- What book would you pack if you were isolated in a Mars habitat with three other people for 378 days?
- Some people at NASA thought one of those books should be "Blind Descent."
What book would you pack if you knew you had to live in an isolated Mars habitat for over a year?
Whatever you had in mind, it's probably not what some of the folks at NASA were thinking when they set up this nifty library at the agency's simulated Mars habitat. The 3D-printed habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, has been set up to simulate the environment in a yearlong trip to Mars, per NASA.
Four people — scientist Kelly Haston, medical officer Nathan Jones, microbiologist Anca Selariu, and engineer Ross Brockwell — entered the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, or CHAPEA, Mars Dune Alpha habitat on Sunday. And they'll remain there together in the 1,700-square-foot facility for 378 days.
Now, if the claustrophobia of being locked in a big box with three strangers for more than a year isn't already freaking you out, just wait until you hear what's in the library.
Photographed in the Mars Dune Alpha's capsule library was a book titled "Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Cave on Earth," a novel by James Tabor. In the book, Tabor documents the journeys of Bill Stone and Alexander Klimchouk, adventurers who've traversed some of the world's deepest caves.
And it's pretty terrifying.
"Both men spent months almost two vertical miles deep, contending with thousand-foot drops, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long belly crawls, and the psychological horrors produced by weeks in absolute darkness, beyond all hope of rescue," reads the book's Amazon listing.
A review of the book on Publishers Weekly is also really something.
"Holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world," reads the review.
There are other books in the capsule library, including "Space Physiology" by Jay C. Buckey, which makes sense. Also in the collection is "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni, which might be useful considering the four-people-in-a-box-for-a-year predicament.
The team will have plenty of ways to occupy their time beyond reading, too.
For one, they'll be carrying out experiments and trials to simulate future Mars explorations in a sandbox filled with red sand. These experiments include "simulated spacewalks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, personal hygiene, exercise, and crop growth," per NASA.
"The simulation will allow us to collect cognitive and physical performance data to give us more insight into the potential impacts of long-duration missions to Mars on crew health and performance," Grace Douglas, the CHAPEA project's principal investigator, said in April.
"Ultimately, this information will help NASA make informed decisions to design and plan for a successful human mission to Mars," Douglas added.
Representatives for NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.