High seas is an analog astronaut research station.

So it basically simulates what it would be like to be an astronaut on the moon and on MArs all without leaving the safety of Earth.

And even though they're still on earth, these analog astronauts take their role pretty seriously.

We wear spacesuits to conduct fieldwork, we go on Eva or extravehicular activities like space walks.

We have rationed food and water, we have a time delay for all communications on earth researchers from all over the world and fields from astrophysics to engineering to geology.

Come to this white dome to test their experiments and see if they've got what it takes to live on another planet.

Hi Seas is one of the most unique research stations in the world.

sitting on an active volcano in Hawaii about 2500 m above sea level, researchers can stay at the habitat for weeks to months at a time working and living there.

The goal to understand how to survive in a place where no humans have lived before, which is why this site was chosen.

Part of it was because it looks and feels like you're on another planet.

There's almost no vegetation here because of the altitude.

So it's this isolated, difficult, harsh environment where you are completely separated from civilization as we know it.

But from a geology perspective, the volcanic terrain around us is actually directly relevant to both the moon and MArs.

That's because high seas is surrounded by lava tubes, underground channels that once carried molten lava and are now home to extremophiles.

Both the moon and MArs used to be volcanically active and contain very similar terrain.

So studying this environment on earth allows for an opportunity to practice scenarios astronauts might encounter on future missions overseeing every aspect of the habitat is Michaela muscle ova.

I have always wanted to be an astronaut.

I've been dreaming of that since I was eight years old while she's not an astronaut yet.

Michaela is often commander of analog missions and as director of high seas is responsible for crewing them.

After having about 30 missions under my belt, I found that the more diverse the crew, the more successful the mission.

So I choose analog astronauts from a variety of backgrounds, not just say scientists, engineers and doctors, but I also like to have artists and educators, journalists and people who think out of the box.

I'm going to cut it for science.

Mhm.

Well, with increasing interest in returning to the moon and one day even setting up a station on MARS, people from all over the world put their ingenuity to the test at this white dome.

Everything from what kind of food or astronauts going to eat during these long duration missions.

What technologies are they going to need?

For example, in situ resource utilization technologies.

These are technologies for us to be able to extract water from the soil on MARS and have our own source of water there we tested a drill that is meant to be used for collecting biological samples but an Iraqi environment.

And now there's even a familiar face researching the secrets of the universe.

So my research is on supernova.

Supernova are not just interesting, exotic phenomena that we think are cool because they're exploding stars, but they also tell us a lot about our universe.

Stars fuse elements within their cores and then inject them into their surroundings upon explosion, meaning that they shape the chemical composition of their surroundings.

When Carl Sagan says we are star stuff, I mean he was right, we literally are the stuff of stars.

We are away the cosmos to know itself.

I feel really excited to be honest.

I feel a little nervous but mostly just excited.

You know I've been preparing for months.

I started by doing altitude training so there's a hypoxic room which is basically oxygen deprivation room that simulates various altitudes.

I'm into the room and then I also flew in zero gravity in a weightless environment and learned how to scuba dive.

All this training is going towards preparing Sarafina for a two week long analog MARS mission.

High seas is a really cool opportunity to actually do fieldwork with supernova that includes Eva's any activity outside of a spacecraft or habitat, which for Sarafina is where her research really begins.

So I will be using a handheld laser induced breakdown spectrometer to basically analyze the composition of Zeno lists which are a particular type of rock that is found in volcanic environments, that some of the oldest rocks on earth and by analyzing them and learning about their elemental abundances and sort of what they're made up of.

We can then correlate them with the supernova that was potentially responsible for their formation.

Yeah, by hunting for certain elements in almost untouched volcanic rock.

Sarafina is working towards matching them to supernova ejecta, which might just explain how the solar system was formed.

Nasa rovers are already doing something similar on mars, which is why this is such a unique opportunity for an astrophysicist here on earth.

I get to do science in a completely new way that frankly most astronomers don't do.

This is more of a geophysics spin on astronomy.

And so it's neat because I get to merge these different fields and then hopefully get some cool results from them after Sarafina wraps up her work at high seas.

Her supernova research will continue.

Ultimately, I hope to publish a paper on this.

We don't really understand the progenitors of supernovas, the composition, the evolution and the structure of those stars in modeling and simulating them is very difficult to do.

It was once described to me as the wild west of astronomy because, you know, people are trying a lot of different things, but there's not a lot of rules for how to do it.

Hi seas is a test bed for unconventional approaches to technologies and research.

The revolving door of analog astronauts that stay at the habitat are asking different questions, but they all have one thing in common for as long as I can remember.

I wanted to become an astronaut.

I remember looking up at the stars as a little kid and dreaming about going to space.

One of the reasons why I share about my journey about my training is so that I can serve as a source of representation for other young girls, other young people of color who maybe have the same dreams.

You know, who knows if I'll ever get to mars or to the moon, fingers crossed.

But who knows?

Mhm.

Mhm.