Lots of people, when they are kids, like to play space station or astronaut. A small number of those people, when they grow up, like to keep at it:
Crews at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) conduct research to understand what humans may face when visiting or settling the red planet. And, in a sense, the crew members are the research...
For two or three weeks, they live like Martians. They wake each morning in bedrooms slightly larger than coffins. They gather in a small common area to eat breakfast – usually a surprisingly edible meal made with dehydrated food, bacteria cultures and harvested greenhouse plants – and watch the sunrise through portholes. Each crew member is allotted one 90-second shower every three days.
The intense workout of this whole experience cannot be overstated:
Operated by the non-profit Mars Society, the MDRS is a so-called analog space station. The crews there have no communication with the outside world except for a brief window every 24 hours when off-site personnel playing ground control make contact. No one is allowed to go outside without donning a spacesuit, or before going through airlock procedures. The station is surrounded by one of the most stunning landscapes on Earth, but crew members are allowed to interact with it only while confined, in effect, in a diving bell.
This sounds miserable. And this is what Elon Musk actually wants people to do on Mars??
The habitat itself looks surprisingly spacious:
In all seriousness, it looks like very important research. Just so long as they don't go in like this...
And come out looking like this:
