KOROLYOV, Russia (Achieve3000, March 8, 2011). Have humans just landed on Mars? Not really. But an experiment is showing just what a mission to the Red Planet might be like for a crew of astronauts. Six men are on a pretend trip to Mars called Mars500. After 257 days, they "landed" on a simulated model of the planet.
The crewmembers pretended to land on February 14, 2011. Some of them left their locked, windowless steel capsule in heavy spacesuits. They trudged into a sand-covered room that was meant to look like the surface of Mars. The men planted flags. Then they took "samples" of sand from the ground. They also pretended to do experiments. Meanwhile, the remaining crewmembers were in a simulated orbit inside their spaceship.
The pretend Mars landing represented the halfway point of Mars500. It's an experiment that began in June 2010. It will run until November 2011. By that time, the crew will have spent 520 days on the simulated mission. Scientists want to see how humans deal with space travel. This will help them prepare for a real-life trip to Mars. It's a mission that would take well over a year to complete.
Three of the crewmen—Alexey Sitev, Sukhrob Kamolov, and Alexander Smoleyevsky—are from Russia. They are joined by Frenchman Romain Charles; Italian-Colombian Diego Urbina; and Wang Yue from China. The men are spending the experiment in a capsule. But they are not leaving Earth. The capsule is in Russia. It includes living areas the size of a bus. These are joined with several other rooms for experiments and exercise. The men have a supply of canned food.
Crewmembers are learning one another's languages. They also watch movies and play chess in their free time.
The Mars500 crewmembers have been sealed inside their capsule, except during the pretend landing. The only people they are around are one another. However, they speak to outsiders, just as a real space crew can. The crewmembers talk to their families using the Internet. However, the Internet connection isn't always clear in order to imitate the effects of space travel.
A real trip to Mars is decades away. This is because of huge costs and other challenges. One of those challenges would be sending humans far from Earth for the first time. Deep space has exploding stars, black holes, and more. Any of these could give off possibly harmful radiation. Scientists would need to protect crewmembers from the radiation.
In January 2010, President Barack Obama said that he thought astronauts might begin to orbit Mars by the mid-2030s.
Information for this story came from AP.
current page is 1
You read about Mars500. It was an experiment to test whether astronauts could handle the conditions they would experience on a mission to Mars. The experiment ended in November 2011.
The crewmembers were under 24-hour observation by scientists. They stayed in cramped, windowless modules the size of school buses. They spoke with their families and space officials using the Internet. But their connection was slow. It was sometimes interrupted. This was done to imitate what would happen in space. The crew showered only once every 10 days or so. That's because they would need to conserve water on a real mission. They ate food similar to that on the International Space Station. They even imitated a landing on the Red Planet. They wore heavy spacesuits and trudged into a sand-covered room.
In the end, the experiment was a success. All of the researchers completed the 520-day pretend mission.
"Now we can go forward and plan to go to Mars and move confidently," said crewmember Romain Charles of France.
The crewmembers were glad when the challenge was finally over. Cosmonaut Boris Morukov, the mission chief, said the second half of the simulation was the most difficult. After all, there was no daylight or fresh air. Each day was much the same. All of this caused the crewmembers to feel more and more stress as time passed.
The crewmembers said they coped with the exhaustion and isolation by doing exercises and reading books. Some tried to learn new languages. They also spent time watching movies and playing computer games. They celebrated holidays together.
Crewmember Diego Urbina said using social networks also helped. Many kids told him about their dreams of going to Mars. Their kind words encouraged him.
The crewmembers said that keeping busy helped the most, however. The researchers performed more than 100 scientific experiments during the pretend flight.
"I wanted to take part in an interesting adventure and also do something useful for humankind," said Russian team leader Alexey Sitev. "I now feel happy that I have succeeded."
Even as they tried to stay busy, the crewmembers grew tired of the experiment. Many dreamed about what they would do after the pretend mission ended.
"I wanted to take my family to the sea…and watch the waves at my feet," said Sukhrob Kamolov. Kamolov is a Russian crew doctor.
Kamolov also said that the isolation helped him to see things differently. "I realized that time goes fast," he said. "I must spend more time with my family."
Information for this story came from AP.
current page is 2
Put the events of the article in order from oldest to newest.
1. Mars500 experiment begins in June 2010
2. Crewmembers simulate a landing on Mars on February 14, 2011
3. Crewmembers complete the 520-day pretend mission in November 2011