A Dress Rehearsal For Life on Mars In the Utah desert, scientists live and work at the Mars Desert Research Station. The terrain’s ferrous-red hue and the harshness of the climate are supposed mimic Mars’s. Each crew carries out experiments ranging from astrobiology and meteorite analysis to 3D-printing and social psychology. Scroll

The Mars Desert Research Station is one of several space-exploration analogs throughout the world. Missions here last just a few weeks. The program is owned and run by the Mars Society.


Renee Garifi was the Crew Commander for a two-week mission in January. Her background is in astrobiology. She's done work as a flight controller for the International Space Station program.

Crew Engineer Anderson Wilder, who works as a science teacher, led the team’s psychological research, testing how social dynamics might change during space missions. “I want to know how people will respond to that type of isolation," he said, "and the personal skills that will be required to maintain a healthy crew.”

Carmen Felix served as the crew’s health and safety officer. She's been part of other Mars simulations, including one in Spain organized by the Austrian Space Forum. Every crew has a team member who looks after the team's medical well-being and can tend to minor accidents. The closest hospital is hours away.

Space scientists are devising ways to grow their own food. The faux-Mars research team experimented with two different watering systems for plants.

The Celestron-14 telescope, part of the Musk Mars Desert Research Observatory, lets crews examine celestial bodies, like stars and exoplanets. The facility was partly funded by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. CEO Elon Musk.

“We don’t go outside without our spacesuits. That’s part of the simulation,” said Crew Commander Renee Garifi. “On Mars, you can’t just waltz outside and go for a run.” The same rules apply here.

Scientists collected “Martian” soil from the station's neighboring hills as part of a micrometeorite-hunting expedition. Using a special magnet, they looked for particles that may have broken off meteorites as they fell to Earth from space. These could give them clues about how the solar system formed.

The crew fed on a lot of dried food. They missed fresh vegetables and salads, they said. But if their plant experiments succeed, Martian explorers might one day be able to enjoy locally sourced Red Planet fare.

“Space is an amazing area to explore. It’s in our DNA to explore and...[to] try to understand the reason why things happen.” - Carmen Felix