An entire PS4 Games Library

Four volunteers 378 isolated days passed In a NASA simulated Martian base growing lettuce, maintaining equipment and … also spending time playing video games. The first experiment of Chapea He ended successfully in 2024, but not without surprises about how future Martian astronauts could spend their free time.

What is this about. The Chapea mission (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) locked four volunteers in Mars Dune Alpha, a 3D printed habitat of 157 square meters in Houston, Texas. The objective was to simulate the living conditions on Mars for more than a year. Anca Selariu, Nathan Jones, Ross Brockwell and Kelly Paston were the Indian bunny of this experiment that seeks to prepare future missions crew to the red planet.

Videogames: Yes. Before entering isolation, from the podcast ‘Houston We have to Podcast’ They asked To the crew how they were going to decide to spend their free time. Among the proposals given, there was one that also caught the attention: they had prepared a complete library of PS4 games. Kelly Paston, commander of the mission, explained that they had “several PS4 games” with special emphasis on world construction titles, in addition to more conventional others such as F1. The idea was to have planned activities for team nights and special celebrations.

THE OBJECTIVE: How the members spent time. For decades, NASA has studied the isolation and confinement of astronauts. Among the alternatives that astronauts have at hand in these missions, board games, books, movies, video games and other hobbies help to unrive the crew in times of continuous insulation. With regard to video games, it makes a lot of sense that the genres in which they focus on the construction of worlds are in the crew library, since they face the reality of literally building a new world on an uninhabited planet.

Hobbies of all kinds. Of course, the four volunteers have not spent the year playing. They have cultivated tomatoes and lettuce to complement their liophilized meals, have made “Martian walks” simulated in an outer enclosure with red sand, and have maintained all habitat systems. Anca Selariu, Microbiologist of the US Navy, described The experience as “absolutely stimulating” and highlighted the emotional importance of seeing green plants grow in such an artificial environment.

The experiment continues. This was only the first of the three planned chape missions. The next will begin this year and a third in 2027, all in the same installation. The data collected on the life of the members in the simulated environment will be key to design the future real Martian bases that NASA expects to establish, ambitiously, in the 2030s.

Cover image | POT

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