Radio | News week in plain Finnish | Sunday 21.9.2025
Mars simulation begins in October
Listen
You can read the news simultaneously below.
This week’s news topic is the planet Mars and NASA’s space exploration. Living on Mars is being studied in a simulator for over a year. We will now tell you more about the NASA experiment.
Mars simulation begins
Open image viewer
The “outdoors” of the planet Mars were presented to the media before the start of the research in April 2023. Photo: Go Nakamura / Reuters
The US space agency NASA’s experiment simulates, or imitates, living on the planet Mars.
The experiment will be conducted at the Spaceport in Houston. Four Americans will move into the structure in October, where they will spend the next 378 days.
Researchers want to find out whether humans can ever live on Mars and how to fly there safely.
The NASA base is built inside a large warehouse. The test subjects live in the building for over a year.
The building is 1-story and has a space of just under 160 square meters. Each person has their own small bedroom.
Outside the base there is a small sandy area where you can move around in spacesuits.
Possible ship launch times are rare

Open image viewer
Mars missions have many constraints. Launches are rarely successful. Photo: Lasse Isokangas / Yle
The experiment is the second in a series of 3 Mars explorations.
The circumstances have been made as realistic as possible.
However, not everything can be simulated. In Houston, there is no vacuum, cold or death waiting behind the base wall. On real Mars, there is cold, little air and dust storms.
Additionally, Mars’ gravity is only about a third of Earth’s. Low gravity affects health.
A possible trip to Mars will take a long time because getting there and back takes time.
In addition, the journey requires waiting for a moment when the orbits of Earth and Mars are aligned, a moment that only occurs every 26 months.
A one-way trip to Mars could take about 9 months.
The goal is a permanent base on the Moon

Open image viewer
Elon Musk and the Starship test vehicle in a photo compilation. Photo: Photos SpaceX and Nasa / Kim Shiflett, compilation by Jari Mäkinen
NASA is researching space habitation as its goal is to establish a permanent base on the Moon.
A person last walked on the surface of the Moon in December 1972.
The American private company SpaceX is currently testing the Starship spacecraft, which NASA plans to use for a lunar landing.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said that the company’s goal is to take humans to Mars.
Repetition
Here was Uutisviikko in plain Finnish.
The topic of the week was the planet Mars and NASA’s space exploration. Living on Mars will be studied in a simulator for over a year.
News week again next Saturday. See you again, stay tuned!