Children in Year 5 have been very excited to take part in The MARS Balloon Project. The aim of the project is to test anything that humans or robots will be doing on Mars in the future. Last week Miss Bastable posted the Year 5 experiments to Bristol so that they can take their place on a balloon that will be 30km up into the Earth's atmosphere to replicate many of the challenging conditions on Mars.
After lots of suggestions, children decided to investigate whether a Martian atmosphere affects battery life, knowing that any initial technology set up on Mars is likely to be reliant on battery use. They also sent some seeds, hoping to compare their growth with the control sample kept in the classroom and observe the effects of the intense pressure and low temperatures on plant growth.
The children are waiting in anticipation as they will be able to watch the launch video and see their own investigations so they had to make sure they were easy to spot...hence the decoration! Even the capsules containing the experiments look excited!
What the children had to say:
Will said: "This is an exciting experiment to see whether things that we rely on here on Earth still work on Mars where there's a completely different atmosphere. I don't think we'd be able to do this without the MARSBalloon project helping us because the technology and equipment to get the experiments 30km in the air isn't in our school yet!. We'll all be interested in seeing the results and it will be exciting to see our ideas getting tested properly!"
Morgin told us that she's keen to get the experiments back and find out the results!
She said: "I think it might start to inspire some of us to get involved in jobs like this and realise that we can help find out things that will help humans to see if we could live anywhere else in the Solar System. Maybe one day we'll even work out how to live beyond the Solar System because of things like this. I'm excited to find out if the seeds grow as well as the ones we kept in the classroom so that we know how the conditions up there change the way the seeds grow."
A Bit of Background on The MARSBalloon Project?
MARSBalloon is an exciting project for school students and science clubs to carry out Mars-analogue science experiments without having to put on a spacesuit!
The balloon will carry over 100 student experiments to an altitude of 30km, more than twice the height of commercial airliners, where they will be above 99% of Earth’s atmosphere. Along the way they will experience conditions very similar to the surface of Mars including temperatures of -50°C, pressures 1/100th that of sea level and an increased radiation dose.
This allows students to test the response of electronics, materials, plants and even food to the conditions outside of a future Mars base, helping future explorers to prepare for this strange and hostile environment. The whole flight lasts approximately four hours and the MARSBalloon team will chase after the balloon to recover the experiments after landing, allowing them to be returned to the students for analysis.
The MARSBalloon project is supported by Thales UK and run by enthusiastic STEM supporters from Thales Alenia Space, that will test student ideas for technologies that could one day be destined for Mars.
In June 2021 we plan to launch over 150 experiment capsules on high altitude balloons 30km up into the Earth’s atmosphere, a place where conditions of gas pressure, temperature and radiation are very similar to the surface of Mars.
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