Tales of the Heliosphere

Question: What does NASA have to do with the Mars Desert Research Station in the Utah desert? According to this Voice of America article (click here) NASA built it and staffs it.

Somebody did not do their research for this one. In fact, NASA had nothing to do with the building of the MDRS, as it's called, and NASA doesn't maintain it either.

Sure, there are NASA scientists and employees who serve there as crew sometimes. On their vacations! But MDRS is not a NASA facility, and it never has been one.

Who built it, who maintains it, who crews it, and who pays for it?

The volunteers and members of the Mars Society with their dues and hard work, me among them, and there's nary a government bureaucrat for miles around and no tax dollars either. And that's the way we like it.

If you want to know more go to the Mars Society's website. (Click here.)

-tdr

UPDATE: I've been told that some of the NASA employees who go to MDRS get paid to go there.