On Mars, simply being a doctor, an engineer, or even an astronaut isn’t enough to survive

The University of Colorado’s Medicine in Extreme and Surface Environments (MiSSE) pushes students from a wide range of disciplines to collaborate and survive a week-long analog mission to Mars at the Mars Desert Research Station in Huntsville, Utah.

Once at the research station, students are challenged in a wide range of extravehicular activities, including conducting search-and-rescue operations, launching a model rocket, performing ultrasounds, and managing their own survival in the temperature extremes from -8 to 24 degrees Celsius (or 17 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit).

But the real challenge is more than just the extremes: in these environments, you are forced to face yourself and to learn. As amazing and exhilarating as my time in the desert was, I quickly realized that it would become the toughest lesson I would ever have to tackle.