Volunteers Wanted For Simulated 520-Day Mars Trip

anglico writes 'Starting in 2010, an international crew of six will simulate a 520-day round-trip to Mars, including a 30-day stay on the martian surface. In reality, they will live and work in a sealed facility in Moscow, Russia, to investigate the psychological and medical aspects of a long-duration space mission. ESA is looking for European volunteers to take part.'

Comments

Re:why 520 days?!

[Yvan256]

The headline title just said "520 day", I went with that.

Re:This is not new

[Arthur Grumbine]

An experiment is only a failure if you don't learn anything from it.

Or if what you learn has nothing to do with the subject matter of the experiment, like: Don't let hippies design biology experiments. A worthwhile thing to know, but not essentially related to the study of "artificial self-sufficient human-sustaining environments".

Re:This is not new

[syousef]

An experiment is only a failure if you don't learn anything from it.

Another word for a failed experiment is "corporation".

Re:520 people, that's a big ship

[fritsd]

So they haven't tried an female-only crew yet, then. Preferably vegans (what are you going to eat for a year? cows? frozen hamburgers?). Preferably short. Preferably black (better UV resistance at the destination; don't know if it also helps against cosmic radiation though..) Add the male compartment of the crew in the form of a Dewar barrel with frozen sperm in case they want to build a colony.
I for one welcome our Martian vegan lesbian Pigmy colonist overladies!
<flamebait>Mars might even be a more welcoming habitat than Congo/Rwanda</flamebait>