Mars 500 - simulated Mission

cIclops · 2006-10-24 11:36:30

ESA to take part in Russian Mars experiment

MOSCOW, October 24 (RIA Novosti) - The European Space Agency has decided to take part in a Russian simulated flight to Mars, and two Europeans could be among the volunteers, a Russian scientist said Tuesday.
The Institute of Medical and Biological Issues in northern Moscow, the venue for the Mars-500 experiment that will last 520 days has received applications from more than 120 people from 21 countries ...

Are FSA and ESA considering a quick flag and footprints mission? A race to Mars?

EuroLauncher · 2006-10-24 15:57:43

520 days - talk about a long experiment

SpaceNut · 2006-10-24 20:47:07

At first I thought this was the bed rest study but after a further glance I see that it is an extended mars society style effort.

cIclops · 2006-12-30 06:14:41

Five volunteers picked for simulated Mars mission in Russia

MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti) - Five volunteers have been selected for a simulated Mars mission, expected to be launched in Russia late next year, a spokesman for the Russian Space Agency said Friday.
"The Russian Institute of Medical and Biological Studies has completed the selection of participants for the Mars-500 experiment," Igor Panarin said. "There are five of them, all are male, and they come from Russia as well as other countries."
More than 150 volunteers, including 16 women, applied to take part in the experiment from countries as far apart as Ukraine, Spain, India, Australia and the United States.
The successful candidates will spend 520 days inside an experimental module set up on the institute's premises, including 250 days "en route" to Mars, 30 days on the Red Planet's surface and 240 days on a journey "back to Earth."
They will experience the daily routine of professional astronauts, including medicals, workouts and maintenance of station equipment, and will have to cope with simulated emergency situations, arising both from human error and equipment failure.
The European Space Agency has expressed an interest in contributing to the project, including research and financial support.
Russia also plans to launch a Mars probe in the next decade. Martian soil samples it will bring back will give scientists a better idea of the Red Planet's chemical composition.

The mission plan doesn't seem like much fun: 250 days of space radiation, followed by 30 days on the surface, then another 240 days of radiation. Picking an all male crew is curious.

cIclops · 2007-04-02 22:19:56

ESA prepares for a human mission to Mars

2 April 2007
Starting in spring next year, a crew of six will be sent on a 500 day simulated mission to Mars. In reality the crew will remain in a special isolation facility in Russia. To investigate the psychological and medical aspects of a long-duration mission, such as to Mars, ESA is looking for experiment proposals for research to be carried out during their stay.
During the simulated Mars mission, known as Mars500, the crew will be put through all kinds of scenarios as if they really were travelling to the Red Planet – including a launch, an outward journey of up to 250 days, arrival at Mars and, after an excursion to the surface, they will face the long journey home.
...
When will you start the process of finding volunteers?
In mid-June we will call for volunteers – probably through an announcement on the web. Our own pre-selection will then be followed with a selection by the integrated IBMP/ESA team. We believe we are going to have the selection concluded by November this year.

EuroLauncher · 2007-04-03 12:10:09

Thanks for updating us with more news

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2007-05-26 05:10:18

http://www.imbp.ru/Mars500/Purpose-targets_e.html

The main tasks:

* Studying of the influence of simulated conditions of Martian manned expedition on the crew's health and work capability;
* Organization of the crew's activity and its interaction with the Experiment Control Center;
* Verification of the principles, methods and means of:
o Control, diagnostics and prediction of the crewmembers' state of health and work capability; providing of medical care, including with the use of telemedicine technologies,
o Countermeasures against adverse effect of the "flight" factors on the human body,
o Psychological support,
o Environment monitoring;
* Approbation of the modern technologies and tools of the human life support and protection;
* Approbation of the elements of biomedical information-analytical system.

cIclops · 2007-06-04 11:40:07

Europe to select candidates soon

MOSCOW. June 3 (Interfax-AVN) - The European Space Agency will begin selecting participants for an imitation of the manned flight to Mars, the so-called the Mars-500 experiment, which will take place at the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems at Russian Academy of Science.
"ESA will soon make an official announcement on the beginning of the selection of candidates for the Mars-500 experiment," a source in the institute told Interfax.
According to the contract signed between ESA and the institute this April, two out of six participants in the experiment will be citizens of European states. ESA experts will select candidates at the first stage, then a joint Russian-EU commission will choose the most appropriate ones, the source said.
The institute continues to receive applications from volunteers from Russia and other states. "As of today, we have received more than 150 applications," he said.
Medical selection of candidates should begin at the institute in several months. Examination is expected to end in November. The Mars-500 experiment is scheduled for late 2007 - early 2008.
A pilot experiment involving employees of the institute will take place this fall. They will live in a special airproof space station module for several days in order to check the accuracy of technical equipment. "Should any equipment break down after the launch of the experiment, participants will have to repair it themselves. That is why equipment will be checked several times before the Mars-500 experiment is launched," the source said.
Six volunteers will have to stay within a space station module for over 520 days, time required to fly to and from Mars. ar

cIclops · 2007-06-19 06:54:05

ESA seeks candidates for simulated 'Missions to Mars' in 2008/2009 - 19 Jun 2007

ESA is preparing for future human exploration missions to Mars. We are currently looking for volunteers to take part in a 520-day simulated Mars mission.
To go to Mars is still a dream and one of the last gigantic challenges. But one day some of us will be on precisely that journey to the Red Planet. A journey with no way out once the spaceship is on a direct path to Mars.
Challenges
These men and women will have to take care of themselves for almost two years during the roundtrip. Their survival is in their own hands, relying on the work of thousands of engineers and scientists back on Earth, who made such a mission possible.
The crew will experience extreme isolation and confinement. They will lose sight of planet Earth. A radio contact will take 40 minutes to travel to us and then back to the space explorers.
A human mission to Mars is a bold vision for the time beyond the International Space Station. However, preparations have already started today. They are geared and committed to one goal: to send humans on an exploration mission to Mars, individuals who will live and work together in a spaceship for over 500 days.
Simulation
In order to investigate the human factors of such a mission ESA has teamed up with the Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) and will send a joint crew of six on a 520-day simulated mission to Mars.
The simulation follows the mission profile of a real Mars mission, including a exploration phase on the surface of Mars. Nutrition will be identical to that provided on board the International Space Station.
The simulations will take place here on Earth inside a special facility in Moscow. A precursor 105-day study is scheduled to start by mid-2008, possibly followed by another 105-day study, before the full 520-day study begins in late 2008 or early 2009.
ESA is looking for 12 volunteers who are ready to participate in the simulations and thereby help to support the preparations of the real thing: a mission to Mars. Four volunteers will be needed for each of the three simulations. The selection procedure is similar to that of ESA astronauts, although there will be more emphasis on psychological factors and stress resistance than on physical fitness.
Interested?
For detailed information on this Call for Candidates and for the application form please refer to:
http://www.spaceflight.esa.int/callforcandidates

cIclops · 2007-06-21 05:31:48

We Want to Know how a Group Reacts en Route to Mars

European and Russian space agencies are searching for six volunteers to participate in a simulated Mars mission. DW-WORLD.DE talked to a German aerospace medical expert about the experiment.
Rupert Gerzer directs the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne, which is participating in the simulated Mars mission.
DW-WORLD.DE: The European Space Agency (ESA) is looking for two volunteers that -- together with four Russians -- will participate in a Mars mission. Including "flight time," the participants will have to spend 520 days in metal tanks in Moscow. What will be required of them?
Rupert Gerzer: First of all, candidates have to be healthy. Secondly, they have to have a psychological state of mind that prevents them from getting depressed when they're locked up in a can for 520 days. They also have to be compatible with the rest of the group and have no interest in dominating the others. Apart from that, they have to be able to work like a scientist on a Mars mission.
DW-WORLD.DE: Every crew member gets a personal space of three square meters (32 square feet). There's a common living room, a kitchen and a toilet. ESA calls it a study in isolation and confinement. That doesn't sound particularly enticing. Why should someone participate as a volunteer?
Rupert Gerzer: It's surprising how many people want to do it. I have a full-blown scientist working in my institute who participated in the last study and who's dying to collaborate in Moscow. A lot of people are fascinated by the idea of taking part in a space mission. They say: If I cannot be a real astronaut, then my confinement can at least help to conduct these missions in the future.
DW-WORLD.DE: There won't be a shower during the 520 days, but there will be a sauna. As a space mission physician, can you explain why a sauna, of all things, is needed?
Rupert Gerzer: (Laughs) That's a Russian specialty.
DW-WORLD.DE: The experiment sounds a bit like the TV show "Big Brother." Wouldn't it be good for space exploration to broadcast live?
Rupert Gerzer: We don't want to examine TV stars, but find out how an isolated group reacts on the way to Mars. People inside the tank will behave according to how public the whole thing is. We want to simulate real life or at least approximate it as much as possible. There could be problems and there will be problems. We want to know them and find out how to solve them.
DW-WORLD.DE: After the experiment, potential long-term effects will be examined for another year. Is there a chance for people to become a real astronaut if they get through the 520 days?
Rupert Gerzer: On the Russian side there are people that are aspiring astronauts. Anyone who gets through the 520 days and does well could be accepted to the Russian astronaut program. ESA will select new astronauts in 2008. Anyone who will not be accepted then -- because he or she is participating in the study in Moscow, for example -- doesn't stand a chance of becoming an ESA astronaut.
(Aarni Kuoppamäki interviewed Rupert Gerzer)

X · 2007-06-21 21:39:32

What sort of entertainment are they offering?

While not politically correct a single sex crew would prevent any problems caused by relationships. It is a long time to expect folks to behave professionally continuously.

cIclops · 2007-06-30 04:57:33

Why human psychology will make sending people to Mars hard - 28 Jun 2007

ONE of the two reviews posted on Amazon.com about Valentin Lebedev's “Diary of a Cosmonaut” calls it a “profound” book “about what it's like to be in a flying tin can for more than half a year”. The other reviewer would “not recommend reading its pages to [his] worst enemy”. He thinks Dr Lebedev's account of months of increasingly territorial behaviour and flagging conversation with his lone colleague on the good ship Salyut 7 is a “painfully boring” portrayal of why human space exploration is as pointless as it is frivolous.
Dr Lebedev's mission would, nevertheless, seem entertaining compared with a trip to Mars. The round trip, including a stay on the surface, would take about 17 months. Which is why it is surprising that within a few days of its being advertised, more than 3,000 people have applied to take part in an experiment planned by Russia's Institute for Biomedical Problems and the European Space Agency (ESA) to simulate such an outing.
Even at the speed of light (and therefore radio), the trip from Earth to Mars and back can be as long as 44 minutes. Any conversation with home would therefore be pretty dreary. Indeed, just looking at Earth would be dull. The planet would appear as a tiny speck, with neither blue ocean nor swirling, white cloud visible. Nonetheless, hordes of willing guinea pigs have been gumming up ESA's switchboard all week, desperate to experience utter tedium in the name of science for longer than humans ever have willingly done before.
Odd, indeed. But it may have something to do with a television programme called “Big Brother”, which has spawned national versions throughout Europe and beyond. Much like “Big Brother” contestants, the three groups of six who will be locked into simulation modules in Moscow will be ordered to complete tasks while others observe their behaviour. Those tasks have yet to be decided. But a pretend take-off, an exploration of a fake Martian surface and dealing with fictitious media headlines are on the cards. Unlike “Big Brother” wannabe C-list celebrities, the pretend cosmonauts will have to speak fluent Russian and English and keep track of nearly two years' rations. None will be kicked out by popular vote (indeed, doing so in space would cause them to explode).
Thumb-twiddling in free-fall
The experiment's popularity is all the more bizarre given that Dr Lebedev is far from the only cosmonaut whom space has driven a bit cranky. Half of all cosmonauts have developed a condition that Russian psychologists call “asthenisation” (and American ones do not recognise). This is characterised by irritability and low energy. Crew members often get on badly with each other. Individuals develop “space dementia”. Orbiting astronauts have even become clinically depressed and panicked at psychosomatic illnesses.
Nick Kanas of the University of California, San Francisco, and his colleagues have scrutinised seven years of interactions between crew and ground staff during missions to the International Space Station (ISS). Those years included eight missions that maintained, through overlapping individual stays, at least three astronauts on the ISS at all times. The 17 crew members involved, and the 128 mission controllers, rated the social climate of the mission and also their own emotional states in weekly questionnaires, beginning a month before launch and ending a fortnight after a mission had returned to Earth.
Dr Kanas's analysis of the answers is published in the June issue of Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine. It is broadly consistent with his smaller study of missions to Mir, the Soviet Union's first space station. Over the course of both the Mir and the ISS missions, there were no overall trends in the quality of social interactions during the course of a mission. That is reassuring, but only slightly. Before his analysis of the Mir data, Dr Kanas had expected the mood on space stations to dip during the third quarter of a mission, as often happens on submarines and Antarctic research stations. That it does not implies that the psychological tactics of ground-control medics are working.
Of the 82 person-years spent in space, two-thirds have been notched up by Russians. Thus it was Russian support staff who first learned to monitor their cosmonauts' speech rhythms for early signs of strain, and arrange surprise gifts in supply ships and cheery telephone calls from famous people and family members in response. But presents and real-time interaction with Earthlings would be impossible on a Mars mission, which would be more similar, psychologically, to heading into the sunset with Ferdinand Magellan than to joining a trip to the moon in Apollo.
Yet Dr Kanas's study also uncovered a more worrying finding. As with his Mir study, and by all six of his measures, the ISS crew coped with stress by blaming the ground team and perceiving that its members felt negatively towards them—even though the records of mission controllers showed that they did not.
This tendency to convert tensions on board into feelings that people on Earth do not care is one reason why sending people to Mars would be as much a psychological as a technical challenge. Indeed, one of the crews of Skylab, NASA's first attempt at a space station, became so annoyed with mission control during their 84 days in space that they mutinied, sulked and turned off all communication.
Some psychologists propose sending an all-female crew to Mars. Even if women become irritable, they are less likely to commit suicide or murder each other than men are. Others think a mixed team would support each other better. But that, as the European experiment may demonstrate, raises the possibility of the first human Martians. Perhaps it would be better to stick to more psychologically robust and less libidinous space explorers: robots.

X · 2007-06-30 09:27:58

I guess it is too bad for the article's author that Magellan's crews didn't begin infighting and kill each other and neither have any astronauts in space.

SpaceNut · 2007-08-22 19:32:07

Mars-500 experiment could be extended to 700 days - space agency

The six-member crew will spend almost two years inside an experimental research complex comprising five modules set up on the institute's premises to experience the daily routine of professional astronauts, including medicals, workouts and maintenance of station equipment, and will have to cope with simulated emergency situations, arising both from human error and equipment failure.
The experiment is divided into three parts - a flight "en route" to Mars, landing and staying on the Red Planet's surface and a journey "back to Earth."
The crew is expected to spend the duration of the experiment in an artificial atmosphere, with normal barometric pressure, and to consume food rations similar to those used by astronauts on board the International Space Station.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-09-02 10:56:43

[quote="cIclops

The mission plan doesn't seem like much fun: 250 days of space radiation, followed by 30 days on the surface, then another 240 days of radiation. Picking an all male crew is curious.

cIclops · 2007-09-02 14:50:47

Most if not all female astronauts that have flown so far have been post menopausal, so getting pregnant is not a factor. Women typically weigh and consume less supplies than men, so it would be even more logical to fly an all female crew.

As to Russian motives, who knows. Right now RSA are not even planning to build a heavy launch vehicle needed for a Mars mission. Perhaps they are just continuing the preparatory work hoping that the Russian government or ESA will decide to fund a real mission. The simulation appears to be of a long cruise to and from Mars with a short flag and footprints surface mission.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-09-03 08:12:02

Most if not all female astronauts that have flown so far have been post menopausal, so getting pregnant is not a factor. Women typically weigh and consume less supplies than men, so it would be even more logical to fly an all female crew.

Why all female? Are you trying to prove a point? Its a rather binary outlook when you imply that the crew had better be either all male or all female. I think all male or all female groupings for a number of years are rather unnatural and lend to an atmosphere of doing time in a prision.

Do we really want to send middle-aged people to explore a new world? What happens if one of them suffers from a stroke or a heart attack? A shuttle crew can get back down to Earth within a week or sooner, not so for a Mars crew. I'd say a Mars crew ought to be young in their 20s or 30s, that way they'd be less likely to require medical attention during the trip. Probably military age would be the best, you'd want to send people who haven't established families yet, that we wouldn't impose undue strain on their family life. Imagine raising a family when one of the two spouses is due to be absent for a matter of years. Young people can be trained to operate a space ship and collect rock samples, all the professorial types can give time-delayed advice from Earth if they so desire.

As to Russian motives, who knows. Right now RSA are not even planning to build a heavy launch vehicle needed for a Mars mission. Perhaps they are just continuing the preparatory work hoping that the Russian government or ESA will decide to fund a real mission. The simulation appears to be of a long cruise to and from Mars with a short flag and footprints surface mission.

The standard misson involves a stay on Mars until the two planets are so aligned as to allow a trip back, the 30-day flags and footprints mission typically required an ancounter with a third body either to get to Mars or get back to Earth, most likely Venus.

Terraformer · 2007-09-16 10:25:27

Pregnancy wouldn't happen with a mixed crew. With that amount of radiation they wouldn't be able to have children.

cIclops · 2007-09-22 09:33:50

Russians Prepare to Go to Mars Without Leaving the Ground - September 2007

By James Oberg
500 days in suburban Moscow
In a battered brick warehouse in southeastern Moscow, scientists are preparing to confine a team of volunteers to a simulated Mars-bound spacecraft for more than a year. The half hour I spent inside the subway-car-size isolation chamber on a recent visit was more than enough time for me to appreciate what lies ahead for the volunteers and their handlers.
The simulation is really like a classic exercise in reliability engineering. One method of determining the lifetime and reliability of a mechanism is to test the components individually under much more strenuous conditions than expected—and for longer periods of time. Then you test the interaction of components with subassemblies, hoping to cast more light on what to expect from the final product.
But if the product is a manned spacecraft, and one component is its crew—“the most valuable and vulnerable component,” according to space medicine specialist Dr. Mark Belakovskiy, head of the Mars 500 project—the techniques accepted for hardware, such as testing until a component fails, become unacceptable. So how do you test the human element?
That’s what scientists at the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems in Moscow are trying to figure out. Responsible for the well-being of Soviet cosmonauts for the past 50 years, the specialists there have already conducted a series of long-term human isolation experiments in a cylindrical chamber located in a high bay in Building 5 behind the institute’s headquarters. In 1967–68, three men spent a year together there testing space gardens. Shorter tests with different prototype life-support systems followed every few years. From 1999 to 2000, a series of international teams performed simulated outer-space explorations—and mainly they discovered the dragons that lurk in inner space—inside their own heads. The Russian experts actually hope to run into similar unpleasant surprises this time, reasoning that it’s better for these things to happen on the ground in Moscow than 100 million kilometers away in interplanetary space. That’s the whole purpose of the project.
“We’ve spent the last three years convincing top management that the project is important now,” technical chief Evgeniy Dyomin says. Some in the Russian Federal Space Agency believed it was too early to run the simulation, he says, “But time runs fast and we need to flush out problems now, so we can develop and test solutions over the next decade.”
Last June, the European Space Agency officially joined the project, and it will provide two of the six crewmembers. In addition, various corporations are signing up as official sponsors, furnishing supplies, food, and even Swiss watches. With the foreign participation, Belakovskiy says, the project would now be on budget—a predicted US $15 million.
Teams of specialists at the institute will be monitoring the volunteers closely, but communications with them will be tightly constrained to drive home the simulated reality of being on an interplanetary expedition. Voice communication will be subjected to time delays commensurate with the growing distance between the spacecraft and Earth, reaching a maximum of 40 minutes round-trip. E-mail with family and friends will be allowed (and monitored), but there will be no Internet access. “Free access to information may produce catastrophic results,” says Larisa Chevelyova the program psychologist.
Before the end of this year, officials told me, six volunteers would enter the chamber for a two-week “shakedown cruise.” They will concentrate on maintaining crew health conditions and identifying critical hardware items that were initially overlooked. Several months later, six more crewmembers—perhaps including some from the first test—would be locked away for a more serious 105-day isolation mission. Their primary mission will be to validate the health maintenance procedures as modified by the first experiment’s results. “We believe all the inadequate factors will show up in the first two months,” says Dyomin.
After scientists study results for several months and improve the simulator, the program will be ready to launch the 520-day full-up mission late in 2008. That mission could be extended to as long as 700 days, almost two full years of total isolation from the rest of the planet.
As pieces fall into place, a few unsolved problems stand out in greater relief. Dyomin confesses that one entirely ordinary Earth side process was giving him fits: “We still don’t know what to do with the garbage,” he ruefully admits. Throwing it overboard (as the Russians did on their Salyut and Mir space stations) would cost too much in terms of the air lost with each jettison, and on a real Mars mission it would fill the skies with twinkling garbage bags that would drift for months, confusing stellar navigation sensors and potentially bumping into the ship and fouling exterior mechanisms. Keeping it inside will require strict sanitary isolation. But with decades of long-term human spaceflight experience under their belts, the team will think of something.

EuroLauncher · 2007-09-22 20:44:19

Euronews video
http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page= … 8721&lng=1
Preparing the way for a mission to Mars

cIclops · 2007-09-23 01:21:43

Good to hear from the people doing the mission, thanks for the link EuroLauncher.

EuroLauncher · 2007-10-09 22:50:56

Preparing for Mars500 - a simulated mission to Mars
Vodcast | Download
http://www.esa.int/esaHS/SEMPYA7H07F_index_0.html

2 October 2007
Within the Institute of Biomedical Problems, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, engineers and scientists are completing the construction of a mock-up spaceship which will simulate a voyage to Mars.
The project, called Mars500, due to start in 2008 will recreate all the phases of a mission to Mars. Six volunteers will remain confined in six modules of a mock-up ground-based spaceship: living quarters with individual cabins, an exercise room and storage area for food and supplies, a bio-medical and laboratory area and one recreating the Martian surface. The simulation will also focus on psychological aspects of such a long-duration confinement.

cIclops · 2007-11-15 14:05:20

Experimental preparation of flight to Mars begins in Moscow

MOSCOW, November 15 (Itar-Tass) - The initial 14-day experiment to prepare a manned flight to Mars begins at the Moscow Institute of Biomedical Problems on Thursday, the institute’s deputy director Boris Morukov said at the 7th international conference “Manned Space Flights”.
The director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems, Anatoly Grigoryev, had said that a simulation of manned flights Mars included a 14-day and a 105-day mission.
“During 14 days we shall check technical equipment, and then we shall select for the 105-day experiment Russian and European proposals that will be later implemented in the programme Mars-500, Grigoryev said.
He said an international crew of volunteers would be formed for the 105-day experiment that begins in early 2008.
Intensive selection of a main crew for the “Martian flight” is going on. It will include four Russians and two Europeans.
The main requirements for candidates are command of the Russian and English languages, physical fitness and professional skills, preferably in several specialities.
Grigoryev said the candidates, who had undergone a preliminary medical examination, included women.
However, sexes of crewmembers will be certain by the end of the next year, when a short list of the “Martian crew” will be published.
They will be isolated from the external world in a 550-cubic meter model of the Martian spaceship that was designed at the Institute of Biomedical Problems.
The crew will communicate with the word only by electronic mail.
All life support systems of the “spacecraft” are self-contained.
Preferable professions of candidates are physicians, engineers, biologists and computer technology specialists.
They are also to show to the selection commission a lack of serious diseases, harmful habits and problems with law.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2007-11-18 04:53:46

RIA Novosti article

Technically speaking, a manned mission to Mars would be no more difficult than a flight to the moon. Experts believe that the hardware required for reaching the Red Planet is largely already available.
But it is the human element that is both the most important, and the most vulnerable, part of the mission. Before sending astronauts to Mars, scientists will have to solve the numerous medical and biological problems associated with deep space flight.
The mission to Mars will feature entirely new forms of medical and biological support, because the time-tested methods developed for orbital flights do not apply to inter-planetary travel. On top of this are the challenges of impaired telecommunications, variations in gravity and a limited time for acclimatization prior to landing on the planet, as well as high radiation and a lack of magnetic fields.
From January 8, 1994 to March 22, 1995, Russian Cosmonaut Dr. Valery Polyakov spent a total of 437 days, 17 hours, 58 minutes aboard the Mir space station. His epic flight showed that there are no serious medical-biological effects of long-duration space flights.
Anatoly Grigoryev, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Director of the Institute of Medical and Biological Studies, said no serious changes in the human body had been revealed, so there were no obstacles to longer space flights and a possible mission to Mars.
However, everything must be done to shield astronauts from solar and cosmic radiation during the two-year flight, as accumulated radiation could exceed safe levels. Developers are currently focusing on structural protection, and are planning to shield the astronauts by placing fuel, water and food tanks around the crew module. This would guarantee protection equivalent to 80-100 grams per square centimeter.
But astronauts could also be irradiated on the planet's surface. The Russian-made High-Energy Neutron Detector (HEND), installed on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, showed that the intensity of neutron radiation reflected from the Red Planet's surface during solar flares can increase several hundred times, and even threaten astronauts' lives.
Consequently, landings could only take place while solar radiation was relatively low.
Although astronauts now use water to heat tasty sublimated (dried) food, food diversity remains a major problem. At first, scientists wanted to breed birds to lay eggs for astronauts to eat. However, chickens proved unable to adapt to zero gravity. Fish and mollusks, which adapt more easily, grow too slowly to provide a regular food supply.
So much for animal protein. Scientists have been more successful with vegetables. Experts working for the Institute of Medical and Biological Studies have developed a prototype "space truck garden" - a kind of minature green house resembling a cylinder containing fertilizer-covered rollers. The inner surface of the cylinder is covered with hundreds of red and blue diodes, which act as solar rays. The rollers, on which the plants grow, slowly rotate, bringing their tops closer to the light source to simulate day and night. Some rollers can be harvested, while others are still covered with shrubs, thus providing a regualr supply of food.
The experimental truck garden would allow astronauts to harvest 200 grams of vegetables every four days and would also provide additional oxygen.
Water is another problem. Each astronaut needs approximately 2.5 liters per day. Consequently, the spacecraft will have to carry several tons of water to the Red Planet, as well as water-regeneration systems to replenish supplies. Ideally, a closed-cycle physical-chemical system would ensure the turnover of substances. Unfortunately, such systems are unlikely to appear in the near future.
Psychological problems should not be overlooked either. It will take 20 to 30 minutes for radio signals to travel the vast distance between Mars and the Earth, and vice versa. Mission control will therefore be unable to intervene in case of emergency. At best, it could act as a kind of consultant, offering advice. The slowness of communications, however, means that most decisions would have to be made by the crew themselves.
Daunting though these challenges are, Russian scientists will try to solve many of them during the Mars-500 experiment - a simulated Mars mission lasting 520 days.
Five volunteers have already been chosen from among 150 applicants to participate in the simulated space flight. "Blast off" has been scheduled for the last quarter of 2007. Although there were 16 women amongst the original applicants, it is thought that the physical and psychological differences between the sexes give men a far better chance of reaching Mars first.
The six-member crew will spend almost two years inside an experimental research complex comprising five modules. They will experience the daily routine of professional astronauts, including medicals, workouts and maintenance of station equipment, and will have to cope with simulated emergencies, arising both from human error and equipment failure.
One of the modules will simulate the surface of Mars.
Scientists will closely follow the behavior and relations between crewmembers in order to improve their understanding of the psychological challenges of long space flights.
However, only four astronauts will eventually fly to Mars.
The United States has also started recruiting volunteers for a simulated four-month space flight, after learning about the Russian plans.
Yury Zaitsev is an academic adviser with the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences.
The appeal of Mars (Part One)
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071107/87004177.html

cIclops · 2007-11-18 05:44:27

It would require a strange definition of 'difficult' to say that "Technically speaking, a manned mission to Mars would be no more difficult than a flight to the moon." Even assuming it's a simple flyby return trip with no landing or obit involved, maintaining life support and other critical systems for the 400+ day voyage is exceedingly demanding. The mass required for air, water, food and backup systems would be about 50 times greater. The risk would be proportional and of the order of 100 times more.

Orbiting Mars requires much more mass, landing needs a LOT more mass. It will be extremely difficult to achieve compared with a Moon landing.

Valeriy Vladimirovich Polyakov did set a record of 437 days in LEO, note that he retired about 10 weeks after returning. Is there any more detail about his condition?

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2006-10-24 11:36:30

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#2 2006-10-24 15:57:43

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#3 2006-10-24 20:47:07

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#4 2006-12-30 06:14:41

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#5 2007-04-02 22:19:56

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#6 2007-04-03 12:10:09

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#7 2007-05-26 05:10:18

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#8 2007-06-04 11:40:07

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#9 2007-06-19 06:54:05

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#10 2007-06-21 05:31:48

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#11 2007-06-21 21:39:32

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#12 2007-06-30 04:57:33

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#13 2007-06-30 09:27:58

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#14 2007-08-22 19:32:07

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#15 2007-09-02 10:56:43

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#16 2007-09-02 14:50:47

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#17 2007-09-03 08:12:02

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#18 2007-09-16 10:25:27

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#19 2007-09-22 09:33:50

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#20 2007-09-22 20:44:19

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#21 2007-09-23 01:21:43

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#22 2007-10-09 22:50:56

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#23 2007-11-15 14:05:20

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#24 2007-11-18 04:53:46

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

#25 2007-11-18 05:44:27

Re: Mars 500 - simulated Mission

Board footer