The Mars Society, the world’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to the human exploration of Mars, operates the Mars Virtual Reality (MarsVR) program to create engineering-grade virtual reality simulations of future human Mars exploration. The MarsVR team has been working since 2018 on a digital twin of the real-life Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) facility located in southern Utah. As the world’s largest and longest-running analog facility, MDRS has been in operation since 2001, with 235 crews and over 1,500 individual crew members having stayed at the MDRS during the two decades since its establishment.
MarsVR is a full-fidelity simulation of the MDRS (Mars Desert Research Station) campus, including the station’s exterior and interior spaces. In the real world, only researchers and astronauts-in-training are able to visit the MDRS, and the wait list can be over a year. Consequently, the Mars Society has built this first Steam release to allow everyone the chance to tour the MDRS and better understand analog science, technology, and procedures. While this version is a pre-release taster focused mainly on the environment and building exteriors, the final version (expected to be released within a few months) will include the ability to explore the interior spaces, and conduct optional training scenarios where crew members learn to conduct a Mars analog simulation in real life. Our end goal is to give everyone a taste of what it will take to visit, build a habitat, and thrive on Mars.
