Jonathan Buzan, USA

This week on Aspiring Martians, I spoke with Dr. Jonathan Buzan, an atmospheric physicist and planetary scientist whose fascination with space began on the floor of his childhood living room playing SolarQuest. That fascination eventually turned into a career exploring the habitability of planets—through video games, graduate studies at Purdue University, and cutting-edge research in climate modeling and biothermophysics.

Jonathan has worked at institutions like the University of New Hampshire, the University of Bern, and now Aalborg University in Denmark, where he develops computational tools to understand extreme planetary environments and carbon drawdown. We chatted about his role as the GreenHab Officer on Crew 218 at the Mars Desert Research Station, what it feels like to simulate life on another planet, and how climate science is central to both Earth’s future and Mars’s potential.

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