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Volunteer to Simulate a Mars Mission for the ESA
number6x writes "The European Space Agency (ESA) is looking for volunteers for a simulated trip to Mars. The simulation will put a crew of six in isolation for 17 months. The crew will be made up of 4 Russians and 2 Europeans. In all the ESA will need 12 volunteers for back up purposes. Seventeen months was chosen to simulate the time needed for the journey to Mars and back, as well as a 30 day period spent doing experiments on the red planet."
Simple question. Will they be allowed to have sex?
Four Russians and two Europeans cooped up for 17 months in a confined space? Do you have any idea how bad that's going to smell? It's going to be like feet wrapped in leathery, burnt bacon. Ewwww!
...bone loss, extended radiation exposure, and catastrophic micrometeorite punctures?
That would be a reality show worth watching...
--Gene
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
The entire crew should be made up of nerds and geeks. They can do 17 months without sex standing on their heads.
Only we called it "Big Brother", and it was the end of tv as we knew it.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Virtually all modern plans for Mars missions follow the same basic timeline: 6 months travel to Mars, 2 years on the planet, and 8 months back. The idea of a 30-day stay on the planet was abandoned long ago by NASA.
This simulation takes away the huge reward of the long travel time, and replaces it with a brief 30 day stint of freedom.
They'll surely get interesting results, they just won't be worth anything when it comes time to actually plan a real manned Mars mission.
*most people never really think about the consequences*
You get paid 120 EUR / day. And if I understood correctly, it's counted as "allowance", meaning it's tax-free..
Every single day, the same routine, the same faces, the same surroundings, the same conversations... or I could leave IT and sign up for this!
wouldn't it suck if we worked all that out but still had to wait another 17 months while we figured out the psychological effects?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
/. is falling behind. this is old news.
my wife was trying to volunteer me for this yesterday.
wait,,,
you know, the one that slaughters the crew.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Yes. The location for this experiment is going to be close to the LHC - which will finish in this timescale and provide the participants with the needed cosmic rays.
it's in my head
Interestingly, I read about a bunch of tiny worms on their way back from space. They've been up there long enough to produce 25 generations and scientists are going to examine their DNA to see if it's changed along the way due to aforementioned radiation.
Links at Google News.
They should have made it a diet center instead of using the space for condos, then.
That aside, IMHA Biosphere II used the wrong approach - too many things at once (several different ecosystems, lots of species, etc). A better approach could be to find the minimum number of species that is necessary (which means that there'll be a lot of algae and fungi, and not all that many vertebrates and insects), and determine what type of inputs and outputs are necessary (even on the most barren planet, there'll be some local resources to use).
The alternative is 2 years, as I understand it. The problem is that Mars and Earth are only close to each other every second year or so. You have to go there as they are moving closer, and leave before they part too far again, or you have to stay there for another cycle.
Now, 30 days is a bit short, but 2 years is too long. 17 months, with 30 days on the planet, vs 40 months with 24 months on the planet.
Seriously ! I spent a year with 12 other people in the middle of Antarctica in 2005 and we were being followed by shrinks of the ESA. There's a big difference between a winterover and the proposed experiment: the first has a purpose while the second has not. I mean the only purpose here is to stay in a can. At least when you go to Mars or to Antarctica you have a job to perform and important things to do (science and ensuring your survival because there's no way out). Here you'll have people crack down after a few weeks from a sense of uselessness. I would sign up for another winterover or a Mars mission no questions asked. I wouldn't get canned like this for a heap of gold and an all you can download porn access.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
The only thing worse is being confined to a rock with 6 billion other people for the rest of your life.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
And FoxNews will devote several hour-long 'special features' and 'townhall meetings' which center arround bashing those godless heathens who would have sex outside of marriage and a gravitational field.
Blar.
Europe is the bit between the UK and Russia.. :)
Motivated people throughout history have endured considerably more privation than being confined to 92 m2/person for 17 months. We know that from a psychological standpoint, people can and will make a trip of this nature. The key word here is motivation.
But if the participants know that the whole thing is a simulation, it robs the experiment of any useful insight into many aspects of psychological stress because this motivational factor is missing; the difference between a simulated airlock and a real one will not be lost on participants. The project would thus seem to be a way to validate the astronaut selection process itself, and not just a study on long-term isolation - in other words, "we know people can handle it, but we still don't have a reliable way of knowing which ones". The recent diapers-and-knives episode amply illustrates that astronaut selection is something of an inexact science.
Of course, this still leaves lots of room for interesting experiments on group dynamics, but we already know quite a lot on this subject: for example, years of experimentation with Skylab, Mir etc. suggested that if there was some tension in the group, ground control would usually create an obviously impossible schedule of work for the team, creating a them-versus-us mentality which tended to bring the team closer; tensions within the group were eased by colluding to grumble about ground control.
This sort of thing has been studied exhaustively by many military and civilian organisations for a long time, so what are the objectives here?