Grueling 520-Day Mock Mars Mission ‘Lands’ on Earth, Researchers Emerge from Capsule
- Posted on November 4, 2011 at 9:27pm by
Liz Klimas
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MOSCOW (The Blaze/AP) — Can you imagine what it would be like to to be in space for 17 months in a cramped, windowless compartment? Now think of how you could feel if you were in a cramped, windowless compartment for 17 months while still on Earth, seeing only the faces of your six fellow crew members each day but knowing that your family — relatively speaking — wasn’t that far away?
European Space Agency researchers were inside this capsule for 520 days. (Photo via Daily Mail)
This is exactly what six researchers for the European Space Agency did conducing a simulation of being on Mars. When they emerged from their claustrophobic capsules Friday in western Moscow, the researchers in blue jumpsuits looked haggard but were all smiles — dreaming of lying in the sun at the beach, taking long strolls and driving fast cars.
The six member crew, freshly emerged from the confining capsule. (Image: European Space Agency)
Watch the opening of the sealed door and the researchers emerge:
Organizers said the 520-day experiment was the longest mock space mission ever, measuring human responses to the confinement, stress and fatigue of a round trip to Mars – minus the weightlessness, of course. They describe it as a vital part of preparations for a future mission to the Red Planet, even though it may be decades away because of huge costs and daunting technological challenges.
The facility at Moscow’s Institute for Medical and Biological Problems, Russia’s premier space medicine center, included living compartments the size of a bus, connected with several other similarly sized modules for experiments and exercise.
Here researchers practice collecting samples on the 'surface' of Mars. (Image via Daily Mail)
There have been other confinement experiments, including Biosphere 2, a giant glass-and-steel facility in Arizona in the 1990s that housed four men and four women in self-sustaining two-year isolation. That project was dogged by controversy and technical problems.
Scientists who organized the mock Mars mission said it differed from the other experiments by relying on the latest achievements in space medicine and human biology.
Emerging from their isolation, the crew of three Russians, one Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese carefully descended a metal ladder to a greeting from crowd of officials and journalists Friday.
“The international crew has completed the 520-day experiment,” team leader Alexey Sitev told Russian space officials. “The mission is accomplished. The crew is in good health and is ready for new missions.”
Organizers said each crew member will be paid about $100,000, except for the Chinese researcher, whose compensation hasn’t been revealed by officials from his country.
The crew will spend three days in quarantine before holding a news conference. They spoke to relatives and friends from behind a glass panel to minimize the risk of infection.
Sitev, who led the team into the quarters in June 2010 — just a few weeks after getting married — said he dreams of going to the beach.
“I want to go somewhere to the warm sea as we have missed two summers here,” he said in remarks carried by RIA Novosti news agency shortly before wrapping up the mission. “My thoughts are drifting toward swimming at sea and basking on warm sand.”
His Italian-Colombian crewmate Diego Urbina told RIA Novosti that he would also like to have a vacation in the Caribbean and would spend his earnings on a sports car and a pilot training course.
Sukhrob Kamolov, the Russian mission doctor, said he thought the $100,000 was a lot of money when they went in, but after a year and a half in the confined space, it didn’t sound so big.
During the simulation, the crew members were under constant surveillance by scientists and communicated with their families and space officials via the Internet, which was delayed and occasionally disrupted intentionally to imitate the effects of space travel. They showered only several times per month – once every 10 days or so – pretending to conserve water. Their food was similar to what is on the International Space Station.
(Image: European Space Agency)
Midway through the mission, the crew even conducted a mock landing, venturing from their quarters in heavy space suits to trudge into a sand-covered room and plant the flags of Russia, China and the European Space Agency on a simulated Martian surface.
Scientists say that long confinement without daylight and fresh air put team members under stress as they grew increasingly tired of each other’s company.
Psychological conditions can be even more challenging on a mock mission than a real one because there would be none of the euphoria or danger of space travel.
“If anything, the make-believe nature of this exercise’s goal – a simulated Mars walk – would have made it even harder psychologically than a real mission,” said James Oberg, a space consultant and NASA veteran. “So the team’s success is even more impressive, not less so, because it was ‘only a game.’”
In an email to The Associated Press, Oberg said he was particularly impressed with the crew’s ability to overcome the language barrier, but added that the absence of women in the experiment was a major flaw.
“Aside from the absence of physiological factors such as weightlessness and cosmic radiation, the most glaring shortcoming of this exercise was the all-male composition of the crew,” he said. “Psychological studies of frontier life and extended expeditions suggest that aside from specific skills they contribute, the presence of women in an isolated group is a positive, ‘civilizing’ effect, not a stress-inducing distracting influence.”
The organizers said they had considered women for the experiment but left them out for various reasons. They denied deliberately forming an all-male crew because of the failure of a similar simulation in the past.
A 1999-2000 experiment ended in acrimony after a Canadian woman complained of being forcibly kissed by a Russian team captain following a fistfight between two Russian crew members. Russian officials attributed the incidents to cultural gaps and stress.
There was no sign of strain Friday as the crew flanked each other, smiling and waving to cameras.
“We hope that we can help in designing the future missions to Mars,” Frenchman Romain Charles said.
Urbina said the crew was proud to complete the longest space flight simulation so that “humankind can one day greet a new dawn on the surface of distant but reachable planet.”
A real flight to Mars is a distant prospect due to challenges such as creating a compact and relatively lightweight spacecraft that would shield the crew from deadly cosmic radiation.
Vitaly Davydov, a deputy head of the Russian space agency, said the simulation will help pave the way for a real Mars mission. He added that it’s not expected until the mid-2030s and should be done in close international cooperation.
NASA is aiming for a landing on an asteroid around 2025 and Mars in the 2030s.
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Busdriver4u
Posted on November 7, 2011 at 12:48pmLooks like an ice fishing shack to me. All they need is a few beers and a couple of poles. A mere 520 days… no problem. They get paid for that?
Report Post »Pigpen
Posted on November 6, 2011 at 8:19pmARTICLE: “Organizers said each crew member will be paid about $100,000, except for the Chinese researcher, whose compensation hasn’t been revealed by officials from his country.”
Compensation? The Chinese researcher thought he was on vacation! When he gets back to Beijing he is going to be chained back to his factory machine making Bart Simpson dolls for $0.0000000000000000000003 an hour! But remember, globalization is GOOD for the developing world, globalization is GOOD for the developing world, globalization is…
Report Post »geonj
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 7:50pma real sausagefest. where is the real scientific value in this “mock” spacetrip?
Report Post »notmeatglennbeckdotcom
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 2:30pmWas this The Truman Show?
Report Post »Ruler4You
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 4:07pmI have over 4 and 1/2 years underwater. I’m not overly sensitive to some one doing a little over a quarter of that and getting accolades. Come talk to me after the deed is done.
Report Post »gmoneytx
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 12:55pmOrganizers said each crew member will be paid about $100,000, except for the Chinese researcher, whose compensation hasn’t been revealed by officials from his country.
YEAH, HIS COUNTRY PAID HIM A NICKEL A DAY, you know Chinese labor practices! LOL…
Report Post »Vechorik
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 1:21pmToo bad America can’t afford space exploration any more.
Report Post »BuggiOlleo
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 12:51pmPS– Why didn’t these countries contribute to the 150 gazillion Sporebux (dollars) needed to keep the glorious Multi- National Space Station Construction project..Jeeze, what a vacuum of American Tax money..It may be a great project if it were just a leeeetle beet further out in Space, maybe past the Moon!!! Ohhh, but that problem with contributing to that Glorious Utopian Ideal rests — Solely on the American Taxpayer..WTF..We are such terrible people..Drop NATO like a Hot potao-e (That’s a joke; I liked Van Quayle; Though, he sure didn’t pick 58 States? WTF) and we might actually Start allowing Business to work ..
Report Post »sikupnfed
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 12:49pmBoy howdy. They were front page news here fer sure.
Report Post »MUDFLAPS
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 10:34amyawn
Report Post »Channel3
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 9:58amSix dudes locked in a can with no women for a year and a half?
No thanks.
Nobody is going to Mars.
It is too expensive.
Nobody has the money or will have the money.
Too much time in transit without gravity.
Too much gamma radiation.
What is the point? Countless rovers have already been sent.
On the other hand, why are the polar caps on Mars shrinking? Is that man made global warming?
Report Post »SgtB
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 10:56amNo, that’s what is happening on every planet in the solar system, only on earth does it get considered that a species could cause global climate change.
About Mars travel…
I‘d go to mars with my family and stay there if it they’d let me. The only way we’ll ever terraform that planet is if we start sending people there to live and work. And the work will not be light science work either. It will be hard labor and long hours in a hazardous environment. Before we can get there though, we need to design and manufacture a small scale smelting and manufacturing system that we can send to Mars along with an excavator and all the necessary tools to run and maintain the equipment. If we are really going to have people living on Mars, we cannot afford to be shipping them raw materials all day, especially when there is no need to do so. We also need to develop a thorium reactor that can be powered by the thorium that is collected as waste in the smelting process so that power won’t be a problem. And lastly, we should bombard the martian planet with comets and meteors before we send people. That way there will be more water and rare minerals available in known positions. Both of which are going to be needed.
Report Post »granolajohn
Posted on November 6, 2011 at 5:48pmits pointless to explore our galaxie and expand our knowledge as the human race? Also thats not true at least not yet, we are like stated currently on track for the 2030 launch date. Meaning, that we are finding solutions to the problems that are posed by the flight now we just need to wait for mainly money and technology to catch up. We may not go in 2030 if the technology is there but I assure you it is going to happen some day. Remember we were supposed to be living on the moon by 2000 :D
Report Post »tgillotte
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 9:58amSo, $8 an hour, 24 hours a day, for 520 days… $99,840 for 17 months of work.
Report Post »For those of you criticizing the “$8 per hour”, that comes up to about $70k per year. I think I’d take that job…..
BHOMustFail
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 8:36amMaybe we can get Obamarama to spend the next 14 months in a capsule until he get his pink slip
Report Post »schlepnier
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 8:35am“Sounds like a big waste of money, a human cannot survive over 26,000 ft. elevation without being in a man made capsule. when they figure out how we can breath and survive in space without such confinment, sorry i cant spell, then i will give it some merit.
Maybe they will find the Mars landscape covered with gold and diamonds, is it still worth all this wasted money?”
Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you’ll get ten different answers, but there’s one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won’t just take us. It’ll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars.
Report Post »-J. Michael Straczynski
ontheclock247
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 8:11amReminds me of when Lilleth left Frasier to go into the eco-pod with her PhD lover. Just gave me a laugh.
Report Post »Secessionista
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 6:17amThe correct sex ratio for a long term space mission is 6 PhD women and one man. The women simply need to be taught about jealousy and its destructive effects. The man does not need to know anything about spaceflight at all. He will be well cared-for.
Come to think of it, this would work well on Earth, too.
Report Post »Dabldo
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 10:42amDon’t know how polygamists do it ! Overcome that jelousy thing that is……
Report Post »TH30PH1LUS
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 3:09amIf Obama and OWS has their way – ours will be a “Red” planet also.
If we’re really nice to our new Commy masters (Russia & China) maybe just maybe they’ll let American astronauts sit in the back seat and tag along on their conquest of the solar system.
Report Post »jzs
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 4:36amTH30PH1LUS, that’s so true. Republicans aren’t about to fund the space program or any science. Or teaching of science for that matter. If you believe the universe is 5000 years old, and created in an instant by God, what’s the point? The motivation to study the planets, the solar system, our galaxy and the universe is to learn where we came from and why things are as they are.
If God created things instantly, just so, 5000 years ago, then why the bother? Just to catalogue all the unique stuff from the creation and marvel at it? Why spend money on that?
Report Post »Shiroi Raion
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 6:07amRepublicans reject science? That’s one of the stupidest Liberal propaganda.
Report Post »Democrats claim they’re all about science, let’s see how well our Liberal scientists have done.
Democrats can’t seem to figure out that CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL PROOF.
~They did another idiotic study and found there were more newborns where stork populations were highest — Does that mean storks deliver babies? (DUH)
~4 polar bears drown is proof of global warming (DUH)
~Global cooling (No it’s warming – no it’s changing) Ya, the weather changes, you needed “scientists” to figure that out?
~We’re going to run out of oil by the year 2000 (NOT EVEN CLOSE)
~Spent hundreds of millions to research the sexual behavior of Chinese prostitutes (idiotic waste of other people’s money)
~DDT causes cancer (People weren’t dying from diseases spread via insect bites because of DDT, so they lived long enough to get cancer, but it didn’t cause it)
~Why men don’t like condoms (It’s just so romantic, sexy and natural, isn’t it? – there I saved you half a million dollars)
~The study of African-American English of adolescents (I thought you freaks weren’t racists – ya, I believed that)
~Robot bees ($9.3 million – Waste your own damned money on this garbage)
There are COUNTLESS more just like these.
~By the way. Who ended NASA? Wasn’t that a donkey too?
BuggiOlleo
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 12:19pmJZS, The world is my oyster; Jesus, our savior. By the hand of the almighty, if traversing the galaxies were such a great idea, the world in which your atheistic butt resides would be committing every resource available to find other resources in the galaxies so skeptics, such as yourself could continue to theorize about the atrocities of THE CHURCH, — Oh My!! The real problem is having an honest enough Government who doesn’t pilfer the public coffers for their re-election..No one is anointed, yet. If we even survive a unilateral collective, Utopian values are further than the distance of the some asteroid called Pluto and returned to earth.. The sacrifice would be infinite, bravery and honesty would have to be golden, there would be no price for Honor due to the integrity needed to be unified under purpose..THis is why its called UTOPIAN.. Your point is moot and surround by naivety and ignorance..keep studying the Telebox; I believe your values reside in fantasy.. One day, a simple space journey may metamorphose our entire ideal of sacrifice..Until that day–God help us all, I’ll carry a big stick and a pocket full of beans.
Report Post »TH30PH1LUS
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 12:25pm@ JZS
Yes, that WAS Obama’s stated reason for closing NASA, wasn’t it? His deep Christian faith? STOP being an @$$ for a minute, and remember that modern science stands squarely on the shoulders of men and women of great intellect AND great faith. For example:
Issac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Louis Pasteur, Nicholas Copernicus, Sir Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Rene Descartes, Robert Boyle, Michael Faraday, Gregor Mendel, Albert of Saxony, Albertus Magnus, Giovanni Antonelli, Daniello Bartoli, Ruđer Bošković, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
JUST TO NAME A FEW
Report Post »Californiasodbuster
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 2:03amSounds like a big waste of money, a human cannot survive over 26,000 ft. elevation without being in a man made capsule. when they figure out how we can breath and survive in space without such confinment, sorry i cant spell, then i will give it some merit.
Report Post »Maybe they will find the Mars landscape covered with gold and diamonds, is it still worth all this wasted money?
Dustyluv
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 1:38amLooks like any other Government workers…Just sitting around on their asses…
Report Post »9111315
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 1:33amThis is heavy man. What would they do without gravity?
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 3:08amLoL :)
Report Post »THE EQUALIZER
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 1:09amNASA did this in the 70′s when they were space explorers. Now they are lazy and stupid either helping ALGORE with his bogus science or the Islamic extension program. What a sorry country this has become with the idiot and conman obama.
Report Post »tharpdevenport
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 12:54amIs that a token Chinese guy for multiculturalism sake? Affected Russian, too, huh?
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 12:51amYea… Obama’s Job Plan is working… for Gays!
Report Post »scoter
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 12:00amhttp://www.helpfireobama.com Please give $20.12
Report Post »DaveOregon
Posted on November 4, 2011 at 11:54pmGood for them! They did something I would not – and provided a lot of infor for NASA on how astronauts and others will react. So what if they only made $8/hr – they did historic work. More important and satisfyng I expect then the “$8/hr” you refer to. The speaking engagements netc will more then triple the mount at least they are getting for this anyway. Bet it was tax free too!
Report Post »Common.Cents
Posted on November 4, 2011 at 11:44pmThat is very impressive. Considering this was done in Moscow though, they must have had one of the rooms full of vodka.
I lived in Russia for a while, and i would get up at 6:00 and walk out for milk, and i would see many many people throwing back some.
But i bet scientists are better than THAT
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