Posted on 05/05/2010 11:53:26 AM PDT by kronos77
MOSCOW — A group of volunteers have started final training in Russia in preparation for being locked up in a capsule for 520 days to simulate the psychological effects of the voyage to Mars.
Three Russians, two other Europeans and one Chinese national will be shut away for one-and-a-half years inside the 180-square-metre (1,000-square-feet) module on the outskirts of Moscow starting late May or early June.
The project, the first full-duration simulated mission to Mars, follows a similar experiment at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) last year which saw six volunteers shut away for a mere 105 days.
One of the biggest unknowns of an eventual manned mission to Mars will be the psychological effects of the isolation, and the experiment aims to garner crucial data on the participants' state of mind and body.
The volunteers are now undergoing tests and training in Moscow ahead of the final selection of the "expedition" crew and their back-up.
"The biggest risk of such an isolation is psychological," said researcher Alexander Suvorov who is leading the experiment at the IBMP.
"Of course relations between the crew will not always be harmonious, some will get on with others, others will not. But the priority is to be able to carry out tasks in spite of this."
The volunteers will have their days divided into eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work and eight hours of leisure.
A team of three will spend one month aboard a special module meant to represent the Mars landing craft, while two will also spend time exploring a reconstruction of Mars itself.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
And the US will study a thermometer.
kevindavis
There are no more Germans at NASA.
If we go to Mars can we have liberal Tim Robbins burn up in the Martian atmosphere like the movie.
520 days of no Oprah. 520 days of no liberals. 520 days of not listening to Obama. Sounds pretty refreshing to me.
Did you mean to ping kevindavis rather than post his name in the text? ;-)
They don’t need a simulation to find out the effects. Just round up a bunch of liberals from the US and they’ll see the exact effects.
You aren't completely out of communications, so you can still receive Obama speeches beamed to the "ship" 24-hours a day. Also the lowest bidder for the speaker contract didn't include an off switch.
lol!!!
I was distracted.
heh
1000 sq ft sounds like a very large space craft.
That is about 50 sq ft larger than my first house.
I wonder if they have done any engineering studies on getting such a craft out of Earth orbit yet.
I am glad you told me this detail now, before I boarded the spaceship. I would have hated to have had to jettison myself a third of the way to Mars.....
I owe you one.
180 sq m is actually over 1900 sf, but who’s counting?
Do they simulate the food running out and the group drawing straws to see who gets eaten?
To give you a scale, the space shuttle's cargo bay is 60 ft by 15 ft = 900 sq ft area. And that doesn't count if you split it into multiple decks.
Can’t they take our Kenyan too?
What? No suspended animation?
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