Staying alive. That’s what the priority will be each morning for the first humans on Mars.

Astronauts will start each day – or sol, as a day on Mars is called – by checking life-support systems, monitoring their physical condition and assessing their mental health.

Only then will the work begin.

Here’s what humans will really do on Mars – if we ever get there.

Why Mars is so dangerous
Living and working on Mars will mean going outside into one of the most hostile environments humans have ever faced.

In pressurised suits, crews will step onto a surface where the pressure is only 0.6% that of Earth, where radiation is ever-present and fine dust clings to everything.

Their aim will be to drill and collect samples, but even walking will feel unfamiliar: in Mars’s gravity, just 38% that of Earth, movement becomes a controlled skip, rather than a natural stride.

If the mornings are about survival, the afternoons will be spent analysing samples inside compact laboratories.

The evenings will be for maintenance – clearing dust from seals and instruments, repairing worn components and preparing for the next sol.

For the first humans on Mars, life will be repetitive, relentless and, from a scientific point of view, hugely rewarding.

Mission goals: finding life
At the centre of every Mars mission concept lies a defining question: did life ever exist there?

It’s a question that has shaped a new report from the USA’s National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

“This is the millennia-old question – are we alone in the Universe?” says Lindy Elkins-Tanton, a planetary scientist and co-chair of the Committee on a Science Strategy for the Human Exploration of Mars. “It is our top science objective on Mars.”

Read More: We get humans to Mars. What then? Here’s what we’ll really do on the Red Planet