Once again, an island in the Canadian high arctic, a polar desert of a world, will serve this summer as a little bit of Mars on Earth. Starting this week, new arrivals take up residence in the Mars Society’s Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station for the second summer in a row. The site at Devon Island also serves as home-away-from-home for members of the NASA-led Haughton-Mars Project. This cosmic campsite is prepared to trial run off-world technologies and research strategies. And it is another type of proving ground: A site to hone the esprit-de-corps needed to open up the frontier of Mars to human exploration.