Inside a sealed habitat in Piła, Poland, Dr. Mark Angelo C. Purio’s day began with the essentials: air, power and water.
These are the first things that have to be checked before anything else could happen. Inside LunAres, a research facility built to simulate life on the Moon or Mars, even the most ordinary needs on Earth becomes mission-critical. A steady schedule is part of survival. A working system meant confidence. A supply count became a guide for keeping the mission moving.
For two weeks in June, Dr. Purio lived under those conditions as part of LunAres Analog Astronaut Mission M4.26, an international simulation designed to study how humans may one day live and work beyond Earth.
His days were shaped by routine, discipline and teamwork — the quiet work that keeps a crew going.
Dr. Purio and his fellow crew members lived in isolation, followed mission protocols, conducted experiments, managed carefully allotted resources, and prepared for simulated “spacewalks” in bulky suits. The outside world was kept at a distance. Communication was controlled. Movement followed mission rules. Every task fit into the rhythm of a crew learning how to solve each challenge from inside the habitat.
For Dr. Purio, a Filipino engineer and educator, the mission was both technical and deeply personal.
Adamson University identified him as the Philippines’ fourth analog astronaut and the country’s first engineer analog astronaut. He serves as head of the university’s Space Technologies and Applications Research Laboratory, or STARLab, and is an associate professor in the Electronics Engineering Department.
In LunAres, he served as executive officer and resource manager — roles that placed him close to the daily mechanics of survival. He helped keep track of what the crew had, what they used, what needed to be protected, and how the mission could continue within its planned resources.
In a space-like habitat, resources are the mission.
Space exploration is often told through astronauts, rockets and launchpads. Behind every mission are engineers who make sure the systems work, the supplies last, the equipment holds, and the crew can keep going.
Before he entered the Polish habitat, Dr. Purio had already been part of Philippine space history. He was among the Filipino engineers involved in Maya-2, the Philippines’ second CubeSat, which was launched to the International Space Station in 2021 under the BIRDS-4 Project.
That work placed him on the hardware side of the country’s young space program. LunAres placed him on the human side.
In Poland, the question expanded from whether a machine could survive in space to how people could live, work and thrive in a space-like environment.
How do humans make decisions in isolation? How do they respond to controlled conditions? How do they stay focused when every day follows a strict routine? How do they work as a crew when resources have to be carefully managed?
These are the questions analog missions try to answer on Earth before astronauts face them in space.
For Filipinos, there was another familiar detail inside the mission: adobo.
Dr. Purio contributed to Adobo4Space, an initiative that looks at how Filipino food could be adapted for future space missions. It sounds charming at first — adobo in space — and the idea carries serious scientific value.
Food for space is about taste, safety, nutrition, storage and stability. It must support the body, and it can also support the mind. For people living far from home, food can become comfort, memory and morale.
For Filipinos, adobo carries all of that.
It is the dish packed for school, served at family tables, brought to potlucks, reheated the next day, and remembered by Filipinos abroad when they miss home. In that sense, Adobo4Space is about bringing Filipino culture into the future of science.
Inside a Mars-like habitat in Europe, that question became part of the work.
Dr. Purio’s mission also offers a broader view of the Philippines’ place in space research. Filipino scientists and engineers are building experience in satellites, space systems, mission research and analog missions.
It is steady work. It is careful work. It is the kind of work that builds a future one mission at a time.
The Philippines’ future in space will be built through laboratories, classrooms, research programs, international missions, and Filipinos willing to enter new spaces to learn what the country can contribute.
In Piła, that contribution took the form of an engineer checking air, power and water inside a sealed habitat.
He stayed on Earth. For two weeks, he lived with the discipline of someone preparing for worlds beyond it.
And somewhere in that controlled silence — between the supply counts, the experiments, the simulated spacewalks, and the daily work of keeping a crew going — a Filipino question found its place in the future of space exploration:
Can adobo make it there too?