March 23, 2025
“Mission Control, this is the Habitat. We've spotted an alien! What should we do? Over.” “Habitat, this is Mission Control. Describe the alien! Over.”
At the 2025 Wiener Forschungsfest (Vienna Science Festival), children and young people got a sneak peek of the cooperative role-playing game Expedition Mars, developed as part of This is (not) rocket science!. In one-hour workshops, the astronauts of tomorrow practiced effective space communication, trained to operate an exploration rover, and thought about the contents of their personal preference kitsthe small containers holding the few personal items astronauts are allowed to take into space. Equipped with helmets, gloves, and gripping tools, they collected rocks as EVA astronauts and took samples using a glove box. Labeling small containers with thick gloves?Quite a challenge! Most of the workshop participants already had a solid knowledge of space and only needed to immerse themselves in the setting of the Mars missiona task made easy thanks to the detailed scenery. Opinions were still divided on which role they'd take on during a real space expedition, but most agreed they’d want to be part of it in one way or another.
Starting in fall 2025, Expedition Mars is expected to be offered as a workshop for school classes at the Vienna Technical Museum.
* EVA = extravehicular activity, meaning tasks astronauts perform outside a spacecraft
