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Russian Mock Mars Mission
sdriver writes "CNN reports that Russia is attempting a 500-day mock Mars mission. The article goes on to say, "six volunteers will depend on a preset limit of supplies, including about 5 tons of food and oxygen and 3 tons of water." Also, "Experiment participation is not solely reserved for Russian volunteers, institute officials added."
Mars comes to cosmonauts!
(Sorry, I had to.)
Well, if the US mocked the moon landing, I suppose it's time for the russians for their share of airtime!!!
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
...it's ok for me !
six volunteers will depend on a preset limit of supplies, including about 5 tons of food and oxygen and 3 tons of water
But how is that any different from regular russia?
This is the true story of six volunteers, picked to live inside a capsule and have their lives taped to find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start being real. The Real Mars.
oops I mean, no I didn't see that, nobody saw that movie
better to find out now the likelihood of cosmonauts going nuts and killing each other when crammed in a tin for 500 days, than in the black depths of space.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Will this be a true test of human survial though?
Since volunteers is allowed to quit the experiment if they develop a severe ailment or psychological stress, most likely they won't try hard enough to survive the journey.
However in real life-and-death situation, people tend to do amazing things just to stay alive.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
I read this as "Russian mocks Mars mission" and pictured Alexander Putin dancing around a table making fun a NASA scientist.
"Oh yes, we land on Mars, yes, aren't we clever? I'm so clever with my MIT degree, I'm a clever little scientist. Those Americans think they're so smart with their advanced rocketry. It makes me so mad. Get me a vodka, Yuri."
That happened maybe five years ago. Don't know what the duration was, though. I'm pretty sure it was only a few months.
/.'ers every day life: no women, stuck in a tiny room in front of a computer screen, food in granola bar form (Oblig. Simpsons: "if you put food in bar form, you unleash it's awesome power"), no social contact, etc.
They could probably fund this by doing a reality TV show, heh. And if you RTFA, they say that no women will be allowed to volunteer - so it'll probably be just like a
If you are not trampeled to death in the rush to volunteer for this.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Polyakov told Interfax reporters that the 500 Days experiment will not include female volunteers.
:)
Geezz I wonder why. And they'll probably get a similar result just by looking into any male-only student flat
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
Actually, this would make a good reality tv show, and maybe even gather public support for a mission...
However, in space, I don't know how well being "voted off" would go over...
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
In addition to the limited supplies of food, air, and water, I would think the experiment would want to mimic the other deprivations the crew might experience on the way to and from Mars. Most notably, I'd think, they'd want to emulate the lengthening communications lag between Mission Control and the "ship". Start with the sort of glitch experienced in orbit, and drag it out to the full 6-10 minutes.
Also, you'd want to make the communication link have a realistic bandwidth. Whatever is the state of the art at "launch" is what they're stuck with for the duration of the trip.
Now, if this were an episode of "Survivor: Mars", you'd throw in a monkey wrench... maybe a Galileo-style communications system error, where their phat pipe gets cut down to 300 baud, and the men fight over which supermodel pr0n picture to download each week.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
make it 3 tons of Vodka and I'll go.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Trying not to kill each others or get killed by some buggy onboard computer would be a good start.
I recall reading sometime ago that US Navy studies for crewing submarines showed women coped much better will prolonged living in confined quarters than men do and an all female submarine crew would probably have higher moral than an all male crew.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I don't think women are as...driven...
And no jokes about me not getting any. I have a gf :-)
Well they're Russian, so they'll probably get drunk, and then after a long time of being around no women, they'll start making out.
Ah man, this story brings back good memories for me.
When I was about, oooh 14 years old or so, I went to a "Space and Science Camp" one summer. We did all sorts of crazy stuff related to space. My favorite was trying to design "crash modules" to protect an egg from a two story drop (that was hella fun).
Anyways, one of the special activities we did was a mock Moon base mission. Basically we spent one day cutting black garbage bags open and duct taping them together into a series of domes and tunnels for our "base". It had two openings: one was a sealable flap (our "airlock") and the other was an open hole that they put a big fan in to inflate the entire structure (worked really well too). Oh and some small ventillation holes in each room. Anyways, the next day we went on our "mission", which was basically a dozen or more of us stuck inside this inflated garbage bag, in the middle of a gymnasium with the lights turned off. We were divided up into teams and everyone given certain tasks. I was a communications officer, which basically ment I got to sit there and communicate with "earth" (our supervisors) on an old macintosh. We were also responsible for general coordination of the base. Another team was our Medical branch. They had some generic tests/experiments to try while we were 'on the moon', in addition to being responsible for the health of the entire staff. Theirs was actually the only 'serious' mission, because they had to test everyone regularly for signs of CO2 poisioning while we were effectively trapped inside a plastic bag for six hours straight. We also had an exploration team that got to do "moonwalks", which was basically tying a rope around one guy, blindfolding him, and shoving him out into the gymnasium to see what he could find. They came in very important (more later). The only other team I remember was our "Engineering" team, who was responsible for maintaining the base's structure, armed with nothing but some spare garbage bags, some knives, and enough duct tape to wrap an army. They even got around to making a couple of small additions to the base. Those guys had lots of fun.
The cool thing about our "mission" was, in addition to trying to complete the tasks given to us by Earth base, our supervisors fucked with us at every possible opportunity. They did shit like "solar activity disrupting communications" (disconnected our Mac from the LAN) so we were on our own for an hour. They walked around with knives and poked holes in the bags to keep the engineering team busy... VERY busy. When we were done, our base looked like someone had taken a piece of swiss cheese and put tape over all the holes. They were cruel. About 20 minutes after our engineering team completed a tunnel connecting medical to communications, I hear this slicing sound and feel air rushing past my face. I turn around, and the bastards had cut a three foot gap in the new tunnel! Engineering runs over and starts trying to tape it up, but its not gonna be airtight... so the creative bastards rip off their paper medical jumpsuits (we even had mission stickers, names, rank, etc on them) and use them to seal off the tunnel. Heh that was cool. Even cooler though, was when the "alien" got into our base through the same gap. One of the engineering guys opened up the tunnel to see about further repairs, and he finds the supervisors have slashed it (AGAIN!) and dumped a plastic turtle in the gap as an "alien". The whole base erupts in panic. Engineering shows up in force as they're the only ones with knives. Medical runs in and tries to start bossing people around because "this is a biological matter". It was hillarious. We eventually figured out (with Earth's help) that the alien was dead, and medical got the goahead to start an autopsy on it. Very cool.
By far the most exciting event in the mission was our "catastrophic power failure". Everyone's working allong happilly... computers chirping, people talking, fans humming... and then no humming. People kind of looked around at eachother real slowly like "Uhh, wa
I've thought about this concept for a while.
It seems likely that a significant fraction of a prolonged Mars mission would be spent inside a habitat building. That building would be functionally isolated from the outside. Also, simulating the trip there and back would also be valuable.
I would like to suggest a mineshaft. Several parallel shafts could be used to monitor the progress of the team and provide emergency egress (exits).
If the shaft were dug in a suitably solid rock, it could be sprayed with concrete, then some kind of waterproofing plastic compound. This would seal it and allow good simulation of water and air consumption. Other options, like "sealed" metal containers, might be more expensive to construct, but it's another option.
Food, other consumables, oxygen, water, yes, these are valid simulations. I'd also like to see what the options are for running a hydroponics lab to oxygenate the air and cleanse sewer waste, though not to eat necessarily since this would involve a fair amount of work.
Just some ideas. Biodome was obviously a learning process from the "sealed in" perspective and from the biodiversity perspective as well. I just wonder if there's a lower tech method for doing this experiment, and if so, I have confidence that the "plucky" Russian improvisational character stereotype is up to the challenge.
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
I think this will have a better chance of success than Biodome. First, because of funding, second because we're not worried about total internalization/sealed-in-ness, just for extended periods (500 days for now, maybe longer later) - so we're not worried about, say, jettisoning waste, or not stocking a food supply of a certain type because, "it'll run out after 2 years anyway".
NASA ran a demonstration project called "Breadboard" starting back in '86. It's still active, I think. The goal of the project were to:
1.) Develop a sealed environment plant growth capability (which is much harder than simple hydroponic farming).
2.) Develop the systems needed to control atmospheric contaminants, b) collect and regenerate condensate water, and c) recycle solid wastes.
3.) Integrate all of the systems in point 2 with the growth in point 1.
Here's a link to a page that gives a decent 'least you need to know' overview of the project.
http://www.permanent.com/s-ce-nas.htm
Of course, NASA hasn't made it to including humans yet, but since as per /. protocol I haven't RTFA, I don't know if the russians are 'cheating' on all of these mundane details.
The Mars society has conducted similar research during these experiments although the Mars society research focuses less on duration and psycological effects and more on requirements analysis. (i.e. not can we survive, but what will it take to survive and accomplish useful science.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
"living your life is like riding a bicycle. its easier to keep your balance if you're going somewhere". I forget who said that. Voltaire? Erving Goffman? Fritz Perls? Anyway, it's true for countries too. I applaud Senor Putin. Set a goal. Get everyone to push for it.
Is'nt that what Senor Kennedy did for us with the moon? I mean, why did we go there except to have a goal?
Tell me again, who knew Mary was a virgin, and how did they know?
It's nice to see the Russians getting into the reality show thing.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
But be sure to check out Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy site for fact-checks.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
...to what long duration voyage submariners go through. 500 days is a long time though, I don't think any totally submerged and all sealed up submarine voyage has lasted that long, I think something like 6 weeks is more normal.(could be wrong on that, any knowledgeable folks please correct me) I am sure there are tons of scientific studies already about the physiological and psychological impacts of long term close quarters living, where you can't just "get out" and all your existence is self contained, more or less. The subs though can make their own fresh water and O2, so that makes it easier in many ways. Also no weightlessness to contend with. But....similar.
Hmm, sorta like jail, too, in a way.
Yes this does appear to sound quite funny, but I think that this is very doable, without much of a health risk at all to the astronauts.
..........FULL STOP.
Who read this as "Russia mocks mars mission" ? I thought they were making fun of the US again.
Leonid: "Ivan, dis waterr taste like piss"
Ivan: "Wellll, you know..."
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
Food, other consumables, oxygen, water, yes, these are valid simulations. I'd also like to see what the options are for running a hydroponics lab to oxygenate the air and cleanse sewer waste, though not to eat necessarily since this would involve a fair amount of work.
I'd thought about the air and water recycling problem when running a different thought experiment (was planning what amounted to a single-person spacecraft with a 1-2 week nominal mission duration capacity).
It turns out that if you're only going out for a couple of weeks, or if you have a significant mass budget, recycling isn't important at all. The mass of food consumed is surprisingly low, and we have plenty of experience keeping it light and compact (think "MRE"s; the military has a vested interest in food that keeps and is easy to transport). Oxygen consumed will at most be enough to burn that food - the part of that food that's not already oxidized (water-based). Water consumption is relatively low - a couple of litres per day for a comfortable allocation. So you have a few pounds of supplies used per day, and can easily store a year or more's supplies without the supplies outweighing the rest of your expedition's equipment.
For recycling, air and water are the most important. Water because you go through a significant amount of it, but it's still fairly easy to recycle, and air because you go through a _lot_ of it (2-3 times the dry weight of your food). Both of these turn out to be easy to do if you have _power_. Brute force chemical processes and (for water) techniques like distillation come to the rescue. While 100% recycling of water is hard to do, even 80-90% would have a huge impact on your supply mass, and air recycling is very nearly perfect.
A biologically based recycler has the advantage of being able to turn solid waste into food, but that's about its only advantage. System efficiency vs. energy in (light) is actually pretty poor, and it takes a lot of space and a lot of mass, even if you use something like algae that's near the bottom of the food chain and has low infrastructure requirements.
Biological recyclers are useful when you can afford a large facility mass, and when you have a lot of people to feed. These are true on a large space station (think "colony") or planetary base (again think "colony"), but not for most spacecraft.
Still very interesting to think through the options for.
I think it'd be alot simpler than a lander-rover. No gravity or atmosphere-entry to contend with.
Here's the scenario. I'm I'm totally ripping off Larry Niven Here.
Assuming that we can find an asteroid with the desired consistancy and orbit we'd need the following operations to be performed:
Make big curved mirror: Blow up balloon. Spray foam over it. Puff a little vaporized silver inside it. Cut it in half.
So you got big big heater/cutters now.
Drill the asteroid.
Throw in a chunk of ice (gotten off a neighboring asteroid, sealed within a big prefab exploding can).
seal the hole.
Melt the asteroid into a big molten ball
explode the can.
Let bubble cool.
Drill hole.
Slap in prefab airlock..
throw in more ice.
Heat it up to 72 degrees or whatever.
Electralysize some of the water for atmosphere.
grind up some of the rock for soil.
Innoculate the soil...
ok, maybe it is kind of involved.
How about just a power station ( temperature-differential generators? ) and a pile of refined minerals. It'd be a nice step. You'd melt the ball (no exploding can)and spin it. When it cools you got refined strata.
So now the robot's gotta:
Fling out a sheet of electricity-making fabric/grid/whatever.
Blow up a balloon, spray foam over it (maybe the balloon could handle this itsellf), squirt the silver.
Cut it (again, maybe the balloon. Maybe the mirrors could make themselves).
Spin the asteroid (ion rocket-pack?).
Aim the mirrors.
(Could the robot process molten metal into thousands of miles of wires for the generator? Controlled-splash it? Vaporize it and spin it on magnetic fields?)
Would this power-station / resource-dump be feasable?
From the CNN article: "Polyakov told Interfax reporters that the 500 Days experiment will not include female volunteers."
I wonder if this is related to what happened last time they tried something like this. From space.com:
"Canadian physician, Dr. Judith Lapierre, tells a different tale. She was in the chamber for 110 days. "Somebody pulled me by my arm and tried to kiss me. Of course, we are not talking about [rape], but for me it was a high level of sexual harassment and if women don't stand up, the next thing that happens is usually that. I pushed the guy, but then I was told that in Russia I just should just give him a slap in the face. However, it is not my way of handling such things.""
If this (sexual harassment problems) is their reasoning behind the decision to exclude women, I think its a pretty poor reason. Why not rather exclude men?
Think about it - all these Big Brother shows where they lock up people for a year in a container really do simulate the social and psychological aspects of a mars mission.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.