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Six Men Endure 105-Day Mars Flight Simulator

Posted by Soulskill on from the riding-the-boredom-machine dept.

drunken_boxer777 writes with this excerpt from an AP report: "Six men emerged from a metal hatch after 105 days of isolation in a mock spacecraft, still smiling after testing the stresses that space travelers may face on the journey to Mars. They had no television or Internet and their only link to the outside world was communications with the experiment's controllers — who also monitored them via TV cameras — and an internal e-mail system. Communications with the outside world had 20-minute delays to imitate a real space flight."

12 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. Wow. by XPeter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah yeah Mars...anyone can do that. 105 days with no TV or internet?

    I, for one, welcome our godlike astronaut overlords.

    --
    "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
    1. Re:Wow. by Technoodle · · Score: 4, Funny

      I find it useful to "unplug" from technology every once and a while, but 105 days? I would go crazy---Wait, I'm already there.

    2. Re:Wow. by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Funny

      I would go crazy--

      Astronaut 1: Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
      Astronaut 2: I shouldn't have eaten all of those beans... (gurgle)
      Astronaut 3: I hope you like country music as much as I do.

    3. Re:Wow. by cdrudge · · Score: 4, Funny

      We could supply them with all sorts of great movies to help keep their mental state in peak form...Lost in Space, Apollo 13, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Red Planet, ...

  2. Obligatory Robot Chicken reference by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 5, Funny
    Mission to Mars: Day 336

    "STOP. FARTING."

  3. The building blocks of a conspiracy theory... by Zakabog · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow, I get to see this in my lifetime. The building blocks of a conspiracy theory.

    If they ever do manage to land on Mars the conspiracy theorists will now point to this and say "see they SAY they built it as a simulator but REALLY that's where they faked the entire Mars landing! Why else would they need to build such a simulator!" Very much like the lunar surface simulator they built out in the desert, or the landing simulator MIT built for the moon landings. Oh well...

    1. Re:The building blocks of a conspiracy theory... by Urban+Garlic · · Score: 4, Funny

      > If they ever do manage to land on Mars...

      Hah, you *fool*, you've already fallen for it! You think this is a simulator? The government has been secretly colonizing Mars for years now, they just spin these "simulator" stories to "explain" why certain individual astronauts are out of touch for long periods of time. You think mere robots could do what the recent Mars probes and rovers have done? Oh, no. They can go to Mars whenever they want.

      But they are POWERLESS against my ALL CAPS and "inappropriate" quoting! I "shall" EXPOSE them!

      --
      2*3*3*3*3*11*251
  4. Re:Physchology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, what we should do is put people in a "mock spacecraft" for a "test" and launch them towards Mars. At the end of the 105 days they open the hatch and... surprise!

  5. Re:105 days? No problem. by mdm-adph · · Score: 4, Funny

    The astronauts are made up of our parents?

    --
    It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
  6. Re:Physchology by Kell+Bengal · · Score: 3, Funny

    Try for the fake moon colony first. I think NASA has some film sets they could lend you.

    --
    Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
    altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
  7. internal email system? by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Funny

    to: Commander Bob
    fr: Commander Tom
    subj: Your leg

    Hi Bob, could you move your leg? It's blocking my mouth.

    Thanks, Tom

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  8. Re:Physchology by Chris+Burke · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's a cool story. Probably would have been cooler if you hadn't read this...

    I dunno. I like Asimov, and I may read this story at some point, and I have to admit I'll be a little disappointed if the denouement doesn't include the phrase "but the mission controllers forgot or were asleep or something."

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are