Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 308, Mars Audio Log, number two. I'm Gary Jordan. I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we're bringing in the experts, scientists, engineers, astronauts,

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

We're back with another audio log from the Chapea Crew. Chapea, or Crew Health and Performance

Exploration Analog, is a year-long analog mission in a habitat right here on Earth

that is simulating very closely what it would be like to live on Mars. We're lucky enough to

have monthly check-ins with the crew, Commander Kelly Hastin, Flight Engineer Ross Brockwell,

Medical Officer Nathan Jones, and Science Officer Anka Salariu. Now as much as we'd like to have

live interviews with them, they are simulating what it would be like on Mars. So video interviews,

phone conversations are really any form of communicating with Earth while on the red planet

will be significantly delayed. Any information sent at the speed of light

takes somewhere on the order of 3 to 23 minutes one way, depending on relative distance between

Earth and Mars as they orbit the Sun. This makes a two-way conversation very, very difficult.

So to meet the needs of fitting in this analog, the crew is recording an audio log based on the

questions that we have drafted for them. On this episode, we'll play the recordings of their

second month in the habitat, which is here at the NASA Johnson Space Center and was recorded in

August 2023. We'll also be bringing on a special guest to learn even more about Chapea.

You'll hear a mention of the crew performing EVAs or extra vehicular activities or spacewalks.

The crew has two ways of doing this. One is in a sandbox just like it sounds a box of simulated

Martian soil. The crew gets in a spacesuit and performs tasks. The other is in a virtual reality

simulation. On some of our recent conversations with the crew, they mentioned how much of their

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