Some Lessons I Learned on Mars and Why I Had to Go to Mars to Learn them, Part 2

Strangers in a Strange Land

By Louise Wynn

Mormons and Mars

Throughout history, people have sailed across huge oceans and trekked across whole continents in search of freedom. 

Dr. Robert Zubrin, founder and president of The Mars Society, established a Mars analogue research station in southern Utah partly because of the example of the Mormon pioneers.  “Utah’s pioneer past is Mars’s future,” he writes in his book Mars on Earth. 

He adds, “strictly speaking, [the Mormons] did not go to Utah to escape persecution, but in order to be what they wanted to be, and to live in a society constructed in accord with their own ideals.”

The same kind idealism and search for “fundamental freedom” that inspired the Mormons to move to the barren deserts of the Western United States is the same motive that will, “two hundred years after the Mormons’ migration, inspire human colonists to try their courage and grit on Mars,” Zubrin believes.

I agree with him. My first Mars analogue experience at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah earlier this year led me to think of my own pioneer ancestors, from early settlers of Utah and later settlers of Arizona down to my own parents who moved from Arizona to the Golden State when I was seven years old to establish a future for their little family. 

They all had courage and will and faith and … a dream, a vision. What else could motivate some people to move to the middle of nowhere in the name of religion or ideals or a new life for their families when they could, as Zubrin points out, “just return to the religions of their birth” – or to the cultures of their birth or the expectations of their family, or to the secure jobs and comfortable lives that many other people wouldn’t even consider leaving behind?

But this dream or vision is not enough. Nor are all the courage and grit and hard work in the world.  All these ingredients are worthless without at least three others: the ability to plan for every contingency, the flexibility to go with Plan B (or C) when necessary, and the willingness not only to work with strangers but to live with and join futures with those strangers.

This “Mars” sunset is actually the desert of Utah, which is only one similarity Mars explorers have with Church members.

Strangers Together

Like all crewmembers at the beginning of a Mars analogue crew rotation, I was worried about whether I would fit in, how I would get along with five or six completely new people for two to four weeks, whether I could accomplish my research goals, and even whether my research was “good enough.”  

I would be a stranger in a strange land, but what didn’t occur to me until I met my crewmates was that they felt the same apprehensions.

MDRS Crew 24 got immediate experience in flexibility when we arrived at Salt Lake City Airport to find that the vehicle we’d expected to be waiting to transport us to the MDRS Habitat near Hanksville wasn’t available after all. 

Commander Digby Tarvin asked crew engineer Diego Casa and me to rent cars. (Diego and I had arrived at the airport about the same time.)  We should drive the cars to the motel where Digby and the other crewmembers were already planning our meals and research schedule. All six of us would complete our shopping list, find a grocery store and buy enough food to last two weeks, and drive to Hanksville before dark. The crew we were replacing would drive the rental cars back to Salt Lake the next day, and we would be on our own for the next two weeks. 

We also got some other flexibility practice right away: One of our crew members (me) was a vegetarian who, although she didn’t want to keep anyone else from eating all the meat they wanted, needed to make sure there was another source of protein in our meals.  Another had broken his foot two days earlier and wouldn’t be able to participate fully in our research activities.  Another had been called with only three days’ notice to replace an original crewmember who had canceled at the last minute, yet had managed to rearrange his whole life and work schedule in a whirlwind of activity to join us. Chemist Celeste Gale, the only other woman on Crew 24, had committed to perform biological research and had spent the three weeks before coming to Utah reading up in this field. Digby, Australian by birth, had traveled all the way from England to be our commander. But the one who had traveled the farthest in most respects had to be Kyoichi Sasazawa, Washington science correspondent for one of Japan's most influential newspapers, the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Maps inspected, shopping done, and two cars crammed full of sleeping bags, duffel bags, groceries, and three crew members each, we began the drive from Salt Lake to Hanksville. We were on our way, already less strangers than when we’d met.

Bob McNally, with a degree in engineering plastics and his own guitar-making business, was the crew member who’d joined us on short notice. As I drove south through the magnificent desert to our own personal Mars, he and Kyoichi took photos out the window, and we shared our reasons for making the trek.

  Crew 23 greets Crew 24.  The author is at the far left.

Expecting Change

We also wondered how we would be changed over the next two weeks, because the one thing we were sure about, going in, was that we would drive back to Salt Lake at the end of our rotation changed in some respects.

All six of us had been planning in some way for years for this experience. Some of us had wanted since childhood to be astronauts, some had planned our whole lives around exploration and adventure, some were established as scientists, and some were amateurs or still students. We all wanted to contribute, and we all recognized that sitting in front of our TVs at home watching the first landing on the Moon – or, a few years from now, on Mars – would not be enough. 

Our planning for the MDRS experience, though, was relatively easy. The really hard work had already been done by Robert Zubrin and Mars Society volunteers who designed and built the Habitat (which we affectionately called the Hab) and devised the whole Mars simulation program. Previous crews had paved the way for us as we would pave the way for the ones who followed.

And so we arrived, following Route 24 west out of Hanksville and turning right on Cow Dung Road to get to our new home away from home, the Habitat in the desert.

We felt we’d really arrived on Mars. Nestled between red mesas and hummocks, the Hab sat in the twilight like the Mars lander it’s designed after, portholes gleaming eerily, and a red, green, and blue Martian flag hanging in one window. And a “Welcome Crew 24” sign on the hatch.

Crew 23 had cooked a dinner for us of spaghetti with marinara sauce. They gave us a quick tour of the Habitat, Greenhab, observatory, vehicles, and EVA prep room. We learned how to put on our spacesuits, how to fuel the generator, how to get water into the inside tank and heat it, how to cook without tripping all the circuit breakers, and how to communicate with the outside world. In addition, Crew 23’s Health and Safety Officer gave me, as Crew 24’s HSO, a quick lesson on the remote telemedical system, a lesson I would need before our rotation was up.

We laid our sleeping bags out on the floor of the wardroom (Crew 23 enjoyed their 4-foot-by-11-foot staterooms one last night), and fell asleep to dreams of Mars. The next day Crew 23 left, and we had all of Mars to ourselves to explore.  

These sand formations could be on Mars, but they are actually found in Utah.  That is why Utah deserts are good substitutes for Mars in Mars simulations.

Exploring Mars

Over the next two weeks, we learned to navigate in the desert, walked and drove on exploratory EVAs, collected rock samples, made geophysical measurements, dug up mud which we measured for water and mineral content, extracted DNA from peas, learned more than we ever wanted to know about plumbing and waste recycling, cooked for each other, wrote reports, sang and watched movies together when we weren’t too exhausted after our reports were turned in, and shared our knowledge with each other.

We also went through some hard times together.  When one crewmember had an accident while riding an ATV, our bond was cemented even more strongly by that person’s needing help and by our being able to help. (Because I was HSO, I’m not allowed to write about the accident in any way that would reveal that crewmember’s identity – but I can refer readers to the crewmember’s own account of the incident.)

Six strangers became fast friends. This isn’t an inevitable consequence of working together in a Mars analogue station, as we later found out from other crews. But we six chose to get along.

Two Mars scientists “visualize whirled peas” in a science experiment.

Even more important than the scientific research we accomplished was the successful experiment in living together. We were helped by our excellent commander, our united struggles against the cold and alien desert, our common goals of simulating the living and working conditions of the first scientists on Mars, and our shared dreams of exploring space and moving humanity beyond our current borders. 

The first Mars explorers and scientists will get there, and survive there, with the help of many planners back here on Earth, as well as the experiences of analogue researchers like us. You don’t have to go to Mars to learn every lesson.

Lessons Learned

And we learned a lot of lessons in the Utah desert. Here are some of them, as reported a few days before we had to leave the Hab:

Commander Digby Tarvin: Boredom is definitely not going to be a problem on Mars for any crew that's as motivated as this one. Sleep, maybe, but not boredom.

Kyoichi Sasazawa: I learned to appreciate the majestic beauty of this area, the geology. I learned how to wear a spacesuit. I made a lot of really good friends. I enjoyed learning about the efforts of many people who aim to mount a Mars mission.

Celeste Gale: I really am surprised how easy and comfortable it has been to live and work together with five total strangers and become good friends. I normally view myself as an outcast so I find it very strange.

Bob McNally: There's nothing like working with a highly motivated team of people who are committed to the job and not to their image or their ego but just want to work and are willing to work with other people to get something good done. Nothing like it!

Diego Casa: The exploration of Mars doesn't have to be done by superheroes. Any of us can do it if we're really motivated.

Louise Wynn: I have found five new friends whom I never would have met if I hadn't come here. I used to hate grapefruit and now I really like it. I can make breakfast out of practically nothing. I have seen examples of leadership and camaraderie and teamwork that motivate and inspire me.

No longer strangers but lifelong friends, we didn’t want to leave at the end of our two weeks. We recognized that one reason for this was simply that we weren’t bothered during our crew rotation by our everyday, earthly worries and cares. But mostly it was the shared adventure – and hardship – that we would miss.  And we learned that we have “the right stuff,” a lesson worth going to the ends of the Earth, or to Mars, to learn.