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Russian Simulated Mars Mission Close To 'Landing'
Dthief writes with this quote from an Associated Press report:
"After 233 days in a locked steel capsule, six researchers on a 520-day mock flight to Mars are all feeling strong and ready to 'land' on the Red Planet, the mission director said Friday. The all-male crew of three Russians, a Chinese, a Frenchman and an Italian-Colombian has been inside windowless capsules at a Moscow research center since June. Their mission aims to help real space crews in the future cope with the confinement and stress of interplanetary travel. The researchers communicate with the outside world via emails and video messages — occasionally delayed to give them the feel of being farther than a few yards away from mission control. The crew members eat canned food similar to that eaten on the International Space Station and shower only once a week. None of the men has considered abandoning the mission, although they are free to walk out at any time, mission director and former cosmonaut Boris Morukov told reporters on Friday."
Why does the line "three Russians, a Chinese, a Frenchman and an Italian-Colombian" sound like a bad and racist "walk in a bar" joke?
I call bullshit on this one.
I think knowing you can walk out at any time makes the reality of this experiment far less stressful on those inside the test capsule than if they were actually traveling through space and had no opportunity to leave.
If they wanted more realism (and since it's Russia), they should have told the crew that death in space would be "simulated" if any tried to leave.
Are they assuming a real trip to Mars will include artificial gravity the whole way? Sitting in a can for nearly a year is tough (made tougher by the one-shower-per-week Frenchman sitting next to you), but doing the same without the benefit of gravity would be a whole other ballgame.
Did they at least simulate the unblinking red eye and monotone voice of their mission computer?
I need trepanation like I need a hole in the head.
From what I've read, they're looking at monitoring mental and physical health of a crew simulating a mission to Mars. The fundamental psychology is different, as pointed out by others, as they can leave at any time. Confinement and isolation are not properly simulated at the fundamental level. The physical side of the test is also not simulated properly, as they are under the influence of Earth's gravity and this has effects on the health of the crew.
Perhaps a first step. A better test would be one at the ISS.
Yeah, it's a trip to Mars - minus the lack of gravity, minus the cosmic radiation, minus the occasional pebble whizzing by at thousands of miles per hour, minus the constant knowledge that a few millimeters of metal alloy separates you from pretty much instant death at all times.
It's the take home test of space travel.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
If they are free to walk out at any time, why is the capsule locked? (No, seriously.) The other thing that jumps out at me is the duration of the trips but the relatively short amount of time (two days) spent on 'Mars'. Surely a mission to Mars would include more time on the planet? The time spent on the planet would be more intellectually stimulating than the spaceflight (one presumes) and might offer relief/reward from the journey to Mars and better prepare the crew psychologically for the return mission. I wonder why that wasn't factored in. The difficulty of simulating the on-planet experience perhaps?
Bonus question: Would an actual mission to Mars pay astronauts more than $70,000 per year?
Everybody's bitching because this isn't an exactly perfect simulation (gravity, you-can-leave-at-any-time, etc) but give them some credit: at least they're doing something. If you're a fellow American, you have no grounds for complaining.
We've had that experiment a while ago. A bunch of unemployed freaks locked together into a can for a year, televised daily.
They called it Big Brother.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Do they use simulated subspace communication the other times?
Are there other parts of the "simulation" that are modified for convenience? Can they have pizza delivered?
I do not agree. First, working in a team increases human pain threshold twice.
Second, when you're a given a "stop" button, you can endure more pain and actually finish the given exercise. I cannot find the study that showed this, but can give you a short description - a control group of people were given electric shock (or other form of pain) until a certain threshold. Another group of people were going through the same exercise, but were given a button that could make the pain stop right away.
The group that did not have the button, gave up much earlier than the group that had that button. The latter group actually went through the end of the exercise.
So, if you're working in a group (first study above) and you're given a way out, I'd say it's much easier to endure the trip.
Thus I disagree with the parent post.
As for this study, I really think the test subjects should've been told they wouldn't be able to make it out, even if they wanted to..
This, however, could very well be the next test.
It's very interesting, IMHO, to follow @diegou, the italian-colombian guy on twitter, and I recommend it for everyone interested in space travel.