Mike Moran celebrated his 21st birthday on Mars.
Sort of.
The Beverly Hills man is part of a six-member team taking part in a research expedition at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. Moran is the chief astronomer for the crew.
“This mission is going well so far,” he wrote from the station. “We’re at Sol 10 right now (a sol is a Martian day) and the crew and I have almost completely adjusted to living and working in the Hab.”
Funded by The Mars Society, Moran and the other crew members spent two weeks living in a model habitat near Hanksville, a small desert town that once served as a supply post for Butch Cassidy. Their mission was to conduct experiments and test equipment, as if they were on Mars.