From Dennis Chamberland, a NASA advanced life support systems engineer:

"Reid Stowe's Mars Ocean Odyssey represents a significant if not altogether essential first look at a 1000 day space analog voyage away from the shores of earth."

"Such an extraordinary mission has not only never been attempted before, it represents the first time any human explorers have attempted such a feat that so closely represents what future Mars crews will have to face."

"The sheer psychological magnitude of such an endeavor seems startling, yet, it will one day in the near future become a commonplace expectation for explorers who dare to leave the safety of the earth's land areas for Mars and points even more distant."

"The Mars Ocean Odyssey expedition will certainly collect and carefully document very significant data on the crew's adaptation to remote and extreme environments with no hope of return until mission end.  This information is an important first step in understand the ability of human crews who will one day face such demanding missions in space."

Dennis Chamberland is an explorer, writer and a NASA Engineer who has been a part of the design of advanced life support systems considered for moon and Mars bases.  He is also the design engineer for the Scott Carpenter Space Analog station which conducted two years of successful operations simulating the space environment on the ocean floor off Key Largo, Florida in 1997-1998.  Dennis is the Mission Commander for the Atlantica I and II missions that will establish the first permanent human seafloor community.