Russian Mock Mars Mission

sdriver writes "CNN reports that Russia is attempting a 500-day mock Mars mission. The article goes on to say, "six volunteers will depend on a preset limit of supplies, including about 5 tons of food and oxygen and 3 tons of water." Also, "Experiment participation is not solely reserved for Russian volunteers, institute officials added."

Re:Why is it men only?

[sielwolf]

This was a popular research result (so much that Crichton borrowed it in Sphere). The problem: much of the evidence was ancedotal. The teams were asked their opinions. The men were blunt about their situation, the women put up a unified front. When later tests were done on performance it turned out that the men, though overt in their bickering, worked just as well as women.

There is a parallel in Rosalind Wiseman's Queen Bees and Wannabes (the basis of much of Tina Fey's Mean Girls): most of the research into [junior]+ high school bullying dealt with boys. Because the boys were open about it, more willing to make an issue of it. The girls, both victims and victimizers, concealed their activities, often in passive-aggressive ways (causing many sociologists to assume it wasn't there). Girls would bond into groups that, when asked, would uniformly reply with "best friends forever" to researchers. Observation noted that this was not the case. There were obvious social heirarchies (even among "friends") where the lower girls were humiliated, and nettled endlessly.

Of course this all just showed that the sexes approaches to group dynamics were different, not better. Both have members who demonstrate all the sort of behaviors you don't want in a closed space (depression, group disruptive behavior, passive-aggressiveness, etc).

Re:Methods for doing this; Russia good as any plac

[randomiam]

Food, other consumables, oxygen, water, yes, these are valid simulations. I'd also like to see what the options are for running a hydroponics lab to oxygenate the air and cleanse sewer waste, though not to eat necessarily since this would involve a fair amount of work.

NASA ran a demonstration project called "Breadboard" starting back in '86. It's still active, I think. The goal of the project were to:

1.) Develop a sealed environment plant growth capability (which is much harder than simple hydroponic farming).

2.) Develop the systems needed to control atmospheric contaminants, b) collect and regenerate condensate water, and c) recycle solid wastes.

3.) Integrate all of the systems in point 2 with the growth in point 1.

Here's a link to a page that gives a decent 'least you need to know' overview of the project.

http://www.permanent.com/s-ce-nas.htm [permanent.com]

Of course, NASA hasn't made it to including humans yet, but since as per /. protocol I haven't RTFA, I don't know if the russians are 'cheating' on all of these mundane details.

Mars Society

[Keebler71]

The Mars society has conducted similar research during these [marssociety.org] experiments [marssociety.org] although the Mars society research focuses less on duration and psycological effects and more on requirements analysis. (i.e. not can we survive, but what will it take to survive and accomplish useful science.