As NASA plans to go back to the Moon and eventually journey to Mars, a lot of energy is going into most dust mitigation so that tiny, sharp dust stays away from humans, and into figuring out how to build suits that allow astronauts to explore safely and easily. One of our big concerns with Mars is radiation, and one of the best ways to escape radiation is to live and work inside a lava tube. 

To this end, researchers have donned spacesuits to explore Hawaiian lava tubes to figure out what is and isn’t possible and what problems need to be solved. This research is being presented at the European Geosciences Union’s meeting this week by Bernard Foing. According to researcher Michaela Musilova: Doing research in suits under EVA constraints makes everything much more difficult to do, and it all takes three times longer. 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. 

This is your reminder that for every great accomplishment off the Earth, there have been countless hours of development, testing, and training here on Earth, both in giant pools and in high desert environments; testing and training done by folks whose names are rarely mentioned, and whose faces are hidden in these amazing helmets.

More Information

EGU press release

“Simulating lava tube exploration research during analog lunar and Martian missions at HI-SEAS in Hawaii,” Michaela Musilova, Bernard Foing, and Henk Rogers, 2021 April 19-30, EGU General Assembly 2021