http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jRsufjlXDVZmvXg9eg25el9E5ZHw

Quote :

"MOSCOW — The six men who enlisted to be locked up for over 500 days to simulate a mission to Mars called themselves "trailblazers" Tuesday, saying they were ready to face the strain of the isolation. "We are trailblazers, but while this is very exciting, it brings a certain responsibility. I echo my teammates in saying we will do everything to be successful," Russian volunteer Mikhail Sinelnikov told reporters in Moscow. The three Russians, two Europeans and one Chinese national will be sealed away for one-and-a-half years inside a 180-square-metre (1,000-square-feet) spaceship module on the outskirts of Moscow starting on June 3. "It will be trying for all of us. We cannot see our family, we cannot see our friends, but I think it is all a glorious time in our lives," enthused Chinese participant Wang Yue, who is the youngest volunteer at age 27. The mission will set the stage for "future generations who will actually travel frequently to Mars," said Italian-Colombian participant Diego Urbina. The ambitious project, the first full-duration simulated flight to Mars, aims to test one of the biggest unknowns of an eventual manned mission to Mars: the psychological and physical toll on humans. The idea is to exactly reproduce the timescale of a Mars mission -- 250 days for the trip to Mars, 30 days on the surface and 240 days for the return journey, totalling 520 days, cut off from the world in a mock spaceship. To make things as real as possible, designers went into minute details. Frenchman Romain Charles, 31, said what most surprised him were the sheer number of neatly piled space suits on board the module. "We don't wash them. When the clothes are dirty we throw them out -- out to outer space," he said laughing, adding the crew would only get to shower once every ten days. The Mars-500 team's contact with the outside will also be delayed and often disrupted to mimic a real situation, preventing chats with friends and family and leaving the crew to fend for themselves in a crisis. To stave off the blues and break up daily routines, the crewmen can only count on each other, Charles told AFP. "It will be tough. A year and half is not a small thing. It is a very long time, but we are building a team for each other to help the one who is down," he said. Yue said he was also instructing teammates in the Asian martial art of Tai Chi to help them overcome the physical and mental stress of confinement. The Mars-500 mission follows a similar experiment at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) last year which saw six volunteers shut away in the module for a shorter period of 105 days. It is a joint venture of the IBMP and the European Space Agency (ESA), which describes the project as an attempt "to mimic a full mission to Mars and back as accurately as possible without actually going there." The mission cannot hope to stimulate all aspects of a space mission, such as micro-gravity and exposure to ionizing radiation, project director Boris Morukov admitted. But the crew will experience weightlessness, which can have a debilitating effect long term, deteriorating muscle and bone tissue -- a physical toll to be faced by the crew when they leave the training module. A real flight to Mars will not set off before 2030, in the opinion of the head of ESA's mission to Russia Rene Pischel. "But a mission to Mars is not so much of a technical problem today. The biggest technical challenge is the money," Pischel told AFP. "To put a big pile of money on the table you need a real good reason, and that is one of the reasons that this project is so important in convincing people that it could happen safely," he said."

This will be the first time people have been locked up in such a confined space for so long without outside contact. I'm wondering if any of them are going to go nuts. If they keep up with this though it looks like the first person to walk on Mars will be Chinese or Russian.


(cue smc sipping the haterade)

5/19/2010 1:52:36 PM

Somebody hasn't read stranger in a strange land. Should have gone with the married couples instead of 5 dudes.

5/19/2010 1:56:07 PM

The Russian military is stimulating more than space flight these days:

5/19/2010 2:31:48 PM

Wait, how are they going to experience weightlessness?

5/19/2010 2:37:44 PM

Sounds like a good and necessary step for a manned mission to Mars. I can't imagine being confined to such a tiny space for so long. But I suppose thats prison for ya

5/19/2010 2:44:53 PM

Quote :

"This will be the first time people have been locked up in such a confined space for so long without outside contact. "

ha, I'm pretty sure millions of people have already experienced this throughout history, and in much smaller spaces, with much worse roommates.

They're called dungeons, and non-Western prisons.

And there are more than enough examples of people who have been released from such prisons who have maintained their sanity.

The sample size here is a few guys. They would be much better off studying the historical (or living) examples of folks who persevered through this treatment, and finding their common traits.

[Edited on May 19, 2010 at 2:48 PM. Reason : d]

5/19/2010 2:47:57 PM

New reality tv shows ITT

5/19/2010 2:50:38 PM

Well when I said that I meant in a way that would be actively monitored and researched. Sure people have been locked up in dungeons without sunlight and stuff, but I'm sure these guys are gonna be hooked up to tons of sensors and will probably be given various tests and stuff to complete throughout the duration of their confinement.

I too was wondering the weightlessness thing. I think that must have been a typo cause unless they hoist the entire chamber up into the cargo bay of a C-130 or something I don't see how they'll be weightless.

I wonder what their selection process was for the volunteers.

5/19/2010 2:52:41 PM

(In russian accent) "You want new place to stay for long time?"

(responding subject) "that sound very nice"

SELECTED

5/19/2010 2:56:05 PM

UKRAINE NOT WEAK

5/19/2010 2:58:00 PM

This is ain't shit compared to what John McCain went through!

5/19/2010 3:08:46 PM

Quote :

"Wait, how are they going to experience weightlessness?"

Quote :

"The mission cannot hope to stimulate all aspects of a space mission, such as micro-gravity and exposure to ionizing radiation, project director Boris Morukov admitted."

5/19/2010 3:18:37 PM

50 CENT GOT SHOT 9 TIMES

5/19/2010 3:19:09 PM

Mad man, read the line right after the one you quoted.

5/19/2010 3:26:33 PM

cameraman looks like he is up to no good

Quote :

""

5/19/2010 3:35:08 PM

6 people in 1000sqft?

fuuuuuuuck

side note: how long did those bio-dome scientists last until the seal was cracked? no, not talking bout the pauly shore movie

5/19/2010 3:45:22 PM

here's the really weird part. none of those guys will actually get to go into space. they volunteered just ... because

5/19/2010 4:32:52 PM

Depending on how much this paid Id sign up

5/19/2010 4:49:13 PM

Hey buddy. Glad to see you love me.

I have no problem with this because they're not wasting my money to pay for it.

5/19/2010 4:59:00 PM

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"6 people in 1000sqft?"

the mexicans in Kensington park make do with half as much room and less showers.

5/19/2010 5:15:08 PM

Quote :

"here's the really weird part. none of those guys will actually get to go into space. they volunteered just ... because "

Yeah that's what I was thinking too. As far as I could tell, the volunteers aren't astronauts in training or anything like that. Obviously any astronauts (or in this case I guess cosmonauts/taikonauts) that would be going to Mars would need some kind of long term confinement training but it looks like they are doing it on just regular people.

5/19/2010 5:24:04 PM

5/20/2010 5:49:49 PM

^ That. I was gonna come in here and post that.

I hope some stoners are in there and sneak in some drugs, because that could really make some funny shit happen.

Six men have now turned into two as isolation has turned the once-brave cosmonauts into depraved, inhuman cannibals.

5/20/2010 6:16:25 PM

did they eat the weaker ones yet?

12/13/2010 8:49:33 PM

They will probably beat us to it too. We seemed to have lost the ambition we once had in terms of exploration here in the US.

12/14/2010 11:11:22 AM

pfffft that is nothing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2

12/14/2010 11:23:20 AM