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NASA Seeking Motivated Volunteers to Live on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover snaps a self-portrait at a site called Vera Rubin Ridge on the Martian surface in February 2018. (NASA via Reuters)
NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover snaps a self-portrait at a site called Vera Rubin Ridge on the Martian surface in February 2018. (NASA via Reuters)
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NASA Seeking Motivated Volunteers to Live on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover snaps a self-portrait at a site called Vera Rubin Ridge on the Martian surface in February 2018. (NASA via Reuters)
NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover snaps a self-portrait at a site called Vera Rubin Ridge on the Martian surface in February 2018. (NASA via Reuters)

NASA is seeking “highly motivated individuals” to live in 3D-printed simulated Mars habitats as it prepares to send humans to the Red Planet as soon as 2037. NASA said it is looking for a few good men and women to help it progress in its plan to send humans to Mars by 2037.

According to The Daily mail, the US space agency is seeking “highly motivated individuals” to participate in year-long Mars surface simulation, where they will live a 1,700-square-foot module 3D-printed by ICON, called Mars Dune Alpha.

The program consists of three simulations, with the first starting in 2022, and each will see four crew members spend the 365 days completely isolated in the mock habitats of the Red Planet.

The habitat will simulate the challenges of a mission on Mars, including resource limitations, equipment failure, communication delays, and other environmental stressors, NASA shared in the announcement.

Crew tasks may include simulated spacewalks, scientific research, use of virtual reality and robotic controls, and exchanging communications. The results will provide important scientific data to validate systems and develop solutions. Applications have opened and will run through September 12, 2021.

Those interested in participating must be within the ages of 30 to 55, possess a master’s degree in a STEM field and have at least two years of related professional experience.

Individuals will have to pass the NASA long-duration flight astronaut simulation and are required to have a COVID-19 vaccination, reads the application website. But they won’t end up going to the actual Red Planet when a mission, with that honor initially reserved for highly-trained astronauts.

The habitats will be constructed at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and will include workstations, medical facilities and a place to grow food. The missions aim to provide valuable insights and information to assess NASA’s space food system, as well as physical and behavioral health and performance outcomes for future space missions.

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Berliners Jump into the Spree River to Show It’s Clean Enough for Swimming 

People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)
People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)
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Berliners Jump into the Spree River to Show It’s Clean Enough for Swimming 

People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)
People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)

A century after the city of Berlin banned swimming in the Spree River because it was so polluted it could make people sick, there's a push by swimmers to get back into the water.

Around 200 people jumped into the slow-moving, greenish water Tuesday to show that it's not only clean enough, but also lots of fun to splash and swim in the Mitte neighborhood along the world-famous Museum Island.

A group calling itself Fluss Bad Berlin, or River Pool Berlin, has been lobbying for years to open the meandering river for swimmers again.

“For 100 years now, people have not been allowed to swim in the inner-city Spree and we no longer think this is justified, because we can show that the water quality is usually good enough to go swimming during the season,” said Jan Edler, who is on the board of Fluss Bad Berlin and helped organize Tuesday's swim-in.

To circumvent the ban, the group registered their collective swim event as an official protest.

Standing on a little staircase that leads down to the Spree canal, which flows around the southern side of the island, Edler stressed that “we want the people to use the Spree for recreation again.”

He pointed to the fact that the river has been cleaned up thoroughly, and that the water quality has improved in the last decade and is constantly being monitored.

Even city officials in the central Mitte district of Berlin say they'd be interested in introducing river swimming again in 2026.

“There are still many things that need to be clarified, but I am optimistic that it can succeed,” district city councilor Ephraim Gothe told German news agency dpa recently.

Supporters of lifting the swimming ban also point at Paris, where the Seine River was opened up for swimmers for the Olympic Games last year and will be opened this summer for Parisians. Swimming there had been banned since 1923.

In Vienna, too, water lovers can splash into the Danube River canal, in the Swiss city of Basel they can bathe in the Rhine, and in Amsterdam there are some designated areas where people can plunge into the canals.

Only in Berlin, swimming has been continuously prohibited in the Spree since May 1925, when the German capital closed all traditional river pools because the water was deemed too toxic. Some of those pools weren't only used for recreational swimming, but were a place for poor people to wash themselves if they didn't have bathrooms at home.

These days, the water is clean on most days, except when there's heavy rain, which leads to some water pollution.

Allowing swimmers to dive into the river would also mean loosening the historical monument protection on some parts of the riverbanks to install easy access ways to the water and places for lifeguards.

Another problem is the busy boat traffic on the Spree that could endanger swimmers. However, for the time being, the Fluss Bad Berlin group only wants to open up nearly 2-kilometer-long (just over a mile-long) canal where there's no boat traffic.

For what it's worth, the German capital, a city of 3.9 million, could definitely need more places where people can cool off in the summer as regular outdoor pools tend to be hopelessly overcrowded on hot summer days.

“The cities are getting hotter,” Edler said. “It's also a question of environmental justice to create offers for people who just can’t make it out of the city when it’s so hot and can enjoy themselves in the countryside.”