How can we exploit the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) to prepare for living and working on Mars? Do the environmental and logistic differences between Devon Island and Mars preclude learning from scientists’ and engineers’ experience in Haughton Crater? Is there a principled way of "analyzing away" the differences, to produce data that will be valid on Mars? Using FMARS as a research facility requires a framework for systematically defining and evaluating experiments at Haughton.

In this paper, I provide a preliminary approach for characterizing similarities and differences between Devon and Mars and a strategy for defining experimental protocols. At the first order, a distinction is drawn between 1) high-fidelity characteristics that are inherent or can be easily imposed at Haughton (e.g., authentic work to be performed and time constraints on being outdoors) and 2) characteristics that require more planning and may be imposed in more limited experimental phases (e.g., wearing realistic gloves and coordinating with off-site investigators).

At the second order, I propose that differences between Mars and Devon should not only be used to analyze what is learned, but be the primary driver for defining protocols. For example, how are a geologist’s observation, interpretation, and memory changed if drawing on site is not possible, but restricted to annotating photographs after a traverse is complete (or in a pressurized rover)? Ethnographic studies and modeling of practices at Haughton will establish a baseline of how people normally work. Behaviors that will be impossible or severely constrained on Mars can then be identified and their effect articulated, providing requirements for new tools and processes. By this framework, analog studies using FMARS would iteratively identify important differences imposed by the Mars setting and focus on those differences in defining experimental protocols and new technologies.

Analog Mars Research and Research Stations