How a Nat Geo photographer learned to live on Mars

National Geographic Explorer and photographer Mackenzie Calle has been making space exploration the subject of her photographic work for five years. In October 2025, she got a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at astronaut space training when she spent two weeks as a crew member at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah.

The training was designed to mimic what life would be like for astronauts working on Mars. Run by an organization called the World’s Biggest Analog (WBA), the Mars training in Utah is just one of 16 simulations spread across six continents that replicate life in space environments. Participants spend most of their time inside a confined space, and expeditions outside must be preplanned and done while wearing space suits—just like they would be on Mars.

Images taken by Mars rovers show that sunsets on the red planet can appear to be blue. Calle’s blue-tinged photograph on the cover of National Geographic’s July 2026 explores what it might look like when scientists walk across Mars’s surface as the sun sets.

While participating in the simulation, Calle also took behind-the-scenes videos documenting her experience.

We spoke with her about what it took to capture this cover photo, her artistic and photographic techniques, and how she dealt with the social isolation this work required.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

What was it like to live with only three other people, isolated in an enclosed space? It’s a simulation, but you have to act like you’re on Mars and essentially need to stay in character.
Pretty quickly it feels like the simulation is your life. It feels real with the way our days are structured, the cadence of language, everything that we're doing. There's so much to do that you're not thinking about your life ‘back on Earth.’ We didn't have social media; we didn't have breaking news; we didn't have real time communication with the outside world. We only could communicate through email and with a 48-minute time delay—up to the length of time it could take to go from Mars to Earth and back. I was surprised at how quickly the habitat became my whole world.

We were fortunate at MDRS because even though it is a small, enclosed space, we were at the biggest of any of the habitats participating. And we had multiple rooms we could move between. So even if we all wanted to, each one of us actually could be in our own separate space and have some alone time because we had the engineering bay, we had the main science stone, and we had the greenhouse.

It also helped that we had individual dorm rooms that we could sleep in—they were very small, very thin walls—but we did have a door that we could shut. I think being able to have alone time, but then also being able to spend time together as a crew was a nice balance.

You were taking photos in a spacesuit—what was that like?

It was more physically demanding than I expected it to be. When we are on EVAs [space walks, or extra vehicular activity], anytime we were outside of the habitat, we had to be in a spacesuit. That meant anytime I was documenting researchers, I was also in a spacesuit. And the bubble for the helmet goes so far in front of your head that you can't hold anything close to your eye. It was so bright outside during the day that it was hard to sometimes even see the back of my screen.

A lot of times it almost felt like guessing at the pictures I was taking; even trying to get focus could be really challenging. I would try and bring the camera close to my face and just ram it into the suit and I kept thinking, ‘Oh, I'm going to dent these suits. They're going to have a camera mark across the front.’ Fortunately, that didn't happen.

I wore everything I needed because I couldn't have a backpack with any camera gear. Everything that I had to carry was in a waist belt. With the camera weight, plus the spacesuit, I was probably carrying 50 pounds on me. And I couldn't see the waist belt when I looked down because of the helmet, so I had to do everything by touch.

For this project, you used a drone for the first time. How did you use that to explore the terrain outside the training site?

I really wanted to emulate some of the images the NASA rovers were getting and even some of the equipment the NASA rovers were using. To get a broad perspective of where we were and situate the habitat in the landscape, I opted to use a drone.

I also crashed it on the first day. I was flying it way too quickly and crashed it into the roof of the science dome and broke off one of the little antennas in the front, unfortunately. We couldn't get it until the next day when we went on an EVA because that area was technically ‘outside on Mars.’ Unless we were in a space suit and pre-approved for a spacewalk, we couldn't get it.

It sat on the front steps of the habitat all night, but fortunately it still worked. The landing and a lot of the automatic controls were broken, so I had to fly everything manually and land it all manually.

I ended up getting more footage in the morning than I thought I was going to because I was up early and it was just so gorgeous, so quiet, and you just don't have a ton of alone time. That almost felt like meditation.

I love road trips and I love seeing the lay of the land; it helps me situate. And so having the drone and having that almost fake freedom, I think really helped put me in the mindset of also understanding where we were and what we were doing and what was around us.

What was your artistic vision for the photography?

We were simulating being on Mars and the mission, and I also wanted to simulate some of the content that Mars rovers were capturing. And so that's where the stereoscopic lens came in. [A stereoscopic lens uses two lenses to create a single image with more depth, similar to the way human eyes create one visual.]

I wanted to create something that made it feel like Earth faded away. It felt so otherworldly. It’s a glimpse at how it felt for us and how we felt being there and not being able to see much but the stars. It was incredible. None of us had, I don't think, seen the Milky Way as clearly as we did when we were out there.

I think that because we're also looking to the future—all of this is for our long-term future in space and what that can look like for humanity—I wanted it to feel a bit futuristic because that's the goal of the project: How can we live and work in space? What crew dynamics are the best? What crew backgrounds? What crew makeup? How can we do this from a crew perspective and a facility perspective? It is all looking forward.

The magazine cover features a strikingly blue landscape. Walk us through your process for creating that image.

That image was taken before the simulation technically began, so I was actually not in a spacesuit—the three researchers were—and I was carrying a flashlight. It was a small rig light, and it had a couple different colors on it: red, white, blue, and I think a different form of yellow or green.

The tone of the actual hills is like a pink-orange, and it really does look like Mars. I wanted some of that to come through at night. When I was using the white setting on the flashlight, it kind of washed everything out. That's why I started experimenting with red, for instance. I really wanted to get that feel of Mars and kind of put you in that place. And then the blue was also a little bit more practical because it allowed us to more easily see where we were walking.

I had the camera on a tripod, and they all had lights and flashlights on the space suits. That's where that white light comes from on the crew. And then I was handholding the flashlight and did a 32-second exposure because I wanted to get some of the stars, and it just wasn't coming through without that much time. I asked the crew to stand as still as humanly possible for 30 seconds while the camera created the image. That was how we were able to do that shot.

All of us standing there, we were saying that it felt like we were on another planet. It really put us in the mindset of: ‘We are not on Earth. One of the stars that we're looking up at is Earth, and we are the only people here on Mars.’ That was at the start of the simulation.

How does it feel seeing that image on the cover of National Geographic?

This is my first cover of anything. For it to be Nat Geo is kind of beyond my wildest dreams.

You look at National Geographics, and it's literally a lens into different worlds and places that feel so far away or so impossible for you to ever get to. To see my picture on the cover is the most surreal feeling, and I still don't think it's real. This is literally a dream come true.

I think there's so much going on in the space world at the moment, and I'm really passionate about how we can tell stories in a way that's more science forward and science focused—and give everyone access to those stories.

Space has been the subject of your earlier work, including a look at Sally Ride that you previously published in National Geographic. What sparked your interest in documenting space exploration?

My family went up to the Sierra Nevada mountains in California every year—often this place called Mona Lake. Yosemite National Park sent down a ranger every Monday night, and they would do star talks. So, you're just lying on the shore of Mona Lake, looking up at the stars, and a Yosemite ranger is telling you the stories of the Indigenous people who lived there and what their wisdoms were. You could also see the Milky Way.

I fell in love with space as a kid, but didn’t initially pursue it professionally. When I was a photography producer at NBCUniversal, I realized I wanted to be a photographer, and so I quit that job and then almost immediately started working on my project, the Gay Space Agency. That's where all the space stuff kicked off.

When I found out that Sally Ride was queer, that catalyzed my research into the history of queer astronauts. And then through working on that project, I discovered my love of space and science storytelling. Through that project, I was able to meet people who are working for the World's Biggest Analog, which led to this project.

Would you ever go on a Mars Space mission?

No.

I have a newfound appreciation for anyone who would go on a Mars simulation or go to Mars for the length of time that it requires, and when we go to Mars, it will be a huge feat of human achievement and science to get us there and back. But the amount of time is almost something I can't fathom.

Send me to the moon.

You can communicate with people in real time, and you can still see Earth. I think there's a huge thing in that where you feel still tied to home and to your place, as opposed to Mars where you won't see Earth for a long period of time.