For 520 days, since June 2010, six would-be astronauts have been undergoing a simulated mission to Mars at an experimental facility in Russia. The project, which is a collaboration between the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems and the European Space Agency (ESA), aims to study the psychological and physiological effects of isolation beyond the six-month rotation of the International Space Station. All communication between the team and the outside world happened with a twenty-minute delay, simulating the lag inherent in communicating over cosmic distances, and the crew spent half their days performing scientific experiments. The aim, of course, is to plan for a real manned mission to Mars. Today, the hatch opens and the isolation period ends. ESA will stream the opening, which happens at 11:00 am CET, which at the time of writing is about 1 hour 20 minutes from now.
Update: the somewhat choppy internet broadcast seems to be over now. It was what you’d expect: the hatch opens, the crew members come out smiling. They thank their fellow crew members, the rest of the team, and everyone who’s supported them, and then they’re taken away for medical checks. The six crew members will be in a four-day quarantine before emerging into the real world on November 8. Lots more info about the practical aspects of this experiment is here (pdf).
dailymeh posted this on November 4, 2011
