Spectrum Online reported in an article today that Russian scientists are preparing to confine a team of volunteers to a simulated Mars-bound spacecraft for 520 days. The Institute of Medical and Biological Problems in Moscow have administered long-term isolation experiments in a high bay in Building 5 for the past 50 years. In 1967-68, three men spent a year inside testing space gardens. Russian experts are hoping to run into unpleasant surprises, because they feel it is better if it happens on Earth than 100 million kilometers away in interplanetary space.
Last June, the European Space Agency officially joined the project and two of the six crewmembers will be from the ESA. Various corporations have also signed up, furnishing supplies, food, and other essential items. With the foreign participation, the project is currently budgeted to cost $15 million.
Specialists will be monitoring the volunteers, but communication with them will be sparse. Voice communication will be subjected to time delays commensurate with the growing distance between the spacecraft and Earth. The crewmembers will be able to e-mail their family and friends, but there will be no internet access.
Before the end of this year, crewmembers will enter the chamber for a short amount of time. The scientists will focus on maintaining crew health conditions and make sure all hardware items are in good condition. After the short trial, there will be a 105-day isolation mission. After these tests have been administered, the program will be ready to launch the 520-day mission in late 2008. Scientists say that the mission could be extended to as long as 700 days, almost two full years of total isolation from the rest of the planet.
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