• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

Scientists don spacesuits to explore Hawaiian lava tubes as if they were on Mars

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
April 28, 2021
in Science News
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
ADVERTISEMENT
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: HI-SEAS

MUNICH — Imagine trying to pick up a pebble or scrape microbes off a cave wall in a bulky spacesuit with puffy gloves on, under a time constraint because you don’t want to run out of oxygen. That’s what the analog astronauts do daily at the HI-SEAS moonbase habitat in Hawaii as they prepare for future missions to the moon and Mars, says Michaela Musilova of the International MoonBase Alliance (IMA) and director of HI-SEAS, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation.

Musilova will present the latest on her team’s research on Hawaiian lava tubes, and the challenges of trying to do research in spacesuits, this week at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2021.

HI-SEAS is an analog lunar and Martian habitat and research station located high on the volcano Mauna Loa, on Hawaii’s Big Island. There, researchers live and work for days to months at a time, only going outside to perform experiments or clamber about in lava tubes, and only in their hefty Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) analog spacesuits just as they would if they were on the moon or Mars. The 110-square-metre (1,200-square-foot) habitat is the astronauts’ home, gym, lab–and everything else–while they’re on a “mission.”

Lava tubes, like those found on Mauna Loa, are important to explore in these EVA spacesuits, because lava tubes on Mars and the moon will also be important to explore. Lava tubes on Mars are crucial targets for research into astrobiology as they are thought to hold biosignatures of life, much like caves and some lava tubes on Earth do. Meanwhile, lava tubes on the moon may serve as shelters for potential human settlements. But lava tubes are not easy to explore–and that’s especially the case for analog astronauts in spacesuits.

“Doing research in suits under EVA constraints makes everything much more difficult to do, and it all takes three times longer,” Musilova says. “We need to train extensively on Earth to figure out the best methods and create the best EVA suits so that we’ll be able to perform this kind of research on the moon and Mars one day,” she says.

The volcanic landscape of Mauna Loa is similar to what we see on the moon and Mars, says Bernard Foing, executive director of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group EuroMoonMars project. Foing is also part of IMA and will present research from the EuroMoonMars project explorations at HI-SEAS and several other sites, including Iceland, Chile’s Atacama Desert, and the Utah desert, at the EGU meeting during the same session on Wednesday, 28 April. These analog locations allow the team “to test technologies we can send to space” and to test “training and capacity building for researchers and explorers,” Foing says.

The HI-SEAS crewmembers–future astronaut candidates in training–are trying to figure out what works, and what doesn’t work, here on Earth to prepare for future space missions. A crew at HI-SEAS runs a mission just like they would in space: crew roles include a commander, operations officer, engineer, and science communication officer, plus specialists for particular experiments or projects, like crew biologists to test for biofilms in lava tubes or to help run experiments like the recent LettuceGrow experiment, in which the team tested ways to grow lettuce inside the habitat.

Crew members, including people from all over the world from varying backgrounds and speaking different languages, spend all their time together during the mission, just as they would on the moon or Mars, Musilova says. “There is so much we still need to learn, including about how humans interact under these challenging conditions,” she says.

###

Media Contact
Terri Cook
[email protected]

Original Source

https://egu.eu/9FEEQM/

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-14600

Tags: AstronomyEarth ScienceEcology/EnvironmentFood/Food ScienceGeographyK-12Planets/MoonsSatellite Missions/ShuttlesSpace/Planetary Science
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

ChatGPT’s Potential in Stated-Calorie Diet Planning

ChatGPT’s Potential in Stated-Calorie Diet Planning

July 8, 2025
Key Amino Acid Changes Attenuate Yellow Fever Vaccine

Key Amino Acid Changes Attenuate Yellow Fever Vaccine

July 8, 2025

Giardia Triggers Type 2 Immunity That Reduces Gut Inflammation

July 8, 2025

Microbiome Cell-Free RNA Differentiates Colorectal Cancer

July 8, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Zheng-Rong Lu

    Pancreatic Cancer Vaccines Eradicate Disease in Preclinical Studies

    75 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • Enhancing Broiler Growth: Mannanase Boosts Performance with Reduced Soy and Energy

    72 shares
    Share 29 Tweet 18
  • AI Achieves Breakthrough in Drug Discovery by Tackling the True Complexity of Aging

    69 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 17
  • New Organic Photoredox Catalysis System Boosts Efficiency, Drawing Inspiration from Photosynthesis

    54 shares
    Share 22 Tweet 14

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

ChatGPT’s Potential in Stated-Calorie Diet Planning

Key Amino Acid Changes Attenuate Yellow Fever Vaccine

Giardia Triggers Type 2 Immunity That Reduces Gut Inflammation

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.