Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

The Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) Research Station will be home next year for the 20th HMP field campaign of a small international team of scientists.
Credit: NASA HMP

Devon Island doubles as a welcome mat for revealing safer and more efficient ways to live long and prosper on faraway Mars.

Future Mars explorers are sure to benefit by trekking to a high arctic site here on Earth that in many way offers scenery akin to the Red Planet.

On Devon Island you’ll find firmly planted the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) – an international multidisciplinary field research venture. The undertaking started in 1997 and has been hosting NASA-supported research each year since then. In its first three years HMP benefited by National Research Council postdoctoral funding.

Devon Island offers training ground for future Mars expeditionary crews.
Credit: NASA/HMP

Rocky barren terrain

Devon Island is the largest uninhabited island on Earth, a wide expanse of landscape that is a rocky barren terrain, set in a polar desert. In terms of human exploration, that locale offers many challenges, from remoteness and isolation to extreme temperatures and lack of infrastructure.

To view my new Space.com story on Devon Island, go to:

Mars on Earth: Canadian Arctic Serves as Red Planet Training Ground

by Leonard David, Space.com’s Space Insider Columnist December 08, 2015 08:00am ET

http://www.space.com/31312-mock-mars-mission-devon-island.html