Space conquest: in Switzerland, students live in autarky on a lunar base

In Switzerland, students beat the American space agency.

For the past week, six of them have been living in autarky in a lunar base set up 400m under the Swiss mountains.

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Will man push back the soil of the Moon?

Pressed by Donald Trump during his mandate, NASA must send a manned mission in 2024. Ultimately, with the objective of installing a permanent base on our satellite.

In Switzerland, students beat the American space agency.

For the past week, six of them have been living in autarky in a lunar base set up 400m under the Swiss mountains.

Objective: to advance the conquest of space and, why not, create vocations.

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With our correspondent in Geneva,

Jérémie Lanche

Asclepios 1. This is the name of the mission.

A somewhat crazy project imagined by students from the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne.

But Asclepios is above all a scientific mission, recalls the Frenchman Julien Corsin, one of the six astronauts chosen to be part of the crew: “ 

There are household chores which are essential to the good life in the base, and then there are the scientific tasks, which are geology, topography.

We also have the spacewalks, we put on a wetsuit and we venture into our analogue Moon. 

"

No room for amateurism

Asclepios is the first lunar mission carried out entirely by students, from the astronauts to the seven members of the command center who follow them around the clock thanks to the cameras. There is no room for amateurism here. And especially not when venturing outside the base. “ 

We don't break realism at any time,”

continues Julien Corsin.

Even if we have fogged on our helmets, or the heat is unbearable, we keep the helmets as if we were really without atmosphere. We play astronauts to the fullest of our abilities.

 "

Proof that

Asclepios

is a real scientific experiment, its cost.

It took nearly 230,000 euros and 2 years of work for the project to see the light of day.

It attracted students from all over the world.

One of the participants hopes, for example, that the mission will help him pursue his dream of becoming the first Chilean astronaut in history.

For him as for the others, the return to earth is scheduled for tomorrow Tuesday.

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Also to listen: 

Why does the conquest of space make the powerful dream?

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