Auditioning for Life on Mars – The Wall Street Journal

Zonked out by Earth? Is the day-to-day on this Pale Blue Dot reducing you to exasperation and exhaustion?

I’m right there with you. These past few years have been a lot. A global pandemic treads on, political rancor continues, social media’s a nasty free-for-all, the great Roger Federer just bailed out of the U.S. Open with a knee injury, and the start of college football season is still a week away.

It’s enough to leave anyone on edge.

Here’s the good news: Mars is taking applications.

Hold up…. I don’t mean actual Mars, the red planet/Elon Musk future HQ tens of millions of miles from earth. I’m talking about NASA’s earthbound Hogwarts for Mars, the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, or CHAPEA. According to the space agency’s website, this coming simulator program will be “a step toward Mars”—“a series of analog missions that will simulate yearlong stays on the surface of Mars.”