On the way to Mars, or almost. Students from the Isae-Supaéro engineering school in Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, will spend four weeks starting Monday in the Utah desert in the United States. This trip should allow them to experience the conditions of life on Mars.
There are a total of seven French students who will live this experience this Monday. For a month, they will live in a specially designed base in the Midwestern United States to replicate living conditions on the Red Planet.
“The interest of the Utah desert is that it recreates quite well not only the Martian geology, but also the atmospheric conditions,” explains Marie Delaroche, one of the participating students, to BFMTV.
Space suit and freeze-dried food
On the program: live the daily life of astronauts, as if the students themselves were on Mars. “We will go out in space suits during extravehicular sorties. We will also eat freeze-dried food (dehydrated editor’s note)”, explains Corentin Senaux to our camera.
It’s not about unemployment. During this stay, the students will have a “strict schedule”, according to the student. Your tasks are already set. Among them, many “requests from researchers”, says Alexandre Vinas, student-participant.
“There is a real scientific challenge on this mission,” he says.
Manage “promiscuity”
This trip will also be a human experience for the students who are preparing to live in a group for several weeks. “Promiscuity is not necessarily something that I have already experienced”, acknowledges Alexandre Vinas.
“Being seven in a very small space can generate tensions and conflicts” that will have to be learned to “manage”, he believes.
This stay should allow students, some of whom want to become astronauts, to confirm their ambition and, who knows, follow in the footsteps of Thomas Pesquet.
Source: BFM TV
