Volunteer to Simulate a Mars Mission for the ESA 209
number6x writes "The European Space Agency (ESA) is looking for volunteers for a simulated trip to Mars. The simulation will put a crew of six in isolation for 17 months. The crew will be made up of 4 Russians and 2 Europeans. In all the ESA will need 12 volunteers for back up purposes. Seventeen months was chosen to simulate the time needed for the journey to Mars and back, as well as a 30 day period spent doing experiments on the red planet."
Will they be allowed to have sex? (Score:5, Interesting)
Too bad.. (Score:1, Interesting)
They could fund the mission by doin a reality show (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Simulating the wrong mission (Score:5, Interesting)
Locking people in a tank for 17 months and watching how they deal with each other is a valuable experiment. Spending 2 years running around the desert in a spacesuit to simulate martian experiments...Now that would be worthless.
30 days?! (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand that this experiment is probably limited by funds, not a realistic simulation, etc.... but really, 30 days?
Re:Will they be allowed to have sex? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Simulated radiation trauma? (Score:4, Interesting)
Interestingly, I read about a bunch of tiny worms on their way back from space. They've been up there long enough to produce 25 generations and scientists are going to examine their DNA to see if it's changed along the way due to aforementioned radiation.
Links at Google News [google.co.uk].
social, not ecological isolation (Score:3, Interesting)
Ecological isolation didnt quite work in Biosphere II (soon to become condos). It was hard to keep the atmosphere in balance and grow enough food. Most participants lost 1/4 to 1/3 of weight.
Been there, done that... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Been there, done that... (Score:3, Interesting)
It was an interesting visit, though. Lots of 1970s Soviet-era hardware still set up and in use.
Been done already... (Score:2, Interesting)
We're not falling for it twice!
Toughen up (Score:3, Interesting)
Motivated people throughout history have endured considerably more privation than being confined to 92 m2/person for 17 months. We know that from a psychological standpoint, people can and will make a trip of this nature. The key word here is motivation.
But if the participants know that the whole thing is a simulation, it robs the experiment of any useful insight into many aspects of psychological stress because this motivational factor is missing; the difference between a simulated airlock and a real one will not be lost on participants. The project would thus seem to be a way to validate the astronaut selection process itself, and not just a study on long-term isolation - in other words, "we know people can handle it, but we still don't have a reliable way of knowing which ones". The recent diapers-and-knives episode amply illustrates that astronaut selection is something of an inexact science.
Of course, this still leaves lots of room for interesting experiments on group dynamics, but we already know quite a lot on this subject: for example, years of experimentation with Skylab, Mir etc. suggested that if there was some tension in the group, ground control would usually create an obviously impossible schedule of work for the team, creating a them-versus-us mentality which tended to bring the team closer; tensions within the group were eased by colluding to grumble about ground control.
This sort of thing has been studied exhaustively by many military and civilian organisations for a long time, so what are the objectives here?