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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.'
Mars goes to you!
Okay, now that's out of the way, only intelligent discussion from here on out. Come on Slashdot, I know you can do it.
See: Biodome. The failed movie or the failed experiment.
I figure it this way. They need to pass a lot of downtime. Let them play a MMORPG. Then if your really creative you can let them farm gold and pay for the trip by selling the gold and characters they create.
Well I am kind of serious about the first part. Its going to take something highly addictive to keep them occupied during the trip there and back. Certain types of games would do it just fine. If you could find a way of combining learning into them all the better, but in some ways mindless entertainment may be key.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I say they should make a porno, actually. Who doesn't want to do what sex on other planets will be like?
Granted, many of us here on /. don't even know what sex on this planet is like... :)
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Mars needs women!
For a one-way mission?
Lesbian crews. More specifically, HOT lesbian crews.
Video cameras everywhere, the trip would pay for itself.
Wouldn't that suck? Spending 8 months in transit to Mars only to find a crowd waiting for you once you land: "yeah, we actually invented this really cool new engine like the week after you guys took off."
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
that one of the volunteers spends each of those 520 days asking, "Are we there yet?!" over and over...
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
Obviously you're reading this from the perspective of a project manager.
"If it takes 520 days for 6 people to get to Mars, we'll get 520 people and make it in 6 days!"
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
People act like sticking these people in an isolated chamber for a few hundred days is a new problem, it isn't. Sailors have been doing it for centuries.
If you want to study the effects further, give these people all a free 600 day cruise around the open sea. They're going to get horny, they're going to get angry, and they're going to get bored. That is what will happen.
Put a server on board with some quake and a few other video games. Give them all a bunch of contraceptives.
It will be fine. Trust me.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
ESA is looking for European volunteers to take part.
WTF!?
If I were going on a trip to Mars, the last thing I'd take along would be some techno-listening Eurotrash with unreasonable demands for prompt health care and a propensity for labor unrest. Hell, with their thin figures and tight jeans, some Eurotrashtronaut might get sucked out of the spacecraft through some any ol' tiny tear in the outer wall.
Don't they need any good old corn-fed Midwestern American boys on this mission? Sign me up.
My bicyles
Wouldn't the psychological effects of knowing that you're taking part in a (mostly meaningless) test negate any actual behavioral data collected?
If I was given the opportunity to walk on Mars, I'd consent to outright torture for 6 months.
If I was placed in isolation, and told that at the end, I'd have gobs of paperwork and medical exams to complete, my psychological perspective would be rather different. I'd get very bored very quickly.
On the flipside, if I became severely ill in space, I'd (rightfully) panic, while I'd be more comfortable in an isolated trial, knowing that the full facilities of Moscow's health system were at my disposal, a few blocks away.
Also don't forget the physiological effects of zero-gravity and increased radiation in space that you wouldn't experience on earth.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Russia has conducted shorter simulations in the past and has seen firsthand the issues that arise, including sexual harassment. In an eight-month IMBP simulation in 2000, a Russian man twice tried to kiss a Canadian female researcher after two other Russians had gotten into a bloody brawl.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
They get volunteers from America, Russia, and Poland. The Americans insist on taking 100 cases of junk food, the Russians insist on taking 100 cases of vodka, and the Poles insist on taking 100 cases of cigarettes. After 520 days, the American emerge even fatter than before. The Russians emerge slightly soused, but still in good spirits. Lastly, the poles emerge, looking shaky and sullen, and the first words out of their mouths are, "Has anybody here got a match?"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Less than a month into her run, Lapierre suddenly encountered serious problems. She was twice forcibly French-kissed by the Russian team commander, and soon afterwards witnessed a 10-minute-long fight between two Russians that left blood spattered on the walls.
She insisted that the controversial kisses were not merely “friendly celebrations” and that she had vigorously told the Russian to back off. She quoted him as saying, "We should try kissing, I haven't been smoking for six months. Then we can kiss after the mission and compare it. Let's do the experiment now."
Lapierre dismissed the notion that the Russian thought his actions were normal and acceptable. "Why did he try to pull me out of sight of the camera?" she asked.
When Lapierre's team first entered the modules, Dr. Valery Gushin, the scientific coordinator of the project, voiced attitude that in hindsight could have been seen as warnings about the problem. "Men, they have some expectations from women," he told a Canadian television team. "They want them to be more like women, not just partners. At least Russians do."
Following the incident, Gushin blamed Lapierre. His official report, which Lapierre has seen, saud she had "ruined the mission, the atmosphere, by refusing to be kissed." She should have been taken out, he wrote, and he also insisted that the foreigners had caused the fight.
So what you're saying is that past research has found that Russians shouldn't go to Mars?