Going where no high schooler has gone before -- Mars
Nov. 11—Micah Callaham, a 17-year-old from Lewiston, recently returned from the red planet Mars.
Well, not quite.
Callaham, along with six other students, spent a week in October at the Mars Desert Research Station in Hanksville, Utah, as part of the NASA Spaceward Bound program.
It was the program's first year and opened the facility to high school students. It was funded by a grant, but students had to pay for some supplies and travel.
The research station is where professional astronauts go to simulate life on Mars — they live in an airlocked habitat, and to go outside into the red desert that provides a Mars aesthetic, astronauts wear space suits. Callaham and the other students did all that on a smaller scale, learning about what it would be like to live on Mars.
"There's a lot of people who believe in this and want to see it through, so it was really cool for him to be a part of this first high school crew," said Brenna Collom, Callaham's mom.
Callaham has always been interested in space travel and colonizing planets. The high school junior attends Tech Trep Academy online and found out about the Spaceward Bound program through the school and submitted an application.
"The whole idea of being an analog astronaut as a high schooler was intriguing," Callaham said. "I was interested in what the experience would be like living in simulation."
Collom said her son keeps up with current events in space and technology. When Elon Musk announced places for his company, SpaceX, to colonize Mars, Micah said "Mom, I'm gonna do that," she said.
"It definitely fuels your imagination thinking of civilization beyond Earth," Callaham said.
Although there are many aspects of life on Mars that an Earth simulation can't copy, the Mars Desert Research Station tries to duplicate as many as they can. For example, participants have to depressurize when returning from "extravehicular activities," the term for doing work outside the facility.
It also simulates the day-to-day operations astronauts would have. The students woke up at the same time and divided chores and had an adult commander in charge. Each student had a specific role; Callaham was the health and safety officer, and had to check vitals on the students every day. They met once a day to discuss different ideas about colonizing Mars.
When astronauts come to the facility, they work on research projects. Although the students offered suggestions for future research, they mostly did geology. They went on hikes on the red surface of Earth looking at the geological features of the desert.
"It definitely feels and looks like Mars," Callaham said. "There's little to no grass around the station and it's just all these rocky hills and cliffs and sandstone."
Callaham is hoping to return to the program next year and this time do his own research. He suggested an aquaponics system, a hydro system that has plants and fish feeding each other, or growing plants on the walls. Those ideas would provide astronauts with fresh food rather than dehydrated meals.
The dehydrated food was difficult to get used to and enjoy. Callaham lost five pounds at the facility because the food only provides the nutrients astronauts need and not extra calories.
"At first it was kinda like 'oh this is interesting, this is new' and then it was like 'oh,' " Callaham said about the dehydrated food. When he left the research station and flew home, he was busy catching flights so he missed a few meals.
"That was the first thing I did when I got home. I opened up the fridge and started eating anything I could see," Callaham said. "It wasn't the prettiest sight."
Other than food, Callaham also had to adjust to living with strangers for a week in close quarters. The students had to divide up chores and figure out who was doing what job. Eventually, they figured out a system based on what people liked to do.
"At first, I'm not gonna lie, it was really difficult to try and mingle with people who are really talkative and wanted to overplan everything," Callaham said, versus others who were quieter and offered little input. However, they found a balance with the different personalities of students as well.
The students did have some down time and the facility had Wi-Fi so they could text family back home, but not make calls. That part was to simulate the Mars experience, but was modified to allow some communication for parents' peace of mind.
Callaham's mom was grateful for that communication, even though it was limited and difficult to not to hear from her son all the time.
"I also wanted a ton of pictures and I wanted to know what he was doing. He didn't have that type of communication," Collom said. "I would get an 'I'm good.' "
Even if Callaham had the ability to phone home, he was exhausted at the end of each day. He volunteered to go out on research activities every day, which meant hikes with heavy space suit equipment.
Before Callaham went to the research station, he also attended the Mars Society Convention in Tempe, Ariz. He made connections there talking with Robert Zurbin, president of the Mars Society. Callaham's read books about Mars that Zurbin wrote and enjoyed the experience of being able to meet him. He also made a friend with a 17-year-old student from Hungary who has a company that builds dietary plans for astronauts.
While the simulation provided some hands-on experience of what life on Mars would be like, the convention offered other ideas on how to colonize the planet, how society would function and the potential future of what living on Mars could look like.
When people talk about living on Mars, there are three colors that categorize the ideologies of how to do it based on a book series by Kim Stanley Robinson. There is red Mars, which represents having people on the planet doing research with modules spread out all over. Then there's green Mars, which is building a sustainable and interconnected city for people to live on the planet. The final one is blue Mars, which symbolizes terraforming Mars to turn it into an Earth-like planet.
"I think I lean more green because I think that's possible and also the goal," Callaham said, but he's also interested in red Mars, the research side.
The people at the Mars Society are all over the spectrum with ideas for Mars and that includes the people driving the technology. Companies like SpaceX wants to get to the planet and eventually build a sustainable city, like the green Mars ideology. NASA's plan is more like the red Mars philosophy — they're using a methodological approach to create a step-by-step plan to get to Mars for research purposes.
"I think that's what people don't realize is (that) those big companies like SpaceX will go forward and (NASA) will, even with its size, will probably fall back just because of how they are choosing to do things," Callaham said. "Which isn't bad, but if you look at when we went to the moon, there was a focus, there was a drive. (NASA) really didn't have any other projects, they were just focused on the moon and getting there."
Callaham thinks that going to Mars is a possibility, but it's going to take coordination and focus to bring ideas together to make it happen. Right now, there's a lot of ideas, but not the collaboration.
"He definitely came back a lot more focused from his experience," Collom said. "Before this, he was just 'Oh I want to colonize. I want to be one of the first colonizers.' But this experience kinda put a pin — he's a little more cautious now."
Callaham isn't sure if he wants to be part of the colonization, but he does want to be part of the effort to colonize Mars by building the technology to get there.
"I don't know if I could be one of the first people on Mars, maybe. I'm definitely up for it and willing to sacrifice and struggle a little bit, but it's more the people because I think that's going to be the big challenge," Callaham said about finding the right team of people who can cooperate together and be willing to abandon life on Earth for Mars.
To get started on the journey to Mars, he's applied to the Idaho Science and Aerospace program this summer and is looking for opportunities to learn more and network with people. For now, he can say he's gone where no other high schooler has gone before — Mars on Earth.
Brewster may be contacted at kbrewster@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2297.
