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2010-06-03 06:11:21
By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News Mars500 Crew (IBMP) On their own: Communication with the outside world will be restricted
Would you volunteer to be locked away for 18 months in a sealed container with no windows and have only e-mail contact with the outside world?
Six men - three Russians, two Europeans and a Chinese man - have agreed to do just that in a project that will try to simulate a mission to the Red Planet.
The Mars500 study begins on Thursday at a medical institute in Moscow.
Scientists say the experiment will help them understand how humans would cope on a long journey to another world.
The project has been designed to be as realistic as possible even though some elements - such as the weightless conditions of spaceflight - cannot be recreated here on Earth.
"They will have to cope with limited consumables, for example," said Dr Martin Zell from the European Space Agency, a key partner in the project.
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When the very first human steps on Mars, I will be able to say, 'yeah, I helped do that'
Diego Urbina European Mars500 participant
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"That means everything will be onboard at the start. There will be no re-load, re-supply whatsoever. It will be like a real mission."
The "spaceship" is based at Moscow's Institute of Biomedical Problems and comprises a series of interconnected steel canisters. The total interior volume is about 550 cubic metres.
Four of the tubes provide the living and working environment on the "journey" to and from Mars. Their interior has been decorated with wood panelling to give the cylinders a more homely feel.
A fifth module is a mock-up of the Red Planet itself, an enclosed room with a floor covered in rocks and sand.
THE LAYOUT OF THE MARS500 'SPACESHIP'
Mars 500 facility (BBC/Esa)
MEDICAL MODULE: The 12m-long cylinder acts as the laboratory. Should a crewmember become ill, he can be isolated and treated here
HABITABLE MODULE: The main living quarters. The 20m-long module has beds, a galley, a social area. It also acts as the main control room
LANDING MODULE: This will only be used during the 30-day landing operation. There is room only for the three crewmembers who will visit the 'surface'
STORAGE MODULE: The 24m-long module is divided into four compartments, to store food and other supplies, to house a greenhouse, a gym a refrigeration unit
SURFACE MODULE: To walk across the soil and rocks of Mars, crewmembers must put on Orlan spacesuits and pass through an airlock
About half-way through the mission, three of the crew will have to "land" on this "surface" and walk about on it while dressed in heavy space suits.
The "cosmonauts" will be commanded by 38-year-old marine engineer and astronaut trainer Alexey Sitev, who has only recently been married.
His compatriots - Sukhrob Kamolov (32) and Alexander Smoleevskiy (33) - have medical backgrounds. The two Europeans in the group - Diego Urbina (27) and Romain Charles (31) - are engineers by training.
The Chinese citizen, Yue Wang, the youngest member of the crew at 26, has a "day job" training Chinese astronauts.
105-day experiment (IBMP) Near a hundred experiments will be performed during the "journey"
Colombian-Italian Diego Urbina said his motivation came from his desire to work in space research.
"I'm also very interested in being a part of the story of getting humans to Mars," he told BBC News. "When the very first human steps on Mars, I will be able to say, 'yeah, I helped do that'. That will make me feel very proud."
Scientific investigations during the experiment will assess the effect that isolation has on various psychological and physiological aspects such as stress, hormone levels, sleep quality, mood and the benefits of dietary supplements.
Dr Berna van Baars, from the Free University Medical Center, Amsterdam, Holland, is a principal investigator on Mars500.
"We expect Mars500 to have Earth applications, in understanding group dynamics connected to isolation and loneliness, for example," she said.
"I hope it will also help us understand better some groups, such as those elderly people who are isolated in their homes. It should tell us about coping behaviours."
The spaceship itself will come under scrutiny, also, as the crew monitor their surroundings to see which types of bacteria take hold and thrive in the enclosed space.
Oraln spacesuits (IBMP) The experiment even simulates surface operations at the Red Planet
All of the results of these investigations will have to be emailed to "mission control" as the organisers of the project intend to introduce a 20-minute, one-way time-delay in communications to mirror the real lag in sending messages over the vast distance between Mars and Earth.
"Everything will be done in a telemedicine environment, where the crew has to do the analysis and we receive the data by telemetry," said Dr Zell, who heads up Europe's space station utilisation programme.
This 520-day mock mission with its 30 days of "surface operations" is the final phase of the three-part Mars500 project.
There have already been two smaller studies, one lasting 14 days and another taking 105 days to complete.
Space agencies describe Mars as the "ultimate destination" for human explorers. However, they do not possess the technology to complete such an endeavour and are unlikely have it for many years yet.