Mackenzie Calle’s above and beyond photography goes inside a Mars simulation

“Nothing could have fully prepared me for the experience of entering the simulation.”

Not even a full year of training could have readied Mackenzie Calle to step into the role of an Analog Astronaut. Most of her preparation — designed as a series of medical and psychological evaluations, and habitat training from Biosphere 2 in Arizona — she took online due to a broken foot. Calle, an award-winning photographer, National Geographic Explorer and long-time space enthusiast was part of a four-person team embedded at the Mars Desert Research Station, experiencing what life could be like on Mars, from southern Utah.

(Go inside the Analog mission.)

“I am the least qualified candidate to be doing this. I am the newbie of my crew,” Calle admitted before being sealed in the 1,900 square-foot habitat with her three crewmates: the commander, the crew scientist and the crew’s engineer, who was also the designated astronomer. 

The mock mission was one of a handful of synchronized, international space simulations coordinated under The World’s Biggest Analog (WBA). In October 2025, 60 participating astronauts across 17 habitats in 15 countries ran a two-week simulation in tandem, assessing crew dynamics and systems for future voyages to the Moon and Mars. 

From Calle’s habitat, known as MDRS, the cotton candy sky against the red rocks of the Western United States “felt like Mars,” she recalls. To realistically simulate the space experience, the Analog missions demand strict adherence to protocol, intense isolation, and a deliberate deficit of basic resources. 

A key in maintaining high fidelity to an actual space mission was extreme rationing: most of the crews’ food were shelf-stable meals reconstituted with minimal water (significant quantities of pasta, powdered cheese, and canned crisped onions, for example, with an approximately 25-year shelf life). Each crew member had two, three-minute showers through the duration of the experiment. The communication with “Earth” was mostly via email — during a two-hour window once an evening, on a 48-minute time delay. The compounding effects of limited space, privacy and sleep were disorienting for Calle. “It felt in a lot of ways like Earth faded away, and we were the only people living on Mars.” 

At least she wasn’t on the The Hydronaut, the underwater mission designed to imitate long-duration spaceflight, Calle describes. “Ninety square feet. Three people. No windows,” she winces. “No, no, no.” 

At least at MDRS, Calle could move about the two-story cylinder that served as the crew’s living space. She could roam the habitat’s tunnels and find herself in its greenhouse (GreenHab), the solar observatory or the engineering bay — the Repair and Assembly Module (RAM). She could exit the environment via the mock airlocks for an extravehicular activity (EVA), or tend to the microgreens she was growing, or retreat for some solace in the tiny citadel above the living quarters. Still, “It was harder than I thought it was going to be,” she admits.

Why would anyone, especially a non-astronaut, do this?

“I want to photograph space so space feels possible.”

From observer to participant

Calle’s storytelling endeavor, supported by the National Geographic Society, is a manifestation of years of her space interest and inspiration by space exploration icon Sally Ride.

“We are at a new and incredibly exciting era in space exploration,” Calle observes, pointing to missions like NASA’s Artemis II, set for launch in March, which will have astronauts orbit the Moon. It will be the closest humans have been to the lunar surface since Apollo, until NASA’s Artemis III which aims to put humans back on the Moon in 203027. “How can we make people feel connected to it?” she wonders, acknowledging that space is a paradox — a universal human experience, and yet, “hostile and alien.” Bridging the gap is at the core of her photographic work.

“I always come back to the quote by Dr. Sally Ride. She said, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see.’ So how can we make a space that’s alien personal, and who’s actually going to go?”

Calle’s passion was evident early on. Fueled by her father’s obsession with the cosmos, astronaut posters decorated her teenage bedroom walls. Even her favorite earthly place — California’s Mammoth Lakes — “feels like space to me.” Meanwhile, her mother has never had an interest in space, and is still “confused” by anyone who does. But the family’s love for the outdoors led to trips along Mono Lake, where her grandfather built a cabin set among the alien-like tufas and famously unobstructed view of the night sky. “That’s where I think the imagination in space came from, from being up there.” That and perhaps Cristina de Middel’s “The Afronauts,” a fictional story inspired by a real Zambian school teacher, about the first African crew to travel to the Moon — in an aluminum rocket — beckoned Calle closer and closer to the cosmos. 

For her first National Geographic assignment in 2023, Calle documented the 40th anniversary of Sally Ride’s historic spaceflight. “It mattered so much. There was so much weight to it. For me that was …” she simply sighs.

The WBA mission, however, required her to morph from outsider to active participant. She served not only as the crew’s official journalist, but also the green habitat officer, in charge of growing food experiments. It proved more demanding than Calle anticipated.

 “It should have taken an hour to set up SPACESEED (Synchronized Planting and Cultivation Experimentation in Earth’s Analog Environments). It took three days.” And if she wanted to photograph the “Martian” environment, she had to suit up for it — a 30-minute team process of layering on 50 pounds of retired space gear including a jumpsuit, helmet, air supply, and radio, plus juggling her camera equipment. “It was definitely challenging, and the schedule was rigorous,” she admits, praising her crew for their understanding about the extra time her photography added. 

The support of her crew became one of the most significant aspects of the mission for Calle, in addition to just how close Utah emulates Mars. Still, some things, like zero gravity, can’t be duplicated. The upshot was the camaraderie the crew shared under the night sky, and being able to breathe while doing it.

One night, around the halfway point of the Analog, and after a long, nutrient and sleep-deprived day, she urged the team to venture outside the habitat fence by the Solar Observatory where they were permitted to stand without space suits. “I think it was maybe the best moment of the whole mission … We all just bundled up and went, and we sat out there for probably an hour almost in silence. There was not a cloud in the sky and you could just see the Milky Way stretch fully across the sky.”

It created an “overview effect moment,” she says, which made her feel “very small and big at the same time.” It put into perspective the urgent need to protect the only home humans currently have as they test the viability of a new one.

Common ground in space

Analog researchers will now assess teams’ relationships, collaboration, and evolution throughout the mission using the crew’s documentation of their experience. Each evening, participants reported on their day via hour-long video journals, which scientists will study for microexpressions and verbal responses to gauge the simulations’ impact at the individual level.

For Calle’s own assessment, she found the crew bonded notably fast. By the fifth Martian solar day — or sol five — they knew more about each other than many of their friends and family back home. “There was one night especially that I think we sat for maybe three hours at the table talking about biggest fears, biggest dreams, family traumas, just literally everything. We all were crying. It felt like nothing was off the table. I think that night will definitely stick with me.”

Stepping out of the habitat after two weeks felt “overstimulating, noisy and overwhelming.” She missed the news cycle entirely — the Halloween costume of a French jewelry heister meant nothing to her. Without hesitation, she says the first thing she and the crew did was get a hamburger. 

Calle had an ambitious goal of capturing the likes of a Martian sunrise at some point during her stay, but it was hard to do while adhering to mission limitations. She couldn’t exit to take the photos she wanted to, until sol 14. Calle woke the day the crew egressed the simulation to find fog engulfed the habitat. Unencumbered by a space suit, she hiked up a nearby hill to a new vantage point. The atmosphere kept changing with the sun’s gradual movement. “It was drastic. It went to this pink suddenly. It was the coolest light.” 

The image she captured — habitat engulfed in red rocks illuminated by a halo sunrise — offers a visual glimpse, a hope, into what life might look like if humans arrive this far into the final frontier. For Calle, it holds memories.

“Even though we didn’t go to space, I think across all 17 habitats, the level of diversity, age, race, ethnicity, across everything, was incredible to see and everyone coming together over one shared interest. That's what stuck with me the most.”

ABOUT THE WRITER For the National Geographic Society: Natalie Hutchison is a Digital Content Producer for the Society. She believes authentic storytelling wields power to connect people over the shared human experience. In her free time she turns to her paintbrush to create visual snapshots she hopes will inspire hope and empathy.