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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.
The hard part will be getting there and back; they need to know the levels of cabin fever that are going to occur and they need to be able to test that in a simulated environment.
Locking people in a tank for 17 months and watching how they deal with each other is a valuable experiment. Spending 2 years running around the desert in a spacesuit to simulate martian experiments...Now that would be worthless.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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!
Sounds like a fair lot 'til you realize that this is for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and that your hourly wage is about 5 bucks. Whether you're awake or sleeping, granted, but then again, I do value my privacy somewhat.
But hey, here's an idea. How about stuffing all those "if you got nothing to hide..." people in there? I'm pretty sure it might make them reevaluate that stance.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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,,,
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 ?
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.