LIVE: NASA Crew Completes 378-Day Simulated Mars Mission

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Vanessa White, Director of NASA's Johnson Space Center. Thank you all for joining us today as we celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of the Chapia Mission 2. What an incredible day this is. 378 days ago, 378 days ago, Ross Elder, Ellen Ellis, James Spicer, and Matthew Montgomery stepped inside this 3D-printed Mars habitat to begin a mission like no other. For more than a year, they have lived in an isolated environment conducting critical research and helping us better understand what it will take to send humans to Mars. Inside just 1,700 square feet, they managed to live with limited resources, they maintained their habitat, they grew crops, and they carried out simulated Mars operations. They have also navigated communicating with Earth from the Red Planet. These delays required patience, careful planning, and greater independence, qualities that would be essential for future astronauts traveling millions of miles from home. Their work means more than completing a mission. It is about preparing for the challenges of human exploration beyond Earth, gathering the knowledge we need to protect crew health and performance, and paving the way for missions to the Moon and one day, Mars. To the families joining us today, thank you. Thank you for your sacrifices and your continuous support throughout this extraordinary journey. Your loved ones have spent more than a year in a confined environment, separated from the comforts of home and everyday life. Your support has been an essential part of making this mission possible. And today is a celebration for you too. I also want to extend my sincere thanks to the scientists, engineers, researchers, and support teams who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes. This mission represents an extraordinary team effort and its success would not be possible without your expertise, dedication, and commitment. Now, the moment we've been waiting for is almost here. After 378 days of living and working inside this Mars habitat, our crew is preparing to emerge and be reunited with their loved ones. I know we're all eager to see their smiling faces. When they step outside, we want to give them the warmest and loudest round of applause that we can. Do we want to practice? But before we welcome them out, please join me in welcoming NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway, who has just returned from space, to the stage as we celebrate the completion of the Chapia 2 mission. Jack? Thanks, Director White, and I appreciate being here. And I just came back from the space station, so I understand what this crew has gone through, and I'm excited to knock on the door and let them out. Take a treat. Welcome home, Ross, Ellen, Matthew, and James. I appreciate you guys being here today. Obviously, you're excited about it. I'm excited to be here with you as well. When your team entered this facility, I was still finishing flight training for my mission to the International Space Station. I went up and spent 237 days in space, came home a few weeks ago, and you guys still hadn't finished yet. So I'm excited that you guys are done now and you're ready to come home. Are you ready to hang out with your families and get back to normal life? We often joke about tight quarters and shelf-stable meals, but the reality of what you guys did here required immense physiological and psychological strength, teamwork, and human grit. Every delay you managed, every simulated spacewalk, brought humanity one step closer to the surface of Mars and the surface of the moon. But as any explorer will tell you, the largest burden, the strongest burden falls on your family. So I know all the family surrounds us here today, and I want to thank you guys from the bottom of my heart. I know my family struggles to go through our separation, and you guys do all the hard work. And we really appreciate you guys supporting us as individuals and our team at NASA as we go to explore the solar system and beyond. And so from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much. Also, to the exceptional mission control staff, nothing happens as an astronaut if you don't have the mission control team to support you and take care of you. And there are people that have been sitting in mission control for the International Space Station and for the Chapia mission that take care of all of us, make sure that our schedule is ready to go, all the procedures are ready to go and reviewed, and keep us safe. And so thanks very much to those teams that make that mission possible. Finally, it's my distinct pleasure to pass the stage to the brilliant mind who's been guiding this entire endeavor from day one. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Dr. Grace Douglas. Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Grace Douglas, the principal investigator of the Chapia Analog. It is a privilege to welcome Commander Ross Elder, Medical Officer Ellen Ellis, Flight Engineer James Spicer. And science officer Matthew Montgomery, back from Mars, and to experience their first real-time words after 378 days living with communication delays ranging from 26 to 44 minutes. At the CHAPEA mission to Ingress, my co-investigator, Dr. Suzanne Bell, said NASA exists to inspire, to explore the unknown, and to push the boundaries of what is possible. Today I would like to echo that message. Over the past year while this dedicated crew and team were hard at work with CHAPEA Mission 2, we all shared in the joy and inspiration of Artemis 2, which completed its lunar flyby and set a record for the furthest distance humans have traveled from Earth. It is important to recognize that missions like Artemis are made possible by research achievements such as those accomplished by the CHAPEA Mission 2 crew here on Earth. Many of the scientists and the engineers who are working on the CHAPEA missions also work on the Artemis and Moon base missions. These are faced with increasingly demanding resource constraints that require innovative mitigations and technological advancements. Through their operational work, these experts identify the greatest risks to human spaceflight under these severe resource restrictions and develop strategies to address them. Many of these challenges mirror those that are becoming critical on Earth. The advancements that enable human space exploration are at the forefront of solving the same problems for people on Earth. The CHAPEA missions were designed by these same experts to enable integrated testing of potential mitigations to ensure we understand the interaction between each resource allocation, crew health, performance, and the ability to achieve exploration mission objectives. As we celebrate this milestone achievement of Ross, Ellen, James, and Matthew, I want to reflect on just how significant their accomplishment is to the future of human spaceflight. The Chapia Mission 2 crew tested high fidelity operational scenarios such as frequent and lengthy surface exploration and science activities under demanding constraints to better understand human limits and requirements of future exploration missions. The invaluable data that Ross, Ellen, James, and Matthew collected will help enable NASA programs to make informed decisions about trade-offs between human risks and resource allocations, including crew time, communications bandwidth, and food and water system designs. The results will also identify key areas where new technologies and capabilities are still needed and prioritize tests that need to be done by the astronauts in space to help accelerate the advancement of human missions. I want to congratulate all four of you on your tremendous achievements and express my deepest gratitude to you and to your families and all of your friends who supported these endeavors and also made the sacrifice to contribute to the goals of human exploration. I am honored to have worked alongside this remarkable crew and the investigators, scientists, engineers, mission control team, and support staff whose dedication made this mission possible. I also want to thank the NASA programs, including the Human Research Program that supported this critical work, as well as all of you who share our excitement and commitment for the future of space exploration. Thank you. For the moment, okay, now for the moment you've all been waiting for, I want to introduce Commander Ross Elder. Good afternoon, everybody. For those in the near future who make the perilous trek to Mars, heed this caution. Experiences on Mars may vary. But also take our word on this. There will be times when the souls will be a slog and others a mere blip, and often both. And this should be of no surprise. To quote the great Joe Lindgren at the Egress of Crew 1, the path to Mars is beset with challenges. And it is a subset of those challenges that the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog has sought to overcome. For Mars, the risks are great. But through seeking understanding, strong vision and leadership, creativity, fortitude, hard work, and an incredible foundation. The goal of putting humans on Mars is not only achievable, but rather inevitable. While our current events knowledge might have been a bit time delayed over the past year, we have nonetheless been witness to the exceptional accomplishments by everyone here at NASA to drive science, discovery, and human spaceflight forward at an accelerating pace. While in our own mission, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched and continues its journey to explore the universe beyond our solar system. We watched and admired the Artemis II crew make their stellar journey around the Moon, setting the stage for the next space race, to return to the Moon, build the Moon base, and continue onward to Mars. I hear we're planning to make some more X-planes too, and perhaps some of which I could fly one day if they'll let me. These miraculous achievements lay the foundation for long-duration deep space exploration. Missions like CHAPEA help place another brick or two of that foundation with a heavy focus on the human element. And the countermeasures needed to survive the unforgiving red planet. And I can say for both myself and the crew that we are absolutely humbled and proud to have contributed to the colossal undertaking that will both end and begin again with putting the first humans on Mars. I truly hope that our findings will help lower the risk and move the ball forward towards that inevitable. I would like to give a special thanks to all of those in attendance today, to include our world-traveling family and friends, the administration and guest speakers. The large cross-disciplinary teams that have painstakingly built and supported CHAPEA and all the viewers and supporters tuning in online. But first to the crew, you have my sincerest admiration. What incredibly capable individuals you are. But the real magic has been the privilege and pleasure of seeing you all come together with the makings of one of the finest teams I've ever been a part of. So thank you. To our families and friends, thank you for your unwavering support. The sacrifices you've also made for this mission and all of the emailed communication that helped carry us through the slightly longer days and nights. I wholeheartedly appreciate every thoughtful effort you made throughout the mission. To the administration and to Jack, thank you for taking the time to be here today and say a few words, especially since Jack has barely been back to Earth himself. To the CHAPEA team, none of these efforts were possible or could have been led to such success without the years of dedication to the cause. Every activity and inch of our learning laboratory echoed your commitment, service, and sacrifice. Thank you for allowing us to play a part in your vision and trusting us to seek out understanding. Lastly, to the viewers online, in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night. We would not have lasted a week without the hard work of hundreds of people across many different teams, not just here at NASA Johnson, but at various different... Uh, um, um. NASA sites and locations around the country and not just over the past year while we've been on our mission but for many years before that during the planning phase. This extraordinary team worked extremely hard to make sure that our our year spent on simulated Mars was as close to the real thing as possible and this realism extended all the way up until the end of the mission just now. As Jack knows, when you come back to Earth from long-duration spaceflight, it can be challenging to readjust to the gravity, and it can even be challenging to walk sometimes. So a special thank you to the exercise team here at NASA Johnson, who only a couple of hours ago scheduled me with lunges, squats, and deadlifts to ensure that I, too, can have the space-realistic experience of struggling to walk when I get back to Earth. Thank you, of course, to the multitude of friends and family. who have supported us this year and been very patient and understanding with the time delay and with the situation. Cumulatively, my friends and family have sent me over 4,000 emails this year which acted as a lifeline. Thank you for all those watching online and thank you for those who've traveled to Houston today for this event. Most importantly, thank you to the three best crew members that anybody could have wanted in a year on simulated We have shown together that... Laugh and have a great time. while doing so. You have made spending a year on Mars not a chore, but a joy. So that's about all from me. We're extremely excited to get outside and experience the sunlight for the first time in over a year, and alternatively, depending on the forecast, we're excited to get outside and experience a torrential downpour for the first time in over a year. Thank you. Okay, first of all, I'd like to say this is an impossible proposition, summarizing a year-long experience on the simulated surface of Mars in three or four minutes with my husband, who I haven't seen in a year, standing right there, because there's nothing I want to do more than hug that man. Thank you. But thank yous are in order, so I'll get right to them. To my family and friends from around the world, thank you for your support and encouragement. Each email was a tether to normalcy. And although my feet were in regolith, colloquially known as sand, you were never that far from my thoughts. To my mom, dad, and Andy, thank you for your love, support, and guidance. I hit the parent jackpot with you guys. Thank you. Steve, honey, I knew I would miss you. I had no idea how hard you would work to keep us connected. The digital care packages, the countdown timer you coded, you've been my rock. And after a year of geology study, I know with confidence that you are igneous, made tougher by time, and infinitely precious to me. To my crewmates, it's been a hell of a year. Analog astronauts living in captivity of our own free will, through it all your professionalism, teamwork and camaraderie were more than I could have hoped for. You supported me more than I anticipated and we laughed more than I expected. Ross, your steadfast leadership and mission focus kept our team motivated and constantly improving. To me there's no better hallmark of a great leader. I would follow you to Mars and back. Our flight engineer extraordinaire and resident data scientist, thank you for keeping our HAB systems running smoothly. I'm excited to see what the future holds for you. I'd love to see you contributing to the moon base or future ISS design. Your expertise is invaluable. Matt, thank you for sharing your technical knowledge and problem solving skills. You are a huge asset to this team. You were the Swiss army knife of crew mates and a fun guy. When I look back on the mission, the most salient point I've learned is that a future Mars crew requires a highly integrated ground team. Their job will be made easier and safer through the diligent teamwork and collaboration of exercise, behavioral health, nutrition, and medical monitors to each of those teams that supported us over the past year. Thank you. Finally, to friends and colleagues in the Space Force, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the broader space community, thank you for supporting my participation in this mission. General Povak, Ms. Richards, and Mr. Ingram, I would not be here without your support. Thank you for recognizing the value in contributing to long-duration human space flight. We have a narrowing window of opportunity to maintain U.S. preeminence in space. That strategic vantage will only be preserved through deliberate action. NASA's Moon Base, the National Space Academy, they create opportunity. Let's seize the initiative, lead with science that will benefit our economy, and ensure our legacy in space for our children's children. The Space Force will be guarding the high frontier. Semper Supra. Thank you. Fourth after everyone's always a task with this group. I think listening to the four of us, you really get a flavor of what... Our sort of crew dynamics have been over the year. Each of us brings a slightly different lens to the problem, but there's always a common thread throughout. It's been a pretty cool year seeing each of us bring these approaches to different situations and then melding those together into something better, individually brought ourselves. I think it's been an immense source of our strength as a crew, and I think it also really gets to the heart of what Chapia is. It's about crew performance and human performance. I came into this mission thinking a lot about how it's easy to get caught up in the science and technology of a mission and kind of forget about the human aspects, but it's really the people that make exploration possible. We're here for human spaceflight, so to all the people that made this mission possible, I'm sincerely thankful. I'm proud and humbled to have been a part of this amazing crew. Thank you all for sharing your knowledge, this experience, and for all that you've taught me. Thank you to the entire Chapia team, JSC, and the administration whose support carried us through this mission. Specifically, I'd like to thank Grace and Sarah for their leadership that's driven Chapia forward and will continue to. Thank you to all the subject matter expert teams that prepared us before the mission and guided us throughout. Thank you to MCC and the safety console operators who spent many long hours monitoring us. It's a truly grinding task, but it's appreciated. I also want to say thank you to our IT teams. Those are the unsung heroes of this mission. They've made many contributions, and I don't think IT really sums up what they did. It really made the lived experience possible. Missions also like this, long-duration ones, aren't accomplished without the support and sacrifice of our friends and family. Thank you to my partner Margot, my parents, all my friends, and extended family for their support. It's also important to remember that missions like this ultimately aren't about us and the here and now. It's about where we're going and how we'll get there. This research will further the foundation built by Mission One, and it will also prime the path for future analog missions and the research to come. I'm excited by the new era of human spaceflight before us. I look forward to the return of people to the moon, the establishment of the moon base, and further exploration of Mars. Humans on Mars are not a dream. It's an inevitable reality, as long as we all keep working towards it. Thank you all again. I'd like to invite Sarah up. She is the HRP Analog Research Integration Scientist. Thank you, Matt. As Matt said, I'm Dr. Sarah Whiting. I'm the project scientist for Chapia, working alongside the crew as well as all the scientists kind of helping to organize and make this mission possible. As the crew themselves and Dr. Douglas and Vanessa and Jack all summarized, this mission really highlights just how timely and important this data is for NASA, especially as we're looking to make data-driven decisions and plans for moon base. So crew... Despite your communications delay, your timing is impeccable. This is really the now moment for this kind of data, and I'm really excited and proud of this team for accomplishing that. Even though Chapia is a spaceflight analog, meaning that it's an approximation of a spaceflight mission instead of a real flight mission, in some ways being an analog crew is even more difficult than being a spaceflight crew, because you're doing it the first time. You are among the very first people trying these hard things, doing these hard things, facing these hard things, and teaching us the lessons we need to learn to actually fly it. This crew accomplished 378 days of continuously testing the boundaries of human space flight. They tested earth independent operations without any real-time guidance from from mission control, a high tempo and physically demanding mission timeline, Limited resources like food, water, tools, even data bandwidth was limited to like dial-up speeds, right? But most critically, they got no relief. They got no crew exchange like we normally do on the ISS. They did it all themselves. That's huge. These are very, very challenging conditions to try to accomplish in a flight mission. Trying to do these types of things on the ISS is very, very hard. And that's why we at NASA, in the Human Research Program at NASA, do flight analogs like this. To first test it on the ground, to learn the important lessons we know, to learn the important lessons that we need to know, to then fly it and make it a reality on Moon Base. Ross, Matthew, Ellen, and James volunteered for this mission. They sacrificed over a year of their incredibly impressive lives and careers to support NASA's objectives. Equally notable to that, though, is that behind all of them were all of you. The extraordinary people, the families, the friends, the colleagues, the professional leaders behind these individuals that made this mission possible. Not only did this crew volunteer to make this possible, you all did too. Thank you. On behalf of NASA, thank you. Please give it up one more time for your Chapia Mission 2 crew, Ross, Ellen, Matthew, and James. Congratulations.