A look inside — and outside — the Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah

HANKSVILLE, Utah – For generations, scientists and dreamers have looked to the sky and wondered what it would be like to live on Mars.

This curiosity has led to the establishment of the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS)—not on Mars, but in the Martian-like landscape of Hanksville, Utah.

When you see the beautiful scenery of red rocks, it is easy to understand why this place was chosen.

Nestled among the red rocks, you’ll find a pale white building known as the Habitat, or “HAB,” with a sign marking where Earth ends and Mars begins.

MDRS has been in operation since 2001, with the knowledge of spacesuits traversing the Utah desert a fascination for many.

Since then, he has completed 20 seasons, nearly 300 missions and more than 2,730 Martian days—that’s about 7 ½ years in Martian time.

Most missions to the facility last about 2-3 weeks, depending on the research being done and the ability of the crew to stay.

WATCH: The simulation gives Utah teachers the experience of living, working on Mars

The campus has two observatories, a science dome, a greenhouse, a maintenance bay and the HAB, which houses the crew and their supplies.

Here is the layout of the main HAB, which has two levels and can hold up to seven crew members with a standard complement of six.

Mars Society

To experience what life on Mars might be like, I spent a day with the astronauts who inhabit this unique research station.

The crew

In the video below, the crew is introduced before the mission:

 

The BevonautsAravind Karthigeyan (Crew Scientist) Noah Mugan (Crew Biologist) Rishabh Pandey (Crew Engineer) Kristina Mannix (Astronomer/HSO Officer) Avery Abramson (Astronomer/Executive Officer) and Prakruti “Pari” Raghunarayan (Crew Commander) in this mission.”We have a variety of physicists, astronomers and engineers on the crew, and basically when you’re applying to be an astronaut for NASA, those are some of the leads you need,” explained Crew 299 commander Raghunarayan. like the Bevonauts, from the University of Texas, Austin.Many of the crew aspire to be influential in the scientific community as they continue to grow in their studies and learn new things. So, when the opportunity arose to be a part of this program, they jumped at the chance.”This facility is actually the largest and most well-known research facility in terms of isolation,” Raghunarayan said. “The realism is definitely what makes this experience so, well, not even close to home—further from home.”They prepared for two years after applying and being accepted to determine exactly what their scientific goals would be.Since the crew are all college students, they are a bit different from the normal crew that inhabit this base.Most of them admitted in the early days that the shock of leaving behind many of the comforts of modern life was somewhat difficult.Life inside the HAB involves strict planning and conservation of resources, including water and energy. The crew’s diet consists of dehydrated food, requiring careful use of water.”It was kind of a shock, at least the first day or two,” Karthigeyan said.Isolated from the world, as they would be on Mars, this crew starts each day with a plan and scientific goals.

EXTRAVEHICULAR ACTIVITY

Watch the video below to see what the crew does when exploring the Martian-like landscape: 

EVE After breakfast and a review of the crew’s objectives for the day, the fun begins with preparations for an Extravehicular Activity (EVA).”Every time we go out for EVA, we plan well in advance, the night before, where we’re going and map out the coordinates,” Raghunarayan explained. “We make sure the suits are loaded because if you were on Mars and you didn’t plan ahead, you would die.”The purpose of EVAs is to collect samples and data and explore the Martian landscape.The suits themselves are similar to backpacks with a helmet attached to the top.There are two different types that crews use, but both are roughly the same airflow that is pumped into the helmet to help with comfort and simulate what oxygen flow would be like.The packs weigh about 10-15 pounds and aren’t the easiest things to maneuver, as I almost fell over a few times while in the suit – but this is similar to what it would actually be like (even if Mars has a gravity of only 38% compared to Earth).Crews wear radio headsets that connect them not only to each other, but to the HAB, where another crew member maintains contact, checking in at predetermined intervals.Crew members on the EVA also wear GPS trackers so that the person manning the radios on base can track their coordinates.To add to the realism, after everyone suits up, they enter an airlock where a 5-minute timer marks the time it would take to equalize the pressure differences between an Earth-type atmosphere and a Martian environment.The rovers, aptly named Curiosity and Opportunity, take astronauts across the Martian-like landscape.For the first EVA I was involved in as part of this team, the goal was to collect rock samples for later studies and take aerial scans. But different EVAs have different purposes to further the scientific goals and research of the crew.

SCIENCE

As part of each mission, each crew defines science goals that relate to a variety of areas and to obtain data that can help a possible mission to Mars.I asked each crew member to write a short excerpt of their quest to understand the complexity of what they were trying to accomplish:Prakruti “Pari” Raghunarayan

“Hello! My name is Prakruti “Pari” Raghunarayan, and I’m the crew commander. I’m a student of physics and materials science and engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where I work in the research and use of quantum materials for semiconductors, superconductors and computer hardware With MDRS and NASA, we’re expanding this material study to bring back the rockets we launch, basically, a bigger plan would be to use space weather models to optimize when we do launches with the work of Avery and Kristina, mapping out that research, and finally analyzing and repurposing the materials found as energy sources to essentially create rocket fuel (a process called electrolysis) will be a combined effort of what Me, Noah and Aravind will do my own specific research to exfoliate the material we find and see what its composition looks like and how we can categorize the terrain material for sustainable space travel!”Avery Abramson and Kristina Mannix“My name is Avery. I am the Executive Officer and Crew Astronomer of our mission. As the latter, I am conducting a photometric study of the white dwarf star BD-07 3632 with HSO Officer Kristina Mannix. We intend to capture and analyze the light curves of the star, as there is limited data By processing the data we collect with an in-house Python tool and Fourier analysis, we hope to reveal features of BD-07 3632 that have not been detected before I will also use Musk Observatory to image the Sun’s surface and monitor space weather in real time.”Aravind Karthigeyan“My role on the MDRS crew is team scientist, and I’m specifically monitoring radiation levels throughout the research facility and habitats. In a real Martian environment, astronauts will be sensitive to various forms of ionizing radiation , especially UV and gamma radiation from the Sun, astronauts would also use energy sources that would include radioactive components, which would make the risk even higher.Rishabh Padney

“Hi, my name is Rishabh Pandey and I will be the crew engineer. At MDRS, I will be researching the viability of using photogrammetry to develop detailed topological maps and testing an algorithm to find escape paths through such maps .Mapping terrain and finding rescue paths is vital to planning EVAs, and developing cost-effective methods for making such maps is also important.Noah MuganBehind one of the most unique experiments, especially if you’ve seen the movie “The Martian”, is Noah Mugan. I asked him to explain his goal of growing radishes on Martian soil, which he actually accomplished quite well. radishes 

BEAUTY

As my time on Mars was winding down, I participated in another EVA with the crew, suiting up and taking a GoPro with me on my journey. This time, the scientific goal was to study the area around the HAB and take ground and air readings with a Geiger counter to see radiation levels.While studying the area around you is unique, I found myself alone in absolute awe of the scenery around the area. Getting all dressed up and walking along the red dirt really gives you a sense of wonder and for a moment you have to remind yourself that you’re still on Earth with the blue sky as your only memory.That, and the occasional tourist in a Hawaiian shirt who can’t help but stop at the sign marking the station and take a selfie.”Look, real Martians!” Noah remarked once with a smile as a family jumped out of their car to check out the place.While many are fascinated by the facility, the Mars Society that operates it notes, “People are allowed to cross the campus from the cow dung road and are welcome to stop and park where permitted, and view the station from that location. Because of the research being conducted here, the main campus is not open to the public and we ask that the privacy of our crews be respected.”It is truly an amazing place for an object so steeped in realism and with important scientific purposes.While I will leave and go home, this crew will wake up tomorrow and do it again – with even more crews every 2-3 weeks that can lay the scientific foundations for a real mission to Mars. .”We’re all very aspirational in terms of our careers and how we want to impact the world,” Raghunarayan said.Mugan added: “We’re on our way [to Mars], whether in the next 20 years or in the next 200 years. I think we’ll get there eventually. These kinds of experiments are very important to assess what we can or cannot do.”Karthigeyan perhaps summed it up best by saying, “I don’t think many people can say they’ve done anything like this kind of experience. It’s really a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”So is Utah the new Mars? For the crew at the Mars Desert Research Station, it’s certainly as close as we can get now, and their work brings us one step closer to exploring the Red Planet.If you want to learn more about MDRS, the results of each of their goals and see the crew reports Click here.