Mars is within reach!

A world with a surface area the size of the combined continents of the Earth, the Red Planet contains all the elements needed to support life. As such it is the Rosetta Stone for revealing whether the phenomenon of life is something unique to the Earth, or prevalent in the universe. The exploration of Mars may also tell us whether life on Earth is the model for life elsewhere or whether we are just a small part of a much vaster and more varied tapestry. Moreover, as the nearest planet with all the required resources for technological civilization, Mars will be the decisive trial that will determine whether humanity can expand from its globe of origin to enjoy the open frontiers and unlimited prospects available to multi-planet space-faring species. Offering profound enlightenment to our science, inspiration and purpose to our youth, and a potentially unbounded future for our posterity, the challenge of Mars is one that we must embrace.

Indeed, with so much at stake, Mars is a test for us. It asks us if we will continue to be a society of pioneers, people who dare great things to open untrodden paths for the future. It asks whether we will be people whose deeds are celebrated in newspapers or in museums, whether we will continue opening new possibilities for our descendants or become less than those who tackled the unknown to give us everything we have.

Mars is the great challenge of our time!

In order to help develop key knowledge needed to prepare for human

Mars exploration, and to inspire the public by making sensuous the

vision of human exploration of Mars, the Mars Society initiated the

Mars Analog Research Station (MARS) project. A global program of Mars

exploration operations research, the MARS project includes two Mars

base-like habitats located in deserts in the Canadian Arctic and the

American Southwest. In these Mars-like environments, we have launched

a program of extensive long-duration field exploration operations

conducted in the same style and under many of the same constraints as

they would on the Red Planet. By doing so, we began the process of

learning how to explore on Mars.

The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is a laboratory for learning

how to live and work on another planet. It is a prototype of a habitat

that will land humans on Mars and serve as their main base for months

of exploration in the harsh Martian environment. Such a habitat

represents a key element in current human Mars mission planning. MDRS

serves as a field base to teams of six to seven crew members:

geologists, astrobiologists, engineers, mechanics, physicians, human

factors researchers, artists, and others, who live for weeks to months

at a time in relative isolation in a Mars analog environment. Mars

analogs are defined as locations on Earth where some environmental

conditions, geologic features, biological attributes or combinations

thereof may approximate in some specific way those thought to be

encountered on Mars, either at present or earlier in that planet’s

history. Studying such sites leads to new insights into the nature and

evolution of Mars, the Earth, and life.

However, in addition to providing scientific insight into our

neighboring world, such analog environments offer unprecedented

opportunities to carry out Mars analog field research in a variety of

key scientific and engineering disciplines that will help prepare

humans for the exploration of that planet. Such research is vitally

necessary. For example, it is one thing to walk around a factory test

area in a new spacesuit prototype and show that a wearer can pick up a

wrench – it is entirely another to subject that same suit to two

months of real field work. Similarly, psychological studies of human

factors issues, including isolation and habitat architecture are also

only useful if the crew being studied is attempting to do real work.

Furthermore, when considering the effectiveness of a human mission to

Mars as a whole, it is clear that there is an operations design

problem of considerable complexity to be solved. Such a mission will

involve diverse players with different capabilities, strengths and

weaknesses. They include include the crew of the Mars habitat,

pedestrian astronauts outside, astronauts on un-pressurized but highly

nimble light vehicles operating at moderate distances from the

habitat, astronauts operating a great distances from the habitat using

clumsy but long-endurance vehicles such as pressurized rovers, mission

support on Earth, the terrestrial scientific community at large,

robots, and others. Taking these different assets and making them work

in symphony to achieve the maximum possible exploration effect will

require developing an art of combined operations for Mars missions.

MDRS, in operation for almost two decades, was the pioneer station

that began the critical task of developing this art.