The landing of rover Curiosity on Mars has once again propelled the Red Planet into the news. It has also fed the imagination of millions of people worldwide as it beams back pictures of the incredible landscape it is now navigating millions of miles away from earth.

Man has conquered the moon. He has also set up a staging post for a mission to Mars in the building of the International Space Station. We also look into the abyss with the Hubble telescope. But will a man ever walk on the surface of Mars?

Already, researchers are hard at work trying to understand what it would take to succeed in such a mission. The future and technology sections of the international media have already picked up on the potential story and it seems that practical preparations are already under way.

Researchers are gathering data and studying the 13 occupants of the Concordia research station in Antarctica – a place so cold and remote that it is only accessible three months out of the year. The BBC spoke to one of the members – Dr Alexander Kumar.

He is trying to understand the physical and psychological effects of human space travel, particularly the role of extreme isolation. He describes where he is as ‘White Mars’ – right in the centre of Antarctica.

Dr Kumar said that Concordia is the coldest, darkest and most extreme environment on our planet. The outside temperature falls to -80 Celsius with a windchill factor of -99.9 Celsius.

He said that the station is completely isolated from February through to November. He said it is like being on another planet, except he and his colleagues have “no mission control”. Photographs of the base show that it also looks like a colony on a distant planet – with two cylindrical towers reaching three storeys blotting the landscape.

The researcher said that aside from crew dynamics, the team also has to deal with any day-to-day challenges involving life-support system maintenance and equipment failure and breakdown. They have to be completely self-sufficient. “We are alone – the same as any Mars mission would be,” he says.

While many would believe that monotony would be the largest challenge, he said that there was plenty to do and that he had access to the internet, telephone and information. He also said there is plenty of stimulation in pursuing hobbies. However, as winter progresses, crew members tend to shift themselves to their rooms and regress. He said it is dangerous when people living in isolation isolate themselves from their only access to human contact on the station – another problem for any Mars mission.

Another major issue is sensor depravation. While the crew keeps active in the ‘summer’, they find themselves slowing down drastically in the dark and cold of winter – even in their reaction times.

That same information also works against them and when deprived of sensory stimuli, messages, problems and bad news can “Explode like a bomb.  There is no release – you are in a prison of your own mind here,” he says.

While it took brave, clever and fit people to travel to the moon, Martian visitors are going to have to be an entirely different breed. Much of their training will have to centre on how to keep occupied and survive in their own minds. It is going to take some very, very special people to be able to ‘conquer’ the Red Planet.