Mars, the Fascinating Red Planet

Simulating Mars on Earth

The Haughton-Mars project and preparing for a human expedition

Devon Island, the largest uninhabited island on Earth, is a rocky, desert in the Canadian North, where summer lasts just five weeks at an average temperature of only 2ºC. It is a near-perfect environment for simulating some of the conditions on Mars, given its climate, remoteness and the geological, environmental and biological similarities to Mars. Its geographic remoteness enables scientists to study the effects of isolation and to test technologies that will be used in an environment without electricity, infrastructure or any traditional means of communication.

Devon Island and the Haughton Crater are located 180 km northeast of Resolute Bay. (Image: NASA)

That is why the multidisciplinary scientific team of NASA's Haughton-Mars project chose Devon Island. This multinational team is focused on one objective: preparatory work for a long-duration, manned space mission.

The Haughton-Mars project base camp viewed from the airstrip as it first appeared to the summer 2003 team.  (Photo: NASA Haughton-Mars Project)

Devon Island's Haughton Crater formed 20 million years ago and has been preserved from weather erosion by the dry climate of the North; it resembles some of the craters of Mars. Study of Haughton Crater is essential to finding  resources in such regions. How will astronauts feed themselves during a two-year mission, short of transporting food by the tonne aboard a shuttle? The Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse was donated by SpaceRef Interactive Inc. to the Haughton-Mars Project in 2002. SpaceRef along with other participants including the current users of the greenhouse from Guelph University and the Canadian Space Agency erected the greenhouse on Devon Island in the High Arctic in the summer of 2002. The greenhouse is now growing plants thought to be potential food crops for a Mars base. This ongoing experiment is flourishing as a robust, autonomous greenhouse, producing lettuce as a test crop thanks to an ingenious Canadian-designed gardening system.

Alain Berinstain, greenhouse principal investigator from CSA and the University of Guelph, installs sensor circuitry  in the aft end of the greenhouse in July 2003 (Photo: NASA Haughton-Mars Project)

Temporary airlock under construction on the greenhouse in summer 2003. This will serve to decrease thermal shocks during testing. (Photo: NASA Haughton-Mars Project)

Part of the newly installed greenhouse monitoring and control system during summer 2003. (Photo: NASA Haughton-Mars Project)

New lettuce sprouts growing in the greenhouse. (Photo: NASA Haughton-Mars Project)