Living in Mars

When fake becomes too real

It was the last day of the Mars Simulation Program.

Dr. Gibson and Dr. Whitson were in a Mars-like site on the Nevada desert for the previous 456 days. They pretended to be on Mars and did experiments, grew plants, communicated with us, and, of course, endured brutal isolation. We’re happy it was all coming to an end.

I sent an email congratulating them on completing the simulation program.

The reply from them shocked me:

“Simulation? Haha, that was one hell of a joke! Anyhow, we will blast off from Mars tomorrow as planned. See you all in six months. Bye!”

Inspired by the HI-SEAS simulation project: