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."

People in a group + "out" button = greater chance

[theblondebrunette]

I do not agree. First, working in a team increases human pain threshold twice [guardian.co.uk].
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.