Houston, we have a podcast.

Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center Episode 295, a year

on Mars.

I'm Gary Jordan.

I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, astronauts, ultimately,

you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more.

Four humans are going to Mars.

Well, sort of.

Four individuals are about to embark on a year-long analog mission in a habitat right here

on Earth that will simulate, very closely, what it would be like to live on Mars.

The analog mission is called Chapea, or crew health and performance exploration analog.

And more so than a technology demonstration, or a human Mars mission dress rehearsal, the

primary purpose of this study is human research, a deep study into understanding what life

would be like if you had to be there for a full year.

On this episode, we were able to sit down with the full Chapea mission crew to gauge their

thoughts a few days ahead of their first day in the analog.

Now I know you're excited to hear from the crew, but to help kick us off, we brought

in Chapea Deputy Project Manager here at the Johnson Space Center, Reina Infante.

Reina describes the engineering behind the place that will be their home for the next year.

We'll talk Chapea science on an upcoming episode.

So with that, let's chat with Reina Infante and then the Chapea crew ahead of their year-long

...