Moscow Team Begins Simulated Flight to Mars

[mgc1961]

Just a few weeks after their wedding, Ekaterina Golubeva's husband is leaving her. Alexei Sitev, a cosmonaut trainer from St Petersburg, is swapping his marital bed for a berth in close quarters with five other men. For 520 days, he will be jammed into what looks like a huge pipe. He will be watched at all times by cameras and he will voluntarily be giving up daylight, fresh air and his honeymoon. "Giving up sex for such a long time will be very tough," Sitev told the Times of London.

But what will be the first test of the newlyweds' stamina, will also be a milestone in efforts to send a manned mission further into outer space. Sitev is taking part in the longest isolation experiment in the history of space exploration. Along with two further human guinea pigs from Russia and one each from Italy, China and France, Sitev will be locked inside an spacecraft simulator located at Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow on Thursday. The project is called "Mars500" and the crew will be experiencing in real time what it would be like to fly a mission to the planet Mars. Scientists estimate a mission to the Red Planet using today's technology would take around 520 days. That consists of 250 days for the journey there and 240 days for the return journey, as well as 30 days for the stay on the surface of Mars.


There's more at http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,698304,00.html

[Swede]

1. I saw this on the tv.

That is some commitment.