The Curious Mars Simulation in the Middle of the Utah Desert

Outfitted in bright orange spacesuits and a full pack of oxygen, three astronauts push open the foot-thick door and step outside onto the rusty red landscape. Though it's zero degrees Fahrenheit outside, they're pouring sweat as they push their way toward the plunging cliffside a half mile away. With civilization a world away, the astronauts have only one mission this very moment: stay alive.

We're not on Mars. We're in the middle of the freezing desert of southeast Utah in December, where Mashable followed a six-person team living in a tiny habitat called the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS). Every two weeks during the winter, crews like this pay $500 each to rent the module and conduct experiments as though they were living on the Red Planet Read more...