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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 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
The lag is going to be murder once they get a good distance to Mars.
It should be noted that NASA has long had a problem with the reality of space flight vs. their selection process. Their astronaut selection process tends to weed out all but the most motivated adventurous go-getters who tend to go crazy when asked to do basically nothing for 6 months.
I read the internet for the articles.
It's kinda hard to play real-time interactive games when you're dealing with round-trip signal times of up to 40 minutes... I think that would knock out MMO games. Now something like split-screen Halo, on the other hand, doesn't require that, but is more likely to forment anger amongst the crew.
On the gripping hand, the old naval solution would probably work best. That is, keep the crew occupied with enough busywork that they don't have time to piss each other off. This was the standard practice on old sailing men of war; you needed large crews for combat/damage repair and for certain shipkeeping tasks, but otherwise they sat around with little to do. Hence, rituals of inspection, holystoning the deck, etc. This is also why modern crew-reduction initiatives on ships can backfire; smaller crews have a harder time performing damage control than larger ones.
Anyways, for a Mars mission you need a lot of crew for the surface exploration in order to get as much data as possible; the cruise phases (for the most part) have little for them to do. They'd likely be occoupied running different experiments and performing regular maintenance, and exercising (a lot) rather than just being couch kudzu.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
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."
What's the current world record for the longest game of Monopoly?
Microsoft? no wait... US Steal??? damnit.. I'm no good at pop quiz's...
This is Slashdot. If sitting on my ass for 6 months is an adventure, then I'm Buzz Lightyear.
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
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.