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The preparation of manned space exploration missions beyond Earth orbit requires precursor activities such as integrated space mission simulations at dedicated Earth-based analog facilities. In recent years, the Mars Society, with the support of private donors, has built several of these facilities. The lessons learned by the crews simulating planetary exploration activities on board those stations are generating a body of knowledge that can make a significant contribution to the design and operation of future planetary bases, as well as improve the next generation of such simulation facilities. Drawing from the author’s first-hand experience as a crewmember during the 2003 field season at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, the Mars Society’s analog simulation facility on Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic, this paper provides a compilation and first analysis of the crew’s experience.

Understanding the factors influencing crew performance under conditions of long-term isolation, confinement, high workload and elevated risk is an important prerequisite to the manned space exploration missions beyond low-Earth orbit that are planned under the new National Space Policy of the United States. Quantitatively tracking the performance of crews affected by those stressors is therefore crucial both during actual space missions and as part of precursor activities on the ground, such as those taking place at planetary-analog simulation facilities. During the summer of 2003, an experiment was carried out tracking the cognitive performance of the crew on board such a facility, the Mars Society’s “Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station” in the Canadian High Arctic. In addition to the self-administered computer-based testing, the crew’s daily activities were logged to enable the identification of external factors that might affect the observed performance.

Preparing for manned space exploration missions beyond Earth orbit requires precursor activities in the form of integrated mission simulations at dedicated Earth-based analog facilities such as the “Mars Desert Research Station”, a Mars-analog planetary surface base operated by the Mars Society in the deserts of southern Utah. Based on the author’s experience as executive officer, station engineer and medic during the first closed crew rotation at the “Mars Desert Research Station”, this paper documents some lessons learned for the design and operation of the next generation of analog bases and for actual future planetary outposts.

In an effort to define and advance the new discipline of Space Architecture, the AIAA technical subcommittee on Aerospace Architecture organized a Space Architecture Workshop that took place during the World Space Congress 2002 in Houston, Texas. One of the results of this workshop is a “Mission Statement for Space Architecture” that addresses the following core issues in a concise manner: definition, motivation, utility, required knowledge, and related disciplines. The workshop also addressed the typology and principles of space architecture, as well as basic philosophical guidelines for practitioners of this discipline. The mission statement, which was unanimously adopted by the workshop participants, reads as follows ([1], [2], [3]): “Space Architecture is the theory and practice of designing and building inhabited environments in outer space, responding to the deep human drive to explore and occupy new places.