Kiwi crew visits 'Mars' in Utah
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New Zealand has sent its first citizens to Mars. Well, sort of — in reality, they were in Utah.
A group of six New Zealanders recently completed a two-week simulated mission at the Mars Desert Research Station in Hanksville, Utah, according to an article in the New Zealand Herald.
The three men and three women of the KiwiMars team lived together in a two-story, 10-meter-wide "environment" with greenhouse and observatory to replicate the conditions of a mission to Mars.
"When you get to such a place, everything is alien," mission commander Haritina Mogosanu said. "People do get nervous, they get scared and a little bit on edge because they don't know how to react. It's like a survival camp."