British pilot named alternate for yearlong Mars habitat simulation at NASA

Laura Marie, a British airline pilot living in the United States, has been named one of two alternate crew members for NASA's second Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) mission and will train to spend up to 378 days inside a simulated Mars habitat at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Selected from about 8,000 applicants, Marie will begin training next week and said she will prepare as if she were part of the primary crew. The mission’s main team of four — Ross Elder, Ellen Ellis, Matthew Montgomery and James Spicer — are set to enter the Mars Dune Alpha habitat on Oct. 19. As alternates, Marie and one other participant will replace any primary crew member who withdraws before or during the simulation.

The CHAPEA program is designed to replicate conditions expected on Mars to gather data on how long-duration surface missions could affect astronauts’ physical health, cognitive performance and behavioral health. The analog habitat, called Mars Dune Alpha, is a 158-square-metre (about 1,700-square-foot) 3D-printed structure built with a proprietary concrete mix referred to as "lavacrete." It is intended to be "as Mars-realistic as feasible," NASA said, and to subject participants to environmental stressors such as resource limitations, isolation, equipment failures and heavy workloads.

Inside the sealed facility, crews will perform activities that mirror anticipated Mars surface operations, including simulated spacewalks augmented by virtual reality, communications under a delayed timeline, crop growth experiments using a vertical farm, meal preparation from prepackaged and fresh-grown foods, exercise, maintenance tasks and scientific work. The habitat has basic amenities—kitchen facilities, two bathrooms, a shower and a recreational area—but no exterior windows, so occupants will receive vitamin D supplements. An airlock opens onto an indoor reconstruction of a Martian surface with red sand and scattered equipment such as a weather station, a brick-making machine and a small greenhouse.

Each participant in the CHAPEA mission is compensated at a reported rate of $10 for every waking hour spent inside the base, an amount that has been publicized as roughly $60,000 for the full duration. The first CHAPEA deployment ran from June 2023 through July 2024 and provided data that NASA expects will inform preparation for eventual human missions to Mars.

Marie, from Devon in southwest England, emigrated to the United States in 2016 and holds a BA in philosophy and an MSc in aeronautics. She told The Guardian she was drawn to the opportunity after following the initial mission and that she will miss outdoor experiences such as "feeling the wind in my hair" and "the smell of grass" while inside the simulated, airless environment. "With science, you can't just do something once," she said. Marie also described her readiness for the social demands of the mission after a 13-month selection process that emphasized interpersonal compatibility.

NASA has said the analog will also test how to adapt food systems and other technologies for Mars. The habitat includes fitness equipment such as a rowing machine and a treadmill on which volunteers walk while suspended in straps to approximate Mars’ lower gravity. The program’s aim is to produce empirical data on how crews cope with prolonged confinement, altered daily rhythms and communication delays that would separate Mars surface explorers from real-time mission control.

Interest in human missions to Mars is grounded in both technological planning and scientific findings about the planet’s past environment. Studies using orbital data have indicated that liquid water persisted on Mars far later than once suspected; research published in 2022 found chloride salt deposits that suggest surface water flowed as recently as about 2 billion years ago, extending the timeline for potentially habitable conditions in Mars’ past.

NASA plans three CHAPEA missions in total. The agency said lessons from these analogs will help refine operational concepts, life-support strategies and behavioral-health interventions needed for sustained human presence on the Red Planet. Marie said she remains open to participating in future real missions if opportunities arise, calling human expansion beyond Earth "where we're heading," and expressing eagerness to contribute to the research that will shape that effort.