What happens when you stick nine scientists and engineers in a remote simulated Martian habitat and leave them there for 100 days? That is what a group of space scientists were trying to find out. Their space habitat (the size and shape of an expected martian abode) is located near a crater on Devon Island above the Arctic Circle in Canada. The simulation is an experiment in planetary exploration and its demands. The team was looking at what happens to a crew in a remote, harsh, close-quartered environment under simulated Martian conditions (crews would only go outside the habitat during a fully simulated EVA) when they are working on real science.

"The work that this crew has done will contribute to studies of Mars and to studies of the response of permafrost on Earth to global warming," said the mission’s remote science principal investigator Chris McKay, of NASA Ames. "Their pioneering simulation of crew operations on Mars time is by far the best work on this topic ever done. It sets the standard for future Mars mission simulations."

Next to studying global warming, the coolest thing the crew did was take advantage of the 24 hours of summer sunlight in the Arctic to shift all their operations to Martian Time (a day on Mars is 24 hours and 39 minutes). The crew would simply cover the hab windows from 8pm to 8am "local" Mars time every night.

Crew Commander Melissa Battler, a Canadian geologist, commented in her blog that one of the biggest challenges of shifting to Martian time was not when to fall asleep (which they had no trouble with) but when to eat! "Several of us were hungry very frequently during our first 10 days of Mars Time, but our bodies seem to be adjusting now." Melissa adds that the extra 39 minutes does make a difference, "[you] feel like [you're] getting more work done."

Life at the end of the planet is not like home. The crew bakes bread, makes a batch of cheese or yogurt, waters the "crops" (spouts and lettuce they are growing), re-fuels the generator, washes a bit of laundry by hand and prepares home cooked meals to add some spice to the day and the meals. "We’ve all become acutely aware of the importance of water conservation, minimizing our garbage output, and generally behaving in a way to minimize our environmental impact."

It harks back to the postlast week from WorldChanging.com about how extreme space exploration can help make living sustainably sexy. As Commander Battler says it, "we’ve all become incredibly self-reliant, and developed many other interesting, useful skills and attitudes, thanks to our isolated home in the Arctic!"

Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station [Mars Society]