Some say “women are from Venus and men are from Mars” but the truth is we all live on the same planet, despite all the differences. So what about when we actually go to other planets? It is agreed that a Mars mission crew would be composed by an international mixed crew so it is important to understand the role of the gender in the crew behaviour.
In order to have a better understanding of this subject, two complementary Mars simulation projects were set up by International Space University alumni and will be accomplished in the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), the Mars simulation facilities of the Mars Society, in the Utah Desert, USA. The Leonardo project will be carried out by an international male team from April 15 to May 1, while the Mona Lisa project all-female crew will be in the MDRS from May 1 to 15 2005. Both crews will perform similar tasks in comparable conditions and their results will be put side by side.
These projects, however, go beyond the study of psychology and sociology issues and make use of the multi-disciplinary skills of the teams. They also involve more technical matters related to the preparation of a Mars mission, namely in exploration (e.g. robots remote control and comparison between gas-suits and elastic-suits developed for Martian environment) and environmental conditions and life support (e.g. environmental control in the greenhab).
