English.
At the moment only the names of two selected for this mission are known: the mathematics Anna Bach and the engineering student Helena Arias, two professionals who were in the reserve for the previous expedition and who are now preparing to be part of the next ‘trip’ to Mars. There will be a third professional who will also be from the team of the first Hypatia mission because, according to the ‘Martian camp’ protocols, “the commander has to be a person who has already been in the simulator.” The Hypatia II team will be made up of nine crew members so There are still six places available for the next Catalan stay on the ‘red planet’.
Martian simulator
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The second mission of the Hypatia project will take place in a ‘martian simulator’ located in the middle of the Utah desert (United States). Is about an extraterrestrial habitat developed by the Mars Society in which you can find everything from a biology and geology laboratory to several space observatories, rooms to develop engineering projects and coexistence areas for the crew members. Since the inauguration of these facilities until 2017, almost 200 crews from all over the world visited this Martian habitat.
But what is so special about this place? And why is it called a ‘Mars simulator’? It turns out that these facilities, located in the middle of the desert, simulate many of the conditions that we could find on Mars. On the one hand, because they are surrounded by soil rich in minerals such as iron. And on the other hand, because in these environments we live extreme weather conditions such as, for example, temperature fluctuations, humidity percentages less than 10% and wind gusts of up to 60 kilometers per hour (all this also happens on Mars but with even more extreme figures).
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