Almost one year and a half ago six volunteers embarked on a fictive mission to Mars, designed to simulate the harsh conditions of interplanetary travel and isolation from the rest of the world. Today, November 4th, the team composed of volunteers from Europe, Russia and China is set to end their mission, hypothetically land back on earth and exit the module they called home for the past 520 days.
The Mars500 project is the most ambitious project of its kind, judging from length and resources ($15 million), intended on simulating an entire there-and-back manned trip to the red planet. ESA and Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems partnered for the project.
For 520 days, the volunteers lived in the spacecraft mock-up, which was actually an isolation facility housed at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow, where they performed experiments and even conducted mock “Mars walks” on the surface of the fake Red Planet. During their whole stay, researchers on the outside monitored them constantly, to see how the physically and psychologically react to confinement. Brain and body scans were also employed throughout the mission.
“The length of Mars500 is unique — there has never been such a long isolation before, so that gives you unique data,” Fuglesang told SPACE.com. “From a logistics and communications point of view, it was quite realistic. Of course, there are certain aspects that you cannot simulate. You cannot simulate weightlessness or radiation, for example.”
The last part of the quote sums up the whole issues revolving around this simulation, since these are the greatest aspects to overcome. During entire months spent in zero gravity, ones muscles atrophies, while the constant exposure to high level of radiation steadily hurts internal organs. Regarding their confinement, ESA officials claim the crew members handled themselves remarkably well, despite some up and down periods.