The six members of the Mars500 team spent 105 days in this chamber at Moscow's Institute of Biomedical Problems.
(Credit: European Space Agency)Sometime in the not-too-distant future, perhaps, we'll all be as excited about people landing on Mars as we were 40 years ago about the first moon landing. But don't hold your breath.
In the meantime, mission-to-Mars dreamers and wannabes will have to make do with Earth-bound exercises such as the European Space Agency's Mars500 program. Earlier this week, a group of six Mars500 participants emerged from a mission-to-Moscow mock-up meant to simulate part of what will eventually be a very long journey to the Red Planet.
The Euro-sextet ended their simulated Mars mission on Tuesday, after 105 days sealed into an isolation facility designed to replicate many features of a potential spacecraft built to fly to Mars and back. Since March 31, the participants (one from Germany, one from France, and four from Russia) have been engaged in science experiments, monitoring of their physiological state, and posting chirpy weekly updates.
"We had an outstanding team spirit throughout the entire 105 days," said Cyrille Fournier, the French airline pilot who posted many of the cheery log entries. "Living for that long in a confined environment can only work if the crew is really getting along with each other. The crew is the crucial key to mission success, which became very evident to me during the 105 days."
Spacecraft or dorm room? The Mars500 crew watches "Lord of the Rings."
(Credit: ESA)Team-building exercises included watching movies and playing music. The participants also grew their own veggies, including tomatoes, strawberries, radishes, and cabbage.
The other members of the Mars500 isolation ward were Oliver Knickel, a mechanical engineer in the German army; cosmonauts Sergei Ryazansky (commander) and Oleg Artemyev; Alexei Baranov, a medical doctor; and Alexei Shpakov, a sports physiologist.
In an entry from June 23, Fournier describes a typical day.
Along with the close quarters, the Mars500 crew had to endure modest hardships, including a 20-minute delay each way in communications with "Earth" and at least one incident that, in a real spacecraft, could have proved very bad indeed. Wrote Knickel in a May 19 account that had echoes of the Apollo 13 mission:
As Murphy's Law would have it, just after midnight on 12 May, we had an off-nominal situation when the air purification and conditioning system in the crew quarters failed. This could be seen from the operation center of our module, where you can watch and tune all parameters in all three modules--including temperature, atmospheric humidity, and the concentration of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. We quickly noticed an increase in temperature up to 30 degrees Celsius, as well as an increase of the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide concentration in the air, which can quickly become life-threatening.
The in-house repairs turned out to be fairly simple, and the crew was able to press ahead with a celebration of Knickel's 29th birthday that included balloons, gifts, and karaoke in Russian.
Since there were apparently no "Silent Running"-style meltdowns, the European Space Agency and its Russian partner, the Institute of Biomedical Problems, plan to proceed with a longer simulation, a 520-day sojourn expected to start in early 2010.
Mars500 participant Cyrille Fournier gets wired up for EEG monitoring of his sleep patterns.
(Credit: ESA)Prolonged enclosure in any indoor space, especially a small one, generally produces a condition known as cabin fever--you get cranky and restless and even a bit claustrophobic. Playing board games and tending to the houseplants gets old fast.
So what exactly are they pumping into the air in the several oversized tin cans of the Mars500 project to make the astronaut role players grin so much and so broadly? The six men are locked into a 200-square-meter space to simulate the conditions of a trip to Mars and back, and they're already three weeks into a 105-day stay. (Later this year, a 520-day sojourn will begin.)
Apparently, they really, really love their work. Or at least that's what the European Space Agency really, really wants us to believe, since all we know of the Mars500 crew's activities are what we see in the press release photos and officially posted diary entries. I mean, I've seen my share of publicity photos, but come on.
No, no, I know. I don't really expect anyone to turn into Jack Nicholson in "The Shining." But do the diary notes have to be so chirpy, and the photos so deliriously happy?
Anyway, in the latest installment from Moscow's Institute of Biomedical Problems, where the Mars500 research facility is located, we find out that the crew members have been honing their poker skills, making improvised drums out of plastic containers, and celebrating Orthodox Easter with some chocolate eggs. They also got in their weekly 15 minutes per person in the 1-square-meter sauna.
Oh, yes, and they're working on their scientific experiments, too. A central goal of the Mars500 project is to get a reading on things like sleep patterns and mood swings, which certainly will be legitimate concerns for long space voyages.
Earlier this week, participant Oliver Knickel reported on the results of the first "electronic nose" experiment, in which a device sucks in air, and internal filters capture traces of bacteria and fungi. "Fortunately," he writes, "we have not found any dangerous pathogens so far."
The study of sleep patterns, meanwhile, has had a hiccup. In doing their first recording of brainwaves during sleep, the group had "quite a surprise" to find that the EEG machine had come unplugged sometime during the night--two nights running. "Since then we are looking for the ghost of Cyrille's quarters who wants to accompany us on our simulated journey to Mars," Knickel writes.
A ghost, eh? With any luck, the crew has packed a few Stephen King novels after all and the Mars500 narrative will get just that much more interesting.
The blue device in the hands of Mars500 crewmember Oliver Knickel is an electronic nose, in search of bacteria and fungi.
(Credit: ESA)
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