Official News - page 8

REAL LIFE NEWS: RUSSIA PLANS TO TEST MARS MISSION CONDITIONS

The Russians are looking for volunteers to be locked into a small room together for weeks on end while people watch to see how they cope. No, this isn't a Big Brother style reality show, it's an experiment to find out how astronauts would cope with the isolation of the long journey to Mars.

Six volunteers would live in a mock-up of a Mars space ship in Moscow for 500 days, entirely isolated from the outside world. They will be monitored on CCTV and microphone, will breathe recycled air and subsist on sterilized food packages. The resources they have when they are locked in will be all they will have to last them for 18 months: there will be no re-supply missions. Contact with the outside world will be limited to email, with long delays before replies are sent, s would be the case on a real journey to Mars.

Sounds horrible, but it probably is necessary! Applicants for this experiment, which is due to start late next year, need to be relatively young, fit, speak fluent English, and be qualified to University diploma level. They will then be subject to stringent medical and psychological tests to make sure they have what it takes to cope with life in a space ship for 18 months, and to properly document the experience.

Ah, not like Big Brother at all, then!

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