“Man in Mars” project: So far so good

Diego Urbina, Romain Charles (both from Europe), Sukhrob Kamolov, Alexey Sitev, Sukhrob Kamolov and Alexandr Smoleevskiy (all from Russia) and Wang Yue (China) could all soon claim they are back “from Mars” while their wives would not possible ever be back from Venus!

This big dream of Men in Mars sets to be taking quite some shape at the space module of the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow. Since June this year, these six astronauts have been in the space module and undergoing a dummy simulated mission to Mars which will run until November next year. According to the officials, the members have not encountered any kind of problem so far and the experiment is progressing well. However significant results will emerge only after a few more months as the experiment will study the effect that isolation has on various psychological and physiological aspects, such as stress, hormone regulation and immunity, sleep quality, mood and the effectiveness of dietary supplements.

The mission is to ‘fly to Mars’ in 250 days, ‘land on and explore Mars’ for a month and ‘return to Earth’ in 230 days, using imitation interplanetary spacecraft, lander and martian surface.