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Volunteers Simulate Mission To Mars
Hugh Pickens writes "Six volunteers have climbed into a small metal capsule in Moscow as part of a three-month experiment meant to simulate a voyage to Mars. The crew — a German engineer, a French airline pilot, and four Russians — will spend the next 105 days living in a minimally furnished facility erected in a hangar on the outskirts of the Russian capital. The German said, 'I think we are going to learn a lot about each other.' A cosmonaut-in-training who will lead the mission was quoted: 'On the inside, we will have a lack of incoming information, so it's the science of sensory deprivation.' A similar experiment in Moscow virtually collapsed when a multinational team of men and women were allowed to drink alcohol on the eve of the millennium, and simmering tensions between Russian and non-Russian volunteers exploded in a fight for the affections of a female Canadian scientist. Only men are involved this time, and no alcohol. Scientists will keep a constant vigil on the team via cameras erected in each of the facility's three modules. Those who survive more than 100 days will earn a $20,000 reward. The current project is a warm-up for a much more ambitious experiment, scheduled for December, which will see another group of volunteers spending over 500 days in the same conditions. With current technology it is estimated that a return trip to Mars will take at least 18 months." The amazing thing is that 5,600 people applied to be part of the experiment.
The amazing thing is that 5,600 people applied to be part of the experiment.
I know it's not much to work with, but people won't apply if they don't know about it. They could have gotten an easy 1K more just by posting here.
Just to clarify, in US federal prisons, which detain people for such heinous crimes as questioning federal income tax laws and personal small-amount drug possession, people are often stuck, while in transit, into the SHU (Special Housing Unit) for upwards of months at a time. This is a small single-man cell which usually has two people in it. It is claimed to be a 23-hour lockdown with a 1-hour recreation period per day, which, when permitted, is walking around in a cage only 3 times the size of the cell. In order to even get this 1-hour of something-different, you must be around at 4am when they come around and ask anyone who happens to be awake at that hour; otherwise you don't get it.
After doing over 2 years for pissing off Tom Ridge, I laugh at the idea of a 100-days in a capsule. Child's play.
Try 120 days in a 8x10 room, with some random stranger, with no air freshener.
"will spend the next 105 days living in a minimally furnished facility erected in a hanger on the outskirts of the Russian capital"
I'm wondering if this is the British spelling or did the Telegraph make a mistake?
Why is this effort treated as being difficult? Pack three indie game developers in a capsule for 100 days. They'll hardly talk with each other, and by the end of the trip, they'll complain to mission control they only just got their compilers working for their games' scripting languages!
You should see what submariners get paid. Sounds about the same lifestyle-wise, aside from the addition of little things like knowing you're cruising around the under the ocean with nuclear ballistic missiles.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.