”The snow brought us a little bit back to Earth,” says Kathryn Bywaters. A biochemistry student, Bywaters was a member of Mars Desert Research Station crew 42, a team of five men and one woman who spent two weeks last January as if on a mission to Mars. In reality they were in a desert in Utah, living in one of two Red Planet simulations operated by the Mars Society. Crew members have actual missions: this crew tested a robotic rover built by the University of Pecs, Hungary. And Bywaters, who is not in this photo, conducted a survey of the desert’s salt-tolerant bacteria. The station is meant to simulate as closely as possible what living and working on Mars would be like. But sometimes the illusion is broken. Snow doesn’t fall on Mars, but nearby Hanksville, Utah, averages 15 centimeters per year.
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