In just over a month, Air Force Maj. Ross Elder will take part in a special NASA mission, during which he and three other crew members will spend more than a year living and working in an environment meant to simulate a future habitat on the surface of Mars.
Currently an Air Force test pilot, Elder will lead the mission, which will be held in a 1,700-square-foot 3D-printed structure at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The mission will run from Oct. 19, 2025 to Oct. 31, 2026. Crew members will conduct simulated space walks and other tasks.
“I’m spending a lot of time to kind of conceptualize and think about how those walls are going to be the only thing that I’m looking at, and then the crew — just the four of us — are the only people that I’m going to see,” Elder told Task & Purpose during a Sept. 11 interview.
That’s why Elder is trying to learn everything about his other three crew members so they can work together effectively and rely on one another. “That’s going to be the biggest piece of this along the way,” he said.
His crewmates on the long mission will be: Space Force Col. Elen Ellis; Matthew Montgomery, a hardware engineering design consultant; and James Spicer, a technical director in the aerospace and defense industry. The two alternate crew members are Marine Capt. Emily Phillips and Laura Marie, a commercial airline pilot.
Getting ready to spend 378 days with just three other people in the simulated Mars habitat has been similar to preparing for a long deployment, Elder said.
“There’s a lot of things on the home front, in terms of packing the bags, dealing with legal affairs, family affairs,” Elder said. “Those kinds of things are the first hurdles that I’m working on right now.”
A former A-10 pilot known as “WEZ,” Elder has flown combat missions in Syria and Iraq as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. His call sign is short for “weapons engagement zone,” which he earned during a training exercise while he was stationed in South Korea.
“My commander at the time wanted to get some good footage of us fighting F-16s — simulated, of course,” Elder explained. “But in training, we want to prove that even A-10s could still fight air-to-air even though we were known for our air-ground mission. I took it very seriously.”
Even though it only required one shot from the A-10’s 30mm cannon to count as an air-to-air kill, Elder put about 810 rounds into two F-16s during the exercise, he said.
“So, for the extended time in the weapons engagement zone, they named me that on the spot,” Elder said.
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Spending that much time in such an isolated environment will be different than his past deployments, he said. Even when he was supporting U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, he would still have time between combat missions to walk around, feel the wind and take in the sunshine.
“For this, we’re going to be living and breathing in this habitat, this 1,700-square-foot facility,” Elder said. “So, instead of having some space to move around, now we’re focused on this building. This facility is our place of work. It is our gym. It is our place of recreation and entertainment, and ultimately, it’s our home.”
When Elder spoke to Task & Purpose, he said he was eager to head to Houston and begin preparing for the mission with the other crew members.
“I did get to spend a lot of time with the crew leading up to this,” Elder said. “They are at the top of their respective fields, and by any metric, I think they’ve far surpassed what I would think is vital to the role. I am really excited to get to Houston and to hang out with them, start the training, and start the mission.”
One of the challenges that Elder and the other crew members will face in the upcoming mission is that they will have to make do with the resources they take with them and whatever is available in the Mars habitat to simulate being millions of miles from Earth, he said.
That means, they will test using simulated substances on Mars to help provide the crew with water, oxygen, building materials and possibly propellant, Elder said.
“We’re not going to get a resupply,” Elder said. “Our windows for launch to come help us are going to be approximately 26 months. So, we really have to rely on ourselves.”
Speaking of having to be self-reliant, Elder said he has read the book and seen the movie version of “The Martian,” a story about an astronaut who accidentally gets left behind on Mars and must find creative ways to survive until his comrades can try to rescue him. In the movie, the hero is played by Matt Damon, whose characters the U.S. government has spent at least $900 billion rescuing.
“I have it prepared on my Kindle to reference as required, because I’m sure some of those similar scenarios will arise again,” Elder said.
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