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“We’re trying to write the book of field tactics for Mars explorers,” Zubrin said. “We do not expect that the people in our crews will be the actual people that go to Mars … We’re trying to discover how the Mars mission crew should be trained.”

The training helps illustrate the logistical and emotional issues that a Mars mission would confront, he said.

The Colorado-based Mars Society first built an Arctic training station in 2000 on Devon Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut but soon realized it was logistically cumbersome to get crews there.

That triggered a search for a desert site in the American Southwest. The site in Utah was chosen because it looks like Mars and was reasonably close to airports. Located just outside the tiny community of Hanksville, the site is a four-hour drive from Salt Lake City or 2.5 hours from Grand Junction, Colorado.

Since 2001, the Mars Society has spent about $1 million on the desert research center to build the habitat, rent the land and pay for supplies and upkeep, Zubrin said. The group has been helped by a $150,000 in contributions from NASA. The organization also relies on donations and dues from its 7,000 members worldwide.

More than 900 people have participated in missions in Utah, coming from all over the world, including Russia, Romania, Australia and Japan. One in 5 work for NASA, Zubrin said.

The Utah training site isn’t the only place to simulate Mars missions.

Last summer, a crew of six scientists spent four months atop a volcano in Hawaii. Several years ago, six foreign researchers spent 520 days in a locked steel capsule in Moscow during a mock flight to Mars.

These training sites offer useful practice, but mainly promote education and public awareness, said Greg Williams, deputy associate administrator for policy in the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA.

“That’s been really important, just to keep the buzz going about it,” Williams said. “To highlight not only the challenges of getting on Mars and being on Mars but also what we are accomplishing in order to make that happen.”

Associated Press writers Brian Skoloff in Phoenix and Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.