The Ursa Minor Interstellar City (UMIC) project was born out of the need to create accessible and sustainable space simulation environments on Earth. Inspired by NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) and NEEMO underwater project, as well as ESA’s CAVES programme, UMIC reimagines these concepts to provide affordable, eco-friendly simulations that bring space exploration closer to ordinary people, considering the following scientific principles:

• Low-gravity simulation: Using underwater neutral buoyancy environments to replicate microgravity for astronaut training.
• Closed ecological systems: Conducting oxygen regeneration and resource recovery experiments to simulate living conditions on the Moon and Mars.
• Human adaptation studies: Exploring human survival in extreme environments, akin to ESA’s cave studies, through underwater confined space experiments.

A Journey of Innovation
​In 2020, collaboration with Professor Thais Russomano on the Evetts-Russomano (ER) CPR method sparked the idea for UMIC’s Underwater Space City. Over four years, UMIC has developed the complete underwater space city elements: EVA training spacecraft, animal spacecraft, lunar commuter motorcycle, space farm, the world's largest astronaut helmet, and the smallest underwater cafe - Galaxy Cat Cafe (see videos below). We can even provide astronauts with a cup of hot coffee underwater, and broadcast space education for young people around the world, truly realizing the popularization of space exploration education.

​Mission and Impact
UMIC’s goal is to train commercial astronauts to thrive in space and on alien surfaces while establishing ecological, multi-species habitats. By fostering collaboration and resilience, it not only advances humanity’s path to becoming a multi-planetary species but also strengthens our ability to protect Earth and preserve its ecosystems

What Sets UMIC Apart
Unlike NASA’s and ESA’s high-cost facilities, UMIC offers a low-cost, sustainable alternative, allowing hundreds of participants to engage in thousands of underwater missions. Its innovative “Mobile Modular Underwater Space Training System” differentiates itself through its innovative implementation and broader accessibility:

• Cost-effectiveness: Employing affordable materials like PVC, nylon, and acrylic instead of NASA’s expensive equipment, making simulations accessible to the general public.
• Sustainability: Designing reusable underwater facilities that double as artificial reefs to support marine habitat restoration.
• Education and engagement: Providing live broadcasts of the underwater space city to engage young people in space science and offering commercial experiences like underwater cafes.
• Diverse applications: Developing modular facilities for training, research, education, and commercial entertainment.

By integrating science, education, and sustainability, UMIC makes space exploration accessible to people worldwide, inspiring the next generation of explorers while contributing to ecological preservation.

​The dedicated efforts of our 10 team members of the Space Mirror 2024 Mission are now presented below in 5 brief reports – our thanks go to the authors: Leon Li & Louis Li; Gang Wei & Yuxuan Wei; Amy Wang & Yuejuan (Jane) Weng；Wenhao Shi & Jiaqi Lin; and Yingtong Shen & Xingyue Liu.

Summary: UMIC’s Vision for Inclusive Space Exploration
The UMIC project has successfully demonstrated a more inclusive approach to space exploration, creating a low-cost, environmentally friendly underwater space city while following the same scientific principles as NASA and ESA.
Key Innovations:

1. Affordable for Civilians – Using low-cost materials like PVC and nylon to make space training and experiences accessible to the public.
2. Eco-Friendly – Explores biodegradable materials and artificial reefs to support environmental restoration.
3. Globally Replicable – UMIC’s modular design allows for rapid replication and expansion worldwide.
4. Diversified Education Model – Providing innovative learning experiences, including live space courses for teenagers and underwater space training.

UMIC is more than a technical experiment—it is a global, inclusive education platform designed to make "space exploration belong to all mankind."
​
Underwater serves as the closest mirror to space, and Earth remains the best school for interstellar civilisation.

The webinar, organised by InnovaSpace Director Prof Thais Russomano, was presented by 4 students from the Remote Medicine iBSc program, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, and in association with the MVA (Moon Village Association). The focus of the event was on one of the most critical aspects of future lunar habitation: human health.
Join the student panel as they explore the unique environment of the Moon, the history of its human exploration from NASA Apollo Mission first steps to future Artemis plans, its potential impact on human physical health and mental well-being, Moon research and Earth-based space analogues, and research limitations and gaps in the knowledge.
​
Congratulations to the presenters - Manvi Bhatt, Nareh Ghazarians, Diya Raj Yajaman, & Elvyn Vijayanathan - and good luck with your future careers. 

Inclusion and Accessibility have been much discussed terms for years. Institutions are working on numerous fronts and in numerous areas of everyday life to implement them in society. My name is Tomas Ducai, I am 24 years old, an active wheelchair user and am confronted with the more or less successful effects of the implementation of the above terms on a daily basis.
​​As a citizen of the city of Vienna, I enjoy the attitude to life in a city that has been described as the "most livable" in the world several times in a row - I can only confirm this from the position of an active wheelchair user. The fact that cities live and implement the credo of inclusion and accessibility may not sound entirely unusual - but the fact that these attributes also apply to organizations in the space sciences is quite extraordinary, innovative and gives physically disabled people with an interest in space, like me, hope to take part in projects in this area. I achieved this in March of this year when I took part in a simulated space mission in the so-called analog space habitat LunAres as the first wheelchair-using analog para-astronaut.

Simulated space missions are missions in which life (or co-existence) with other crew members on an (analog) space station on another celestial body (usually the Moon or Mars) and all related processes (including simulated spacewalks) are simulated and trained. The focus of such a simulated space mission can be on simulating the environment of the celestial body as accurately as possible in detail or on simulating isolation (from the outside world - social and physical). In the Polish analog space habitat LunAres, the focus is mainly on the latter scenario. The aspects described at LunAres are expanded to include the attributes of inclusion and accessibility (of the habitat and all processes) mentioned at the beginning, and for good reason - not only the current project of the European Space Agency (ESA), which selected an astronaut with a physical disability for the first time as part of the last astronaut selection, should be mentioned here, but also the simulation of space missions with physically impaired people, since it is likely, especially on longer (real) space missions, that otherwise healthy crew members will be seriously injured and will have to continue their stay in space - thousands to millions of kilometers from Earth - with impairments. Dealing with such scenarios requires, as one can imagine, numerous simulations in advance, in which LunAres plays a pioneering role - it is so far the only analogue space habitat that carries out missions with physically impaired crew members.

​Our crew for the simulated, two-week Pegasus lunar mission was already diverse, apart from the fact that I was in a wheelchair. A total of six mission participants came from three continents, all with different academic backgrounds, with different tasks during the mission - the Commander and the Executive Officer were responsible for organizing the entire mission, had the final say on (critical) decisions and were in regular contact with the mission control center "on Earth". The Engineering Officer was the first point of contact for all technical questions about the habitat and was always on hand with "hands-on" access to help and advice. The Medical Officer looked after our medical well-being and monitored our most important medical parameters through measurements. The Communications and Outreach Officer was responsible for recording all impressions during the mission - a particularly valuable task in order to adequately present the activities during such a simulated space mission. I, the Biolab Officer, looked after the biology laboratory on the analogue space station and carried out experiments - I investigated the germination properties of spinach in conventional soil and "space soil" - ground meteorite powder - and was very pleased to see that the spinach itself germinated and began to grow in the "exotic" space substrate. I also supervised biological experiments by other crew members, while the Engineering Officer established new technical features on the "moon rover" Leo as part of our mission and generally took care of technical maintenance of our little helper during extra-vehicle missions.

All this is just a small insight into the diverse activities during our simulated space mission on the Moon, which also included simulated spacewalks (which I was able to lead mostly from the moon base), meditation, and cooking traditional Polish pierogi (dumplings). Above all, however, were the attributes I mentioned - inclusion and accessibility - which were lived not only by us, all crew members, but also by the mission control center (the organizers and inventors of the analog space habitat LunAres) to emphasize that space is indeed for everyone!

Time to catch-up with our colleague from the east, Chris Yuan, who very enthusiastically and capably established the Ursa Minor project in China, under the umbrella of the Planetary Expedition Commander Academy (PECA). It involves the development of new technologies and innovative training courses to encourage and inspire a future generation of space science researchers and astronauts.

​As previously reported in 2022, Chris and his students learned how to perform the Evetts-Russomano CPR technique underwater on a manikin while diving, as the water simulates the weightlessness that is present in microgravity. This practice now forms part of a larger course, the Ursa Minor Interstellar Expedition Program, giving the opportunity for 12- to 18-year-olds to participate in an underwater space science training camp.

A particular person who has shaped my dreams in concrete terms is Slovakia’s one and only aquanaut (underwater analog astronaut) and Chief Scientific Officer of the Hydronaut Project (unique underwater lab serving as a research facility for survival training in limited/extreme environments) - Miroslav Rozložník. Miro is an experienced scuba-dive instructor, who I met in Prague at an international analog astronaut community event. He offered to help me experience the unique underwater atmosphere through introducing me to the world of scuba-diving, a truly cherished offer that I gratefully accepted! At the same time, I knew that having a basic introduction to scuba diving may also enhance my chances of being selected as one of the three analog parastronauts for upcoming analog missions at the LunAres analog research station in Poland, especially if underwater mission experiments are being considered.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a well-established part of basic life support (BLS), having saved countless lives since its first development in the 1960s. External chest compressions (ECCs), which form the main part of BLS, must be carried out until Advanced Life Support can begin. It is essential that ECCs are performed to the correct depth and frequency to guarantee effectiveness. The absence of gravity during spaceflight means that performing ECCs is more challenging.
The likelihood of a dangerous cardiac event occurring during a space mission is remote, however, the possibility does exist. Nowadays, the selection process for space missions considers individuals at ages and with health standards that would have prohibited their selection in the past. With increased age, less stringent health requirements, longer duration missions and increased physical labour, due to a rise in orbital extravehicular activity, the risk of an acute life-threatening condition occurring in space has become of greater concern. The advent of space tourism may even enhance this possibility, with its popularity set to rise over the coming years as private companies test their new technology.

Therefore, space scientists and physicians will have a greater responsibility to ensure space travellers, whether professional astronauts or space tourists, are adequately trained and familiarised with extraterrestrial BLS and CPR methods. Recently, work has been undertaken to develop methods of basic and advanced life support in microgravity and hypogravity, and several CPR techniques have been developed and tested. This blog presents one of these, the Evetts-Russomano MicroG CPR Method.

​In the Evetts-Russomano (ER) method, the rescuer can respond immediately, as it requires no additional CPR equipment/medication or the use of a restraint system. To assume the position, the rescuer places their left leg over the right shoulder of the patient and their right leg around the patient’s torso, allowing their ankles to be crossed approximately in the centre of the patient’s back; this is to provide stability and a solid platform against which to deliver force, without the patient being pushed away. From this position, chest compressions can be performed while still retaining easy access to perform ventilation. When adopting the ER CPR method, the rescuer must be situated in a manner that also allows sufficient space on the patient’s chest for the correct positioning of their hands to deliver the chest compressions.

Free Resource: Extraterrestrial CPR and Its Applications in Terrestrial Medicine
Authors: Thais Russomano, Lucas Rehnberg
In book: Resuscitation Aspects, Ed: Theodoros Aslanidis
Publisher: IntechOpen 2017
See Download Link at https://www.innovaspace.org/chapters.html

O mergulho faz parte de uma série de habilidades para quem busca a carreira astronáutica. Por quê?
A água é cerca de 800 vezes mais densa que o ar, o que dificulta a movimentação subaquática, exigindo além de mais esforço, uma movimentação mais lenta para evitar fadiga que pode levar mergulhadores inexperientes a até abortar o mergulho.
Além disso, a flutuabilidade neutra, ou seja, a capacidade de "boiar" na água permite que o praticante tenha a sensação semelhante à da microgravidade.

Para fazer uso da flutuabilidade neutra como treinamento, as agências espaciais têm usado, ao longo dos anos, laboratórios subaquáticos como o NBL (Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory), localizado em Houston, no Texas, Estados Unidos e que faz parte do complexo da NASA. Segundo a NASA, possui 61,21 metros de comprimento, 30,90 de largura e 12,12 metros de profundidade e permite treinamentos como caminhadas espaciais, comunicação e segurança, além de permitir testes com equipamentos de vídeo e trajes espaciais.

Na ESA (Agência Espacial Europeia), em Colônia, Alemanha, os astronautas são certificados no nível de mergulhadores de resgate. Esse conhecimento, segundo a ESA, permite melhor desempenho dos astronautas nas caminhadas espaciais e permite que previnam problemas e saibam lidar com emergências de modo adequado.
De acordo com a NASA, os astronautas utilizam nitrox (mistura de nitrogênio com uma porcentagem maior de oxigênio, também conhecido como ar enriquecido no mergulho) durante as sessões de treinamento no NBL.
No mergulho dependente saturado não há perda de ar, nem se solta bolhas, como ocorre no mergulho recreativo. Todo o material exalado durante um mergulho saturado, que pode ir até 320 metros de profundidade, é recaptado, reciclado, para depois ser usado novamente na respiração. Isso ocorre porque o gás em questão, além do oxigênio, é o hélio,  que tem um custo bastante elevado.

​"Bang bang bang, bang bang," there was a knocking sound from the water.
This is an 18-foot-deep pool in the diving hall of Nanning City Gymnasium in Guangxi. Two PECA (Planet Expedition Command Academy) trainees: Hannah and Selina, wearing scuba diving gear, are stitching together a satellite model underwater, which is designed with PVC pipes of different colours that are removable and can be spliced ​​together. This training involves scuba divers simulating the role of space station EVA astronauts, capturing and repairing damaged satellites. The person under training must maintain neutral buoyancy during the whole process and retain sober analytical and hands-on ability under the conditions of maintaining air consumption, completing the assembly of the satellite model and bringing it out of the water.

Hannah and Selina are mother and daughter, and Selina had just graduated from college and planned to have a gap year. The pair chose to participate in the 3-month PECA general training course. The scene just described was their training subject for PECA's second physical space, Ocean Planet: astronauts completing space missions in a simulated weightless state. They started from scratch and had already successfully completed the first physical space: Earth-Mountain Exploration, in which they completed a 10-day cross-country horseback trek on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and finally entered Tibet on horseback, after completing 235 kilometres of horseback riding.

Finally they arrived in Guangxi, China and experienced a lot of confined water training, cave diving, to adapt to the exploration of the underwater world, and simulate future space travel. ​Selina had no previous experience with such a wide range of different exploration types, and when asked if she worried about whether she would be up to the challenges of the training, she said: "I chose to take this step, that is, I chose to face the unknown changes."

The PECA curriculum has been seeking a path that connects the ordinary person at one end, with at the other end the coming age of great sailing for civilian space exploration (see also previous blog).

Space exploration in the minds of most people is a national strategy, a game for a few people financially supported by the government, and super-rich people. Several of my friends have asked me a similar question, a pointed question:
"How do you think that space travel can become a majority movement in the future? How is their training program different from official astronauts?"
Allow me to start with a story.
Fifteen years ago, I rode a mountain bike alone from the Ger-mud area of ​​Qinghai to Lhasa, Tibet, and then continued on until I reached the base camp of Mount Everest. This is the highest road in the world. My journey lasted 40 days,  was 2200km and ended at the highest altitude of the Everest Base Camp. I later wrote a book "Through Your Eyes, See My Soul - 40 Days of Everest Ride". Some readers asked me the same question:
"What is the most important prerequisite for a beginner who will ride the Qinghai-Tibet line? Sufficient money or physical reserves?"
After thinking carefully, I replied: Neither of the two you mentioned are the most important, the most important thing is the ambition you have to go, it's the determination, it's the emotion. With that first push, money and other things follow."
Think about it, it took only 66 years from the Wright brothers first successful test flight of their plane to the landing of a man on the Moon!

Encerramos após 11 dias (ou 11 sois, como denominamos o dia em Marte) a missão análoga (virtual) #96, celebrando quatro anos do estabelecimento da Estação Habitat Marte. Tive o privilégio de representar a InnovaSpace nessa experiência, que se revelou produtiva e instigante.
As missões virtuais foram criadas em função da pandemia de COVID-19, como forma de manter a estação operando e fomentando o intercambio de experiências e informações sobre Marte e os desafios de se chegar ao planeta vermelho. A pioneira estrutura análoga, entretanto, é muito mais que isso. Localizado no agreste do Rio Grande do Norte, na cidade de Caiçara do Rio do Vento, o Habitat Marte é uma base física onde as condições inóspitas do terreno e algumas características relacionadas ao solo local propiciam um sítio ideal ao estabelecimento de missões com variados focos de pesquisa. Uma palavra que está sempre presente é sustentabilidade.

Numa missão virtual, um clima de imersão e interação entre os cinco tripulantes é estimulado pela rotina de atividades como coleta de dados, apresentação de relatórios sobre o estado físico e mental e, ao longo dessa jornada, vai se criando uma atmosfera de imaginação coletiva acerca da presença no planeta vermelho, com o benefício da dinâmica das relações por interações remotas. Cada tripulante recebeu a incumbência de ser responsável por uma das estruturas críticas da estação (Estação Central e Centros de Engenharia, Saneamento, Saúde e Lançamento). Ao final, cada membro da missão fez uma apresentação sobre sua área de responsabilidade, encerrando a missão.
Minha experiência pessoal na missão virtual foi ser o responsável pelo Centro de Lançamento (e retorno). Além de estar comprometido com a operacionalidade dessa área, incluí na rotina de relatórios o status “go & no go”, em função das condições técnicas ou meteorológicas, de modo a manter a estação ciente da viabilidade de um lançamento emergencial. A rotina de envio de relatórios é o grande gerador de valor para a simulação e vai ao encontro dos aspectos humanos: discutíamos situações que não decorreram de inputs do simulacro. Trocávamos informações e fotos, fomos inspirados a viver uma realidade paralela e a explorar nossa criatividade.

​Conversas sobre a missão e até pessoais foram constantes através de plataforma de mensagens e me mantiveram em constante “presença” naquela estação. Os dois relatórios de rotina diários (meteorologia e condições pessoais, como saúde, motivação, estado mental e satisfação com a missão e suas especificidades) eram enviados por um aplicativo e nos lembravam da nossa responsabilidade na jornada. Há potencial para ainda mais integração, pois nenhuma missão é igual à outra. Quem sabe, no futuro, um ambiente visual via aplicativo que possa até ser compartilhado com óculos de realidade virtual e celular não elevem ainda mais esses efeitos?

​Minha conclusão foi a de que estímulo ao pensamento, diversidade e o fator lúdico já são uma ferramenta de integração e compromisso com a missão de grande valor.
Parabéns aos tripulantes da Missão 96 e em especial ao Prof. Julio Rezende, pelo pioneirismo, determinação e criatividade. Próximo passo: a missão presencial!