Christiane Heinicke is the head of the project “Moon and Mars Base Analog” (MaMBA) whose long-term goal is to develop a functional prototype of a station for use on Moon and Mars. The project is based at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen.
Before, Christiane Heinicke lived in a simulated Mars base for one year. The study was funded by NASA and required her and five others to live under the same constraints that would be faced by astronauts on a real mission on Mars: the crew was allowed to communicate with other humans only via e-mail, they had to wear mock spacesuits when leaving the station, and all fresh vegetables they ate were home-grown. The greatest challenge for the crew, however, was to live with such a small group of people, because there is no way to avoid conflicts in the confinement of an extraterrestrial base. After returning to Earth, Christiane Heinicke wrote her book about the experience, Leben auf dem Mars (“Living/Life on Mars”).
Christiane Heinickes scientific interest has not always been space, before she focused on fluid flows: During her undergraduate (Physics) and graduate (Engineering) studies, she helped set up a measurement station on a glacier, she simulated convective currents in the Earth’s mantle, and she experimented with liquid metals.