SFWA member and Hugo-winner, David D. Levine, is spending the next two weeks in a Mars Society Habitat as part of a project to study some of the very real difficulties in sending people to Mars. He promises to do a report for us when he returns, meanwhile you can follow along as he posts on the adventures of Crew 88.
On twitter he is tweeting for the mission as @MDRSupdates
He is also posting updates, with occasional pictures, on his blog and it’s already worth reading along. It should provide insight for some interesting world building.