Can you imagine seeing an astronaut in the middle of Southern Utah? Place yourself at Arches National Park. Now close your eyes. Can't you picture being on Mars? This is not so far from reality.

There are four Mars base-like habitats throughout the world, although only two are presently built. One is located in the Arctic, which is called the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station. NASA scientists, the European Space Agency, major universities, the Army, the British Antarctic Survey, and Mars Society volunteers staff it during the summer.

Other sites will be in Iceland and another in the Australian outback. The presently built Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is in Hanksville, Utah. The Mars Society has launched a long-term Mars analog geology and biology field exploration program. These studies will be conducted in the same style and under many of the same constraints, as they would be on Mars. This will be a beginning for the exploration of Mars. The Mars Society is a privately funded and non-profit International group of people dedicated to human exploration of Mars. There are 80 chapters worldwide with 50 being in the United States. Each station cost about $400,000 to build and additional cost to maintain. This is not much when you think that one spaceship now costs $14,000,000 to build.

Besides being a beginning for Mars exploration, the purposes of the Mars Society are broad public outreach, support of government funded Mars exploration programs around the world, and conducting Mars exploration on a private basis.

Building of the Mars Desert Research Station was started on December 3, 2001 in Hanksville, Utah. Hanksville, Utah is located south of I-70 and west of Arches National Park. The terrain around Hanksville is a red barren desert that lacks vegetation, is uninhabited, and wildlife is scare. It looks like Mars! This groups' president is Robert Zubrin of Indian Hills, Colorado.

A two level white cylinder 24 feet in diameter and mounted on a pair of landing struts sits outside of Hanksville. The Hab sits in the middle of one square mile of land but they explore for many miles around. The lower deck has the lab, airlocks, bathroom, shower room, tool bench and the EVA (extra vehicular activity) room. The EVA room is where the spacesuits, backpacks, and space helmets are stored. The upper deck has the common area, kitchen, and six staterooms. On the top of the second level there is a loft space that stores equipment, tools, and people if the Hab is crowded.

Teams of 6 crewmembers live for two weeks at the station and conduct science experiments in a Mars-like environment. However, up to fourteen people have been in the Hab at one time. This structure will simulate a real Mars mission habitat with breathable air and gravity. To go outside (pretend Mars atmosphere), the crew volunteers must put on a bulky spacesuit in the EVA room, which takes 10-30 minutes. They then have to wait 5 minutes in an airlock before proceeding outside. According to Tiffany Vora, spacesuits are awkward and often do not fit well. She discovered a way to rig her helmet so that it does not bang against her head while driving or walking. She also found a way to organize her pockets in a specific way so she can find her tools. The gloves make it hard to do fine tasks so she put a long plastic tip on the end of a pencil and velcroed it to her suit so she could push small buttons on the instruments. The five people who emailed me information all found it difficult to work in a spacesuit. Tiffany has never slept in a spacesuit, but other crewmembers have. NASA will need to improve on their present spacesuits to take into consideration the extreme cold and UV irradiation on Mars besides supplying air and water.

There are mainly geologists and biologists at the Utah habitat according to Shannon Rupert Robles. There are also some computer scientists and psychologists. Many are from NASA, some are scientists whose work is to study in Mars analog environments, and others are just want-to-be astronauts.

One reason for picking this isolated Utah sight by the Mars Society is the way that rocks have eroded in Utah. This has happened with action from wind, groundwater, and rivers. A landscape has been produced by these actions, which are similar to the mesas, buttes, gullies, and sand dunes found on Mars. The MDRS is working on the assumption that scientists will find both water and life on Mars. The volunteers at MDRS are trying to find a way to identify water and life once we get to Mars. One way of doing this is to practice a way to find and identify microorganisms here on earth. The MDRS scientists look for areas of water and then see how much microbial life is there. Many types of bacteria grow in colonies and form stromatolites that can be seen with the eye in areas where shallow seas existed. If the bacteria do not grow in these types of colonies, rocks must be sliced very thinly and then observed for microorganisms under a microscope. Another type of microbial life is the lichen that is seen everywhere growing on rocks and wood. To recognize a fossil on Mars you need to go to a place where water has accumulated in the past. Possibly the samples from Spirit and Opportunity will tell us more about the composition in the rocks of Mars. Another way of finding out the presence of bacteria is finding unusual minerals. Amazingly bacteria can turn one mineral into another. This is called "desert varnish." It is a thin coating of metals and clays formed by colonies of microbes living on the desert rock. We can use this idea on Mars to look for minerals that are different from those in the immediate area.

According to Shannon Rupert Robles, they eat better than we normally eat on Earth because the meals are carefully planned. Most likely, when man actually goes to Mars, they will eat frozen dinners, which can be supplemented by things they can grow rapidly in a greenhouse like herbs and leaf lettuce.

One astronaut uses 25 liters of water a day. You would spend about 900 days on a mission to Mars and back plus time there. That is 22,500 liters of water. One liter weighs one kilogram. Can you imagine the weight of enough water for 6 astronauts on one ship? This is impractical. The International Space Station recycles 90% of its water. If you did this on a mission to Mars you would save a great deal of mass. There are also sources of water on Mars. One is the vapor in the atmosphere. Second, there may be ice in the ground that could be extracted although it might be contaminated by chemicals and you would have to purify it. The third source is the polar caps, which would be a useful source of water for a base or expedition. NASA knows that the ice is layered at the polar caps just like the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica. They will contain a history of past climates and environments. It is possible the polar caps, which are much colder than the Antarctica, might contain small amounts of other frozen gases that would be very useful for a Mars base. These gases include ammonia and methane.

The crews at MDRS have no media exposure, there is a 5-minute delay on Internet communication, and there are no phones. Just like on a trip to Mars. The teams use all terrain vehicles (ATV) that resemble moon buggies but are smaller because they only fit one person. The crews explore a 2,000 foot high monolith northwest of Hanksville called Factory Butte. They must maneuver the ATVs through treacherous canyons and valleys for 20 miles to reach Factory Butte. This is further than any other ATV mission.

They have also tested real pressurized vehicles designed for analog research. The smallest pressurized vehicle is the Aonia, which is a SUV, then the Ares is next in size and it looks like a small RV. The biggest rover was called Everest and holds three people (2 scientists and 1 engineer). There are three seats in the cab and in the back is a box like living area. There is a tiny bathroom, small kitchen area, a science lab, and an airlock. The 3 volunteers sleep on the floor in an area the size of a double bed. The MDRS scientists spent one entire week traveling about and exploring further than anyone before.

Many of the MDRS volunteers know that they will never go to Mars. Their goal is to be a Mars scientist on Earth receiving data from the Mars crew. I hope that I can be a part of mans' mission to Mars. There are things that need to be changed before man goes to Mars. A different type of transportation, new types of spacesuits, and more information about the geology of Mars is necessary first. NASA's goal for going to Mars is within the next 10 to 20 years although Stacy Sklar, a MDRS volunteer, has heard that many senators in Congress say this is too long.

It is obvious that all 4 Mars Society research stations are important to the success of a manned mission to Mars.