The Mars Society recently established the MDRS-FMARS Alumni Group on LinkedIn to serve as a place of contact for former crew members who served at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah or the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) in Canada. The new LinkedIn platform will allow former crew members to network professionally, discuss career progress and opportunities, post research and presentations about analog work and related studies, add articles about and photos from past crew missions, and… READ MORE >
Topic Area: Mars analog
The Mars Society’s MarsVR team has released a “Coming Soon” trailer for its MDRS Virtual Reality environment, to be hosted on Steam in the near future. The goal of the MDRS VR project is to create a special training environment for MDRS (Mars Desert Research Station) crew members and the general public in order to learn more about Mars analog science, technology, and procedures. The MarsVR team has been working since 2018 on a digital twin of the real-life MDRS facility located in southern… READ MORE >
Most visiting crews to our Mars Desert Research Station come for a two-week analog mission and consist of researchers, members of academia, or university students. In recent years however #MDRS has opened its doors occasionally to younger groups of would-be Mars explorers, including high school students. Beginning tomorrow (December 9th), a team made up of middle school students from Ogden Preparatory Academy in northern Utah will be participating in a three-day mini-sim on campus. Led by an educator who participated… READ MORE >
Next week is Giving Tuesday, an international day of charitable gifting that occurs on the Tuesday after the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. As the world’s largest and most influential space advocacy group dedicated to the human exploration and settlement of the Red Planet, the Mars Society leads the way in educating and informing the public, the media, and the government about the importance of exploring Mars and planning for an eventual permanent human presence there. Included in the Mars Society’s mission are: Mars… READ MORE >
Dr. Shannon Rupert, Space.com, Nov. 3, 2021 Dr. Shannon Rupert is an ecologist and educator who has spent more than 20 years doing Mars analog research. She is the longtime director of the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), which is owned and operated by The Mars Society. MDRS hosts researchers who conduct their work while in a simulation, living as if they were on Mars. For more details about the MDRS program, please visit: mdrs.marssociety.org. Dr. Rupert contributed this article to… READ MORE >
Save the Date(s)! Mars Society UK, an international chapter of the Mars Society, is proud to present the Conference on Human Analogue Space Missions (CHASM), taking place at the University of Cambridge, UK on April 1-3, 2022. Analogue space mission crews from around the world are invited to present their missions, goals, and meet fellow international analogue crews. The aim of this recurring conference is to develop the analogue astronautics community, foster international relationships, and boost productivity of individual missions… READ MORE >
T minus 7 days until the crew field season begins at the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station in Utah! NorCal Chapter of the Mars Society continues to refurbish and upgrade our spacesuits for MDRS and its crew members, who carry out important research and field exploration during two-week simulations in the Mars-like terrain of southern Utah. New to this field season, which begins on September 26th, are the 3-D printed neck rings which are HALF the weight of the… READ MORE >
Today, the Mars Society was selected to receive a $1 million grant from Blue Origin’s Club for the Future. This generous grant will allow us to expand all of our activities, including conferences, publications, STEM outreach, engineering competitions, and student participation as crew members at our Mars analog research stations, helping us to learn how best to explore the Red Planet by engaging in comparable field exploration in some of the most Mars-like environments on Earth. “Our recent auction for the first seat on… READ MORE >
The Mars Society invites you to join us this Thursday (July 15th) at 6pm PST / 9pm EST for the next episode of our Red Planet Live video podcast with an amazing discussion with Crew 245 about their recent two-week simulation at the Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah. Participating in the show with our host, Ron Craig, will be the full team – Dylan Dickstein, Commander, Shayna Hume, Executive Officer (XO), Julio Hernandez, Crew Botanist, Shravan Hariharan, Crew… READ MORE >
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that there are three volunteer internship opportunities available for the upcoming 2021-22 field season at the Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah. Two are student positions which require a minimum month-long commitment on-site, and should be done in collaboration with the student’s academic institution as part of an independent study program. The first opportunity is designed for biology majors and requires the student to be on-site in December 2021 to do field… READ MORE >
Crew 235, Mars Desert Research Station The following is the final summary report of Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) Crew 235. At the start of our mission, nine strangers came together with different hopes and expectations, all with the same end goal – come together with other like-minded individuals within the education community and emerge with new skills or ideas. Amazingly, every step of our journey together built the outcome that would meet and exceed everyone’s expectations. Many of the crew interactions… READ MORE >
For over a year, the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) has been nearly as quiet as Mars itself. Normally MDRS is a revolving door for teams of scientists, engineers, physicians, journalists, etc. to research, record, and reflect at one of the leading Martian simulations in the world. MDRS prides itself in being safety first and administration took quick and appropriate action to protect its simulation participants and staff from what the world soon came to know as a global health… READ MORE >
Spaceward Bound Utah to be held at MDRS Analog Spaceward Bound is a NASA-funded program to train K-12 educators in how to engage their students in activities that will inspire careers in the space sciences by taking teachers into the field with scientists who are working on space-related research in a given location. First instituted by researchers at NASA Ames, today scientists involved in that early project are still organizing Spaceward Bound field expeditions around the world. Spaceward Bound Utah… READ MORE >
Dear Friend, As many of you know, the theme of the 2020 International Mars Society Convention, held virtually over the course of four days in October, was “Rising Together.” We felt that “Rising Together” was a very poignant call to action as we navigate this global pandemic. We believe that humanity can work together on issues of great importance, especially those that impact our long-term future and survival. The Mars Society strongly believes that becoming multiplanetary is a critically important… READ MORE >
Due to the current surge in COVID-19 cases around the world and, in particular, in the United States and Utah, a decision has been made to delay the beginning of the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station field season until February 2021. According to experts, the next three months are expected to be the hardest of the pandemic, and MDRS management, led by Dr. Shannon Rupert, wants to ensure that all crew members stay safe and well throughout that time…. READ MORE >
The Mars Society announced the winners of its international dual design contest for creating a special logo for a patch and t-shirt to be used by crew members at the Utah-based Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), the largest and longest-running Mars analog program in the world. The winner of the competition to create an official MDRS crew patch is Ognian Ivanov of Bulgaria, while the winner of the contest to design a logo for an official MDRS crew t-shirt is… READ MORE >
Dr. Shannon Rupert, long-time Director of the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah, will give a virtual address entitled “Once a Martian, Always a Martian: Demographics and Stories of the People who have Crewed MDRS” during the 23rd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 15-18. She will be sharing an analysis of the demographics of the researchers who have served as crew at the station over the last twenty years and providing some stories about… READ MORE >
The Mars Society is pleased to welcome Anastasia Stepanova, an engineer at the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Biomedical Problems and veteran crew member of two major space simulation programs – SIRIUS (Scientific International Research in Unique Terrestrial Station) and the Mars Society’s Mars160, as a virtual plenary speaker at the 23rd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 15-18. Ms. Stepanova served as a mission specialist at SIRIUS 18-19, a four-month long mission conducted jointly in Moscow… READ MORE >
The Mars Society announced the launch of an international dual design competition for creating a logo to be used as a patch and t-shirt by crew members at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah, the largest and longest-running Mars analog program in the world. The theme of the customized logo is to represent what MDRS stands for – advocating and preparing for human exploration and settlement of Mars – but must be obvious and self-explanatory to all, including… READ MORE >
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that the 23rd Annual International Mars Society Convention will be convened Thursday-Sunday, October 15-18, 2020 all over the world via the Internet! Through the use of unique technology provided by the TMRO company (Anaheim, CA), it will be possible not only hold debates, panel discussions and presentations, but to allow people from all countries to participate, posing questions and interacting with each other, creating a global teleconvention of a type never before seen…. READ MORE >
Support the Mars Society while shopping on Amazon during these difficult times. Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of AmazonSmile purchases to the Mars Society. To learn more, please visit smile.amazon.com (and remember to select the Mars Society as your charity of choice). Thank you (and Amazon) and stay safe!… READ MORE >
An excellent report by Clément Plagne, journalist for Crew 223 (Supaero II) currently stationed at the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, explaining why he and his team participate in the MDRS analog program. If you’re reading this, it probably means that you’re either a family member or friend of ours, interested in science and the exploration of Mars or both. From your point of view, being out in the desert and being like astronauts for some time… READ MORE >
The Mars Society’s MDRS – Mars Desert Research Station, the world’s largest and longest-running Mars analog program, welcomed a special Mars Academy USA (MAU) crew to its campus last week to begin an historic dual habitat simulation lasting two weeks. During this mission, one crew is operating at MDRS, while a second crew works out of the MAU habitat, which consists of a series of interlocking geometric tents that house crew quarters and a research area. The crew is made up… READ MORE >
A unique team of educators, designated as Crew 217, completed its one-week crew simulation yesterday at the Mars Society’s Utah-based Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), the largest and longest-running Mars analog facility in the world. Funded by the Utah NASA Space Grant Consortium, the NASA Spaceward Bound Utah program serves as a workshop for K-12 teachers to conduct field science under astronaut simulation conditions. This inaugural crew consisted of middle school teachers from Utah, Colorado and Connecticut and was led… READ MORE >