Pascal Lee has the coolest job in the world, literally.

He’s spent the last 18 summers on Devon Island, one of the coldest places on Earth, in the High Arctic.

“We have, here on Earth, this amazing place that is, at the very least, teaching us something that happened on Mars possibly,” explained Lee. “And, might there be life in a place like that?”

As a result of his research there, he’s the first person ever to suggest that Mars has always been a cold planet and the science is proving him right.

“We are interested in Mars, just mainly because we are so curious about who we are,” said Lee.

Lee is chairman of the Mars Institute, a senior planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, and Director of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project at NASA Ames Research Center.

He’s also written an exciting children’s book called Mission: Mars, providing kids with a playful and fun guide to packing for a human mission to the red planet, and what to do once you arrive in sub-zero temperatures.

Pascal Lee joined May Lee in our Los Angeles studio to talk about training for life on Mars, the new frontier.