As I continue my project of recovering pre-WordPress posts, yesterday I added this one from June 2007 about the initial efforts of the European Space Agency to find volunteers to simulate a 520-day-long spaceflight from Earth to Mars. The idea is to see how well astronauts would deal with the necessarily-cramped and enclosed conditions of spaceflight for the better part of two solid years; the longest stay in space by anyone to date has been 438 days by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov aboard Mir in 1994-95, but he had changing companions and even some periods alone, whereas whoever sets out for Mars will be stuck with the same bunch of people for a long time.
Sometimes, announcements like that turn out to be nothing, but earlier this week I ran across several news stories heralding the actual beginning of said project. Here’s a Manchester Guardian story from March leading up to the event, and a story from the space news website Mars Daily earlier this month. Here’s a video news report from AFP on YouTube that features remarks from the crew members and even a little tour of the mockup spacecraft; as you can see, the first mission to Mars will include cheap paneling and IKEA furniture instead of all those shiny white surfaces and chrome accents we’ve all come to expect from futuristic space vehicles, but, hey, the Russians are on a tight budget these days, too.
The crew is a multinational group of various Europeans, Russians, and a Chinese astronaut, so there won’t be any of that “USA! USA! USA!” crap going on. And even though the presence of women in space has become rather ordinary, it’s a sausage party for this event. I suppose the ESA has watched a few episodes of “Big Brother” and know what happens when you lock up boys and girls together for a while.
Speaking of which, you might even remember that British TV network Channel 4 staged a “reality” series a couple of years ago where they supposedly convinced a group of people that they had actually been chosen for a real space mission, locked them up in a fake spaceship, and then “hilarity ensued”, as they say. Eventually, TV viewers began to think that THEY were the ones being punk’d and that all the people in the show were actors, but, no, the “Cadets” were not in on the joke, even as things got more and more ludicrous.
So far, no sign that these guys are being pranked, no sign that WE are being pranked, and 520 days of space madness to go!
