Astronaut for Hire

Imagine giving up 520 days of your life to spend in isolation with five other people confined inside a cramped cylinder about the size of a semi trailer pretending you're on a mission to Mars. That's what the intrepid crew of the Mars500 Project just did. During the 74-weeks of their mission, which included a simulated roundtrip journey to Mars complete with a short  surface excursion , the crew carried out more than 100 experiments to assess the effects of isolation on their psychological and physiological well being. The international crew ranges from ages 27 to 38 and is comprised of three Russians (Alexey Sityev, Sukhrob Kamolov,Alexander Smoleevskiy "Siev"), two Europeans (Romain Charles of France, Diego Urbina of Italy-Colombia), and one Chinese national (Wang Yue). They "landed" on Earth at 14:00 Moscow time (10:00 GMT) today when the hatch to their sealed habitat at the  Institute of Biomedical Problems  (IMBP) was opened for the first time si...

In 1914, the famous Antarctic explorer Shackleton purportedly posted an add to recruit his crew that read: MEN WANTED for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success. Nearly 100 years later, the same could be said for the first volunteers to explorer Mars. With conventional propulsion technology, it will take about 8 months of floating in the cold blackness of space just to reach Mars. Dangers like radiation exposure and physiological deconditioning are big uncertainties, as are the pyschological effects of being in close quarters for so long. Addressing these challenges, the European and Russian space agencies launched the ambitious Mars500 Project last June.  Since then, six crewmembers have been locked up in a simulated interplanetary spacecraft pretending to be in transit to the Red Planet. With over 100 scientific experiments on the mission, it's the long...

Reid Stowe Imagine spending 1152 days at sea with no land in site, living off only the provisions you brought with you. That's just what adventurer Reid Stowe did from April 2007 to June 2010 when he drifted the seas in his 70-foot schooner on an expedition called the " Mars Ocean Odyssey " with the bold intention of demonstrating how a small crew could handle the isolation on a trip to Mars. Stowe's record-breaking voyage roughly simulated the duration of an opposition-class mission to Mars, which is the most favored scenario for most Mars mission planners. After 244 days in isolation, the Mars500 crew went into virtual orbit around Mars this week, which signifies the near halfway point of their simulated conjunction-class Mars mission. They will "land" on the surface on February 12 in what is sure to be an exciting event. Both the Stowe and Mars500 missions can teach us a great deal about the psychological factors crews will face when undergo...

With conventional propulsion technologies, the trip from Earth to Mars will take about 6-8 months, depending on the trajectory and mission plan chosen.  That means a round trip visit to the Red Planet will take at least a year and a half.   How will people cope with the psychological factors on such a long journey?  This is the central question asked by the Mars500 Medical Project , which began today. Six dedicated people locked themselves in a Moscow hangar, committing themselves to a 520-day isolation study to simulate a mission to Mars.  The experiment builds upon 14- and 105-day studies that were carried out in 2007 and 2009, respectively.  The program is run the Russia's Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP), which has a long history of conducting experiments supporting human spaceflight.  The BBC had two really nice articles this week on the Mars500 project here and here .  You can learn about Mars500 in the following video : Mars5...

If you think my 30 - and 14 -day simulated Mars missions were interesting, you should check out the Mars500 program, which is a collaboration between Russia and Europe to study the physiological and psychological issues associated with a long duration spaceflight mission to Mars. They had a 105-day mission with a crew last year and are narrowing down their crew selection for a 520-day mission. The latest press release is below. Note that one of the finalists Diego Urbina is a fellow ISU graduate and MDRS participant. He was on MDRS Crew 88 just prior to my mission there, so I got to meet him when I arrived at MDRS. Good luck to Diego and all of the other finalists! Russia's Institute of Medical and Biological Problems announced on Thursday the names of 11 volunteers on the shortlist to take part in a 520-day simulation of an expedition to Mars, a spokesman said. The 11 candidates will complete basic spaceflight training and in spring six of them will be chosen to t...