Race to Mars


"Hard work, no pay, eternal glory" -- that's what the Colorado-based Mars Society promises volunteers willing to sign up for simulated life on Mars.

As part of a global program of Mars exploration research, the Mars Society has set up field research stations -- habitats, or "habs" -- in sites chosen because of their Mars-like conditions. Secreted in the Utah desert, or sitting atop the harsh, icy expanse of Canada's High Arctic, once unfathomable manned expeditions to Mars come alive. Other carefully selected outposts are situated in the Australian outback and Iceland.

Volunteer scientists from around the world gather for weeks at a time clad in space suits and living in splendid isolation. This past spring, however, seasoned Mars Society explorers set out for their most ambitious expedition to date -- a four-month Mars simulation mission conducted at the society's Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) on the a rocky, polar desert of Devon Island, in Canada's High Arctic.

I photographed the Devon Island mission (the island is located in the Canadian arctic archipelago, some 900 miles from the North Pole), as well as a recent mission at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah desert.

Mars, the planet most similar in geology and atmosphere to earth, has long been a source of fascination for scientists because it holds all the identified building blocks of life. Every crew of volunteers at the MDRS includes biologists, geologist and other researchers. Many of them work for their country's own space agencies.

Robert Zabrin, who heads the project, says he believes the group's work can lead to solving the age-old question of whether there is life on Mars. The society, which works in concert with universities around the world, also promotes the idea of human settlement on the planet and hopes to piggyback private research projects on federally funded missions to further its goals.