About the Moon Mars Atacama Research Station

The Moon Mars Atacama Research Station (MMARS) is a project to construct analog lunar and martian settlements in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The Chilean government, allied with the State of California, have provided a sizable piece of land on which to do this.

The land includes a completed copper mine (copper mining being a primary industry in this part of the world) that is to be converted into an analog lunar settlement. This is appropriate since a permanent lunar settlement will probably be mostly underground as a means of protecting the inhabitants from the high levels of radiation on the lunar surface.

The primary purpose of the project is education, especially of teenagers, who are at the right age to embrace mind-expanding concepts, and may become the first generation of space settlers. Our goal is to provide educational resources to young science students from all over the world.

The initial phase of MMARS is expected to run for 10 years.

About The Astronaut Teacher Alliance

The Astronaut Teacher Alliance (TATA) is a worldwide collaboration between teachers, primarily of teenage science students, and the world's space agencies. Although TATA initially only involved teachers from the United States, working with NASA, it has been expanded to included teachers from Chile, Australia, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

Apart from MMARS, another service provided by TATA enables science teachers to obtain photos from the International Space Station for their class. The students and teacher are able to select which locations on Earth's surface they would like photos of, which can then be used in classroom studies related to, for example, geography or the environment.