Called the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, the futuristic dome-topped cylinder can be seen from more than 10 miles (16 kilometers) away. From the bottom of the broad dish of the meteorite-excavated crater, it appears as a bright white dot on the edge of gray-brown hills.

From closer, it is an imposing sight. The habitation module, which is supposed simulate a base for astronauts on Mars, juts up sharply from the gently sloping terrain. It is easy to imagine that this space bubble is the first outpost of a growing colony on Mars, that soon the solitary structure will give way to a trailer-park-style settlement of prefabricated Mars modules.

Despite setbacks, the module was completed.

Mars Society member Darlene Lim wears a motorcycle helmet, jacket and gloves while out on a "traverse" away from the habitation module. Wearing the gear is meant to give the feeling of a spacesuit.

"This has been a fairly short stay," said Darlene Lim, a Mars Society member who was part of the five-member crew that lived in the module. "But already we see a lot of different improvements that we can make, and it's going to be great in upcoming years because it's the ultimate learning tool -- to actually just immerse yourself in an environment that is really alien."

The Arctic site was chosen for its similarity to the terrain and environment that awaits astronauts on Mars. The polar desert of Devon Island is cold and like Mars, and the 23 million-year-old Haughton impact crater is very much like the craters that pock the surface of the Red Planet.

When Lim and others from the simulation team leave the habitat module, they wear motorcycle helmets, jackets and gloves to represent the same encumbered feeling that spacesuits would give them. They venture from the habitat in teams, and remain in radio contact with those back in the module, checking in every 10 minutes to assure their fellow crew members that everything is normal.

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One of the features of Mars that the crew hopes to simulate in the remote Arctic island is the intense isolation, Lim said. That isolation means that one has to always be very safety conscious. "I think, perhaps, if you were in Utah doing this simulation you would always feel like you were pretty close to home. You could still get some sort of air ambulance to come in and pick you up. But here you have to be safe, you have to keep in mind the elements and that helps reinforce the actual simulation."

Haughton Crater was chosen because of its similarities to areas on Mars

Because the module's original floor panels were destroyed in a failed cargo drop from a military transport plane, the two decks inside the module are built of plywood and two-by-ten planks. Walls are constructed of roughed-out Sheetrock and plywood, but next summer the interior will be outfitted to be much more spacecraft-like said the Mars Society's Marc Boucher, who stayed in the habitat as a member of the simulation crew.

The bottom floor, which is being called the science deck, is designed to be the crew workspace. It features an airlock where astronauts are to put on and take off their spacesuits when venturing out on extravehicular activities. It will have a lab area for astronauts to do their scientific work and space for other activities. Ascending a ladder through a portal to the second floor, crew members come to their living quarters.

The floor includes a large public space that includes a kitchen area and a table where laptop computers are set up. Along the south side of the space are six private rooms. Reminiscent of sleeping compartments on long-distance trains, the rooms are cozy, but have enough room for a bed and plenty of storage space for personal effects.

Many of the initial lessons that the astronaut crew is learning in the module seem mundane, but they will all be important, said crew-member William Clancey, a computer scientist who works at NASA's Ames Research Laboratory. The crew found that it is inconvenient to have personal workstations set up at the same table used for meals. Also, people prefer to be facing each other over their computers so that they can communicate, Clancey said.

One of the daily chores that the crew faces is to empty used water so that it can be recycled. When the crew finds it most convenient to do this, or any of the other tasks of normal life, are open questions, he said.

"NASA, despite all its training and experience in space missions, will not specify how life and work will function on Mars -- that will be defined by the crew. It will evolve in practice and no one on Earth can anticipate how astronauts will feel, after two or three years, about what they were given." Practicing for Mars in the Arctic will help anticipate the needs of Mars culture, Clancey said.

NASA has conducted isolation experiments for years in facilities at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. But the Mars Arctic Research Center goes one step better, Clancey argues. A habitat module could, of course, be built in a warehouse, but it wouldn't have authenticity.

"You wouldn't have crew geologists going out there, coming back, and interacting with us and with real samples," Clancey said. "We're approximating the evocativeness of the landscape, the state of mind, so that we form insights that are relative to Mars."

Still, participants acknowledge that the summer won't be remembered for its scientific Mars-crew simulation. "It was a shakedown season," Boucher said. Next year, the Mars Society looks forward to conducting four to six weeks of research in the module.

Clancey sees the box as a perfect place to conduct research. He builds computer-based simulation models that can predict the use patterns in commercial and business spaces. His goal is to use continuous video monitoring of a crew to collect precise data about how the Mars module is used. By knowing how each crew member uses the shelter, including what tasks they perform, how long they spend in lab and kitchen areas, how often they enter and exit the module and so forth, Clancy will be able to build a computer model that will simulate daily life in the structure.

He hopes to be able to change the numbers of astronauts in the module, or insert problems -- such as a malfunction with the life-support or water-supply system -- and see what would happen. The model would run through a day in the life of the hab, showing where bottlenecks in various processes occur so that designers can make improvements before real problems occur.

In order to build such a simulation model, though, Clancey has to collect data, which he plans to do in-depth next year.

The seams of the module have been caulked to seal it against the weather, and staked to the ground with cables and anchors at 12 points around its perimeter. It will easily withstand the long, dark Arctic winter ahead, Boucher said. "At 15,000 pounds (6,804 kilograms), moving it around will be quite a chore," he said.

Still, the structure wasn't built to be permanent.

"If this project develops the way we would like, we could take this one down in a couple of years and replace it with something else, a next generation that we develop from what we learn here," Boucher said. "It's designed so that when the science is done we can take it apart and ship it out of the environment. We're not going to leave a ghost town here."