Six men to brave 520-day isolation on 'Mars mission'
by Staff Writers
Moscow (AFP) June 3, 2010
Six men from Europe, Russia and China will on Thursday be voluntarily locked away in a module for almost one and a half years to simulate the psychological effects of a mission to Mars.
An Italian, Frenchman, three Russians and a Chinese man will spend the next 520 days in the isolation facility at a Moscow research institute when its hatch slams shut at 2:00 pm (1000 GMT).
Like a real Mars mission, the crew will have to survive on limited food rations and their only communication with the outside world will be by email, with a delay of up to 40 minutes.
The hatch will only re-open when the experiment is over or if one of the participants is forced to pull out.
"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," said Chinese participant Wang Yue, 27, ahead of the experiment.
The volunteers will have their days in the module at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) 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.
The idea is to exactly mimic 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.
The crew also conspicuously lacks women, meaning the experiment will not be able to examine the possible sexual tensions that could arise on a trip to Mars for a mixed-gender crew.
But volunteers have already admitted that they will be tested by being separated from their loved ones and partners for such a long period of time.
Frenchman Romain Charles, 31, said the hardest thing will be the disruption of contact "with the family, the girlfriend, the friends with whom the distance is going to be difficult to manage."
Their diet will be no different to that enjoyed by real-life astronauts on the International Space Station and the crew will be given the food at the beginning of the experiment, forcing them to ration out their supplies.
The experiment is a joint venture between the IBMP and the European Space Agency (ESA), which describes the project as a mission "to mimic a full mission to Mars and back as accurately as possible without actually going there."
The ESA and the US space agency NASA have separately sketched dates in around three decades from now for a manned flight to Mars.
The Red Planet's distance from Earth varies between 55 million kilometres (34 million miles) and more than 400 million kilometres (250 million miles), depending on where the two planets are in their respective orbits.
The project, the first full-duration simulated mission to Mars, follows a similar experiment at the (IBMP) last year which saw six volunteers shut away for a mere 105 days.
Following a similar experiment in 2009, six men entered an enclosed room in Moscow last Thursday to simulate a flight to Mars. The  team consist of a Chinese man, a Frenchman, an Italian, and three Russians. Only the Chinese man, Wang Yue, is a trained astronaut. The six waved goodbye, crying "see you in 520 days' time!".

According to Wang, not being able to see their families and friends was one of the greatest challenges, although e-mail is allowed during the experiment. Both Wang and the Frenchman, Romain Charles, expressed pride to be part of this experiment. Wang said, "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."

The joint-effort project is being organised by the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) and the European Space Agency; the goal is to study physical and psychological effects on would-be astronauts. All six men speak reasonable English; however, as Russian is another primary language for the simulated trip, Russian crew member Sukhrob Kamolov said body language will be used should they fail to understand one another.

Food for the volunteers will be rationed as it would in a real Mars mission. All supplies were supplied by China and loaded into the 'simulated spacecraft' prior to the beginning of the experiment. For backup, China is sending three mission support staff to Russia.

No women are included in the crew, excluding issues relating to a mixed-sex crew from the study. During a similar experiment in 1999, a woman complained that the captain attempted to kiss her.

Following 250 days of "travelling" to Mars, the group will split.  Three will stay in the "spacecraft", the other three going to the surface of "Mars".  Only two will actually leave the "spacecraft" to study the surface of "Mars".  After a month, the group will go through the return journey simulation, a 240 day trip.  The men will follow a strict timetable, with 8 hours each of sleep, work, and leisure each day.