This past week I’ve been in southern Utah, in a simulated Mars habitat with my HI-SEAS crew. We’re living and working in the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), practicing, in effect, our upcoming four-month mission in Hawaii.

This means we’re testing best practices for our main food study and for our individual research projects. We have one more week to go of our two-week rotation at MDRS, and so far we’ve learned a lot. For instance, during HI-SEAS, the nasal patency tests can be completed much faster with multiple computers. That sort of thing.

I’m not doing much blogging about MDRS here because my crew mate, Sian Proctor, has done an excellent job of updating the official HI-SEAS website (hi-seas.org). If you want to learn more about our time at MDRS, our upcoming mission in Hawaii, check it out And don’t forget to enter our recipe contest!