Surprisingly STEM: Mars Exploration Simulation Manager

Practice makes perfect! And when sending humans all the way to Mars, you definitely want things to be perfect. That’s why NASA runs the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA), so experts -- like Project Manager Daniel Hernandez -- can simulate aspects of what living on Mars will be like without having to leave Earth. Through simulated missions in the isolated, 1,700 square foot, 3D printed habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the agency can gather data on a variety of human exploration factors, such as physical and behavioral health and performance.

What is said in the film

The best part of my job is that I get to work on the cutting edge. I get to interact with not only individuals, but hardware and science that is going to take us to the moon, to Mars, and being part of the team that is gonna get us to that next frontier, to be a part of the team that is going to make humanity really become an interplanetary species. Hi, I'm Daniel Hernandez and I am a space exploration analog project manager here at NASA. An analog is an opportunity for scientists and engineers to expand and explore their understanding of a particular environment or particular set of science-based projects before we actually introduce them into a real-life scenario. CHAPEA is a Mars-forward analog specifically focused on what we call the surface segment of a Mars mission, and that's where our Mars astronauts would be living on the surface of Mars.

We are performing this particular project because we are wanting to make sure that we are getting ready and we are prepared for long duration exploration type missions like the moon and even Mars. The significance of CHAPEA is that we have a crew that is living in isolation and confinement for the duration of a year and we hope to understand the different crew dynamics, the behavior, health, and performance of those crew members while they are living in a long term isolated and confined environment with a level of resource restrictions. As a exploration project manager, I am directly responsible for making sure that the team as a whole is collaborating, and by team, I'm talking about the scientists, engineers, and the mission control, uh, operators. I also, uh, have a responsibility to make sure that I'm managing the budget, that I'm also making sure that the project is on track and on schedule, and we, you know, have everything in place for mission success. The CHAPEA habitat is a 3D printed structure.

It is approximately 1,700 square feet, uh, so it's like, you know, the size of a, you know, small to medium sized home, and it has, you know, some similarities to a house. You know, you have the rooms where our crew members live. Uh, the difference is is that they're all identical in size to each other, but we also have a common space for our galley area where crew would commonly meet there for downtime, or that's where they have their meals. And then the largest part of our habitat is really the workroom space. And so this is where crew spends, really, a large amount of their time throughout the course of the mission where they are, um, performing different tasks and activities that we would expect a Mars crew to perform.

That's everything from growing crops to performing, uh, science and engineering activities, uh, to even exploring our simulated Martian environment as EVAs or extravehicular activities. This is our opportunity to really understand the different things that we need to start planning for, so in a nutshell, an analog is an opportunity for us to test in a very safe environment before actually moving there. As a kid, you know, I loved to tinker and take things apart just to learn why and how things worked, so everything from the family radio to the family TV. Whether that meant I could put it back together after I took it apart is a different story. My fondest memories growing up were actually, um, working under the hood of our family car with my mom, cooling alternators, and swapping things out, everything from oil changes to brake changes.

I never thought that tinkering actually was associated to engineering. Looking back at it, it had everything to do with engineering. It was an opportunity to explore my imagination, to be curious, and just really develop that understanding of how things work and why things are connected. So some advice that I would give someone that wants to work for NASA, or to even jump into the STEM field, engineering, is that no one path is linear, and I know mine wasn't. Failing is a part of the process of learning to create the products, to create the engineering marvels that we have today.

Embrace those opportunities where you fail, because it's an opportunity to improve upon yourself, make yourself better. Trust the journey that you're on. Trust the path that you're on because it's going to lead you to where you're meant to be. And...

Where this page came from

This page was imported from NASA. NASA material is generally not copyrighted and is in the public domain.

Nobody has written it yet — it is the source material at a new address, which is why search engines are asked to skip it and why no one earns from it. It is up for grabs: take it on, and it is yours to rewrite and to earn from.