Expanding Possibilities in Off-Earth Living

Space Analog for the Moon and Mars (SAM) is the latest project securing the place of the University of Arizona among the vanguard of institutions expanding possibilities in long-term, off-Earth human habitation.

Built around UArizona’s 1987 prototype Biosphere 2 Test Module, SAM will present many of the thorny challenges intrinsic to closed-system living as it attempts something never yet achieved: a transition from mechanical solutions like those in NASA’s International Space Station to plant-based life support.

SAM will be available to researchers around the world and already has a queue of projects slated to start early in 2023.

Up to four people can stay in situ from a week to a few months, and each team chooses its degree of off-world simulation, such as external communication delays matched to light travel time from Earth to Mars.

It was also important to SAM co-lead and director of research Kai Staats that the facility welcome writers, musicians, and other artists.

“That’s part of the human experience,” Staats says. “Stories are told generation to generation, millennia to millennia, through artists. We need that perspective on the human experience as much as we need the data.”