Mars has always been called the red planet, and it’s easy to see why with one look through a telescope. It’s also held a certain mystique, because for years we’ve been told that Mars is the planet most like Earth. And Utah is the place on Earth most like Mars. (Look at all that red rock.)
So it seems appropriate that the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is located just outside Hanksville, near the massive area of rock formations and deep canyons called the San Rafael Swell. The project is operated by the Mars Society, the largest non-profit organization advocating humans to Mars, and is funded by private donations, grants and crew fees.
The analog astronauts in Hanksville, as MDRS reffers to its crew members, never leave the Earth; their job is to simulate what life could be like if and when humans ever get to Mars. They field-test dwellings and figure out how to grow food in what they hope will be Mars-friendly greenhouses, and try to answer all kinds of practical questions that will come up for explorers in a truly otherworldly environment. The crew members are deployed for two- to three-week missions.
Driving by the site, you can occasionally glimpse these earthbound Martians, suited up for space and exploring the Utah landscape as if it were the Ghost Dunes of Noctis Labyrinthus. Beyond the otherworldly landscape that drew these would-be Martians to central Utah, the state long has had a connection to space exploration.
Dr. Bonnie Baxter, professor of biology at Westminster College in Salt Lake City and director of Westminster’s Great Salt Lake Institute, collaborated with the space program. Baxter’s work studying the microbiology of the Great Salt Lake caught the attention of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. Baxter studies the transition of the ancient progenitor of the Great Salt Lake, Lake Bonneville, into the salty remnant that exists today.
In February of 2021, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover landed on Mars at Jezero Crater, an ancient lake bed. The Great Salt Lake Institute aided JPL scientists in developing special equipment for Perseverance to help with its mission of seeking out ancient life and collecting samples for a possible return to Earth.
A glimpse of what’s out there (right here)
The MDRS researchers even have all-terrain vehicles (Mars will test the limits of the term “all-terrain”) to explore. Designed by Polaris, the electric ATVs, piloted by suited-up Utah desert Martian explorers, occasionally can be seen crawling around the rocks of the San Rafael Swell.
Mars on Earth
What: The Mars Desert Research Station (MRDS)
Where: Just north of Route 24, Hanksville, Utah
Fun fact: The first Mars simulation project was situated in the Haughton Impact Crater in Northern Canada. More projects are planned for Europe and Australia.
Learn more: Visit mdrs.marssociety.org
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