Houston, we have a podcast.

Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 316, Mars Audio Log Number Five.

I'm Gary Jordan. I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we bring 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 log from the Chappia crew. Chappia 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 Haston, flight engineer Ross Brockwell, medical officer Nathan Jones,

and science officer Anka Salaru. To meet the needs of fitting in with this analog and

simulating significant communications delays between Earth and Mars that prohibit us from

having a live conversation, the crew is recording an audiologue based on questions that we draft for them.

On this episode, we'll play the recording of their fifth month in the Habitat, which is right here

at the NASA Johnson Space Center and was recorded in November 2023.

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

This month is on behavioral health and performance.

Of course a year on Mars is a long time, particularly in a confined space.

So researchers are looking into understanding how the Mars team performs over that length of time.

Our special guest on this episode, Dr. Suzanne Bell, is looking into these team dynamics

of a Mars crew and the behavioral health and performance.

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