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The Mars Analog Research Station Program (MARS) is an international effort initiated and spearheaded by The Mars Society to establish a network of prototype research centers where scientists and engineers can live and work as if they were on Mars, to develop the protocols and procedures that will be required for human operations on Mars, and to test equipment that may be carried and used by human missions to the Red Planet.
Human analog missions are activities undertaken on Earth in various environments to simulate aspects of human missions to other worlds, including the Moon, asteroids, and Mars. These remote field tests are performed in locations that are identified based on their physical similarities to the extreme space environments of a target mission. Such activities are undertaken to test hardware and operational concepts in relevant environments.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System after Mercury. In English, Mars carries a name of the Roman god of war, and is often referred to as the "Red Planet" because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance that is distinctive among the astronomical bodies visible to the naked eye. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of Earth.
The first station, the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS), began operation in 2000 on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic. The second station, the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), began operation in 2002 in southern Utah. Stations to be built in Europe (European Mars Analog Research Station / EuroMARS) and Australia (Australia Mars Analog Research Station / MARS-Oz) have not progressed beyond the planning stages. EuroMARS was planned for deployment in Iceland. A structure for EuroMARS was built, but placed in storage for several years due to lack of funding to ship to the Society's UK headquarters, and from there on to Iceland. During storage and shipping the structure was damaged beyond repair, so now the European chapters of the Mars Society are seeking funding to build a new habitat. The fourth station, MARS-Oz, has been designed, but lacks funding for construction.
The Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) is the first of two simulated Mars habitats established and maintained by the Mars Society.
Devon Island is an island in Canada and the largest uninhabited island on Earth. It is located in Baffin Bay, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is one of the larger members of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the second-largest of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, Canada's sixth-largest island, and the 27th-largest island in the world. It comprises 55,247 km2 (21,331 sq mi) of Precambrian gneiss and Paleozoic siltstones and shales. The highest point is the Devon Ice Cap at 1,920 m (6,300 ft) which is part of the Arctic Cordillera. Devon Island contains several small mountain ranges, such as the Treuter Mountains, Haddington Range and the Cunningham Mountains. The notable similarity of its surface to that of Mars has attracted interest from scientists.
The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Alaska, Finland, Greenland (Denmark), Iceland, Northern Canada, Norway, Russia and Sweden. Land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost -containing tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places.
Each of the MARS research centers comprises a prototype of the Mars Habitat Unit of the kind advocated in the Mars Direct and NASA Mars Design Reference Mission for sending human crews to Mars.
Mars Direct is a proposal for a human mission to Mars which purports to be both cost-effective and possible with current technology. It was originally detailed in a research paper by Martin Marietta engineers Robert Zubrin and David Baker in 1990, and later expanded upon in Zubrin's 1996 book The Case for Mars. It now serves as a staple of Zubrin's speaking engagements and general advocacy as head of the Mars Society, an organization devoted to the colonization of Mars.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research.
These are multi-deck units, providing a combination of living and working space for crews of up to six people at a time. Each unit is approximately 8 metres (26ft) in diameter and stands 9 to 11 metres (30 to 36ft) in height, offering either two or three decks of interior living and working space.
The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is the second simulated Mars analog habitat owned and operated by the Mars Society.
The upper deck is divided into two halves: one is given over to six individual sleeping cabins that provide visiting crew members with a bed, personal storage space and privacy when they need it. The other half of the upper deck is devoted to a common work area / dining area / food preparation area. In the ceiling space above this is the unit's large water tank, containing all of the habitat's usable water (this is resupplied from an additional tank outside the unit. However, on a real mission, the water would be recycled after use, and possibly augmented by water obtained via extraction from the Martian permafrost).
In geology, permafrost is ground, including rock or (cryotic) soil, at or below the freezing point of water 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years. Most permafrost is located in high latitudes, but at lower latitudes alpine permafrost occurs at higher elevations. Ground ice is not always present, as may be in the case of non-porous bedrock, but it frequently occurs and it may be in amounts exceeding the potential hydraulic saturation of the ground material. Permafrost accounts for 0.022% of total water on Earth and the permafrost region covers 24% of exposed land in the Northern Hemisphere. It also occurs subsea on the continental shelves of the continents surrounding the Arctic Ocean, portions of which were exposed during the last glacial period.
The lower deck contains an open-plan work area where a variety of science and engineering tasks can be performed. It also contains the main hygiene area (toilet, washbasin and shower), and contains the main power distribution system for the habitat and the heating system. Heat and power are supplied by external generators, but on a real mission to Mars they would most likely be supplied using a combination of nuclear and possibly solar power. However, due to the extremes of dust contamination, solar panels will not supply sufficient energy to power a Habitat on Mars on their own.
Also on the lower deck of the FMARS and MDRS are the airlocks and the Extra-vehicular Activity preparation room (EVA prep room). This is where crew members don and doff their simulated Mars spacesuits prior to leaving the Habitat Unit.
Computer graphic of the European Mars Hab interior
The uppermost deck contains sleeping quarters for the 6-person crew, and storage space for on-board systems and / or additional equipment
The mid-deck provides a dedicated communications centre / solar storm shelter, a galley, exercise area, storage bins and a living / working area, and hygiene facilities
The lower deck provides two micro laboratories, a main repair / medical treatment area, 2 airlocks and an EVA prep area.
The European unit has been deliberately designed for expansion - additional equipment and technology, such as water recycling systems, can be added to the unit as they become available.
Operational goals
The primary goal of the MARS programme is to research the operational environment of a base on Mars. As such, the programme is specifically geared towards answering a wide range of key questions about living and working on Mars, including:
What is the best number for an exploratory team on Mars - four people, six people, more?
How well do support systems and equipment function "in the field"?
What are the best designs for EVA suits?
How easy is it to maintain equipment in isolated conditions?
How are group dynamics going to operate in such a closed environment?
In order to find answers to these and other questions, MARS teams will:
Perform a wide range of EVA and scientific experiments of the kind that will be performed on Mars
Test communications equipment, EVA suit designs, portable life support facilities and other elements crucial to a human expedition to Mars
Learn to conduct extended EVA sorties using vehicles such as unpressurised ATVs and analogues of pressurised rover vehicles that can operate away from the main base for days at a time
Find out the optimum means of carrying out surface investigations – how many people need to be on an EVA mission in order to make it effective, etc.
In order to achieve these goals, operations at the Habitat Units are performed under "Mars simulation" conditions. This means that once a crew is in a unit, barring a serious medical event or emergency, they live and work as astronauts would on Mars:
They cannot leave the unit without donning a simulated space suit
They cannot communicate directly with anyone outside the unit without a built-in time delay in the communication - the distance between Earth and Mars makes direct conversation impossible
They can only use the equipment, tools and food available to them inside the habitat.
Each crew spends between 2 weeks and a month living in a habitat unit, performing the kind of work astronauts will be expected to carry out on Mars: collecting rock samples from the surface and examining them back in the habitat; conducting life science experiments; studying the local geology and geomorphology, and so on.
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