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6 to brave 'Mars mission'

MOSCOW - SIX men from Europe, Russia and China will on Thursday be voluntarily locked away in a module for almost one and a half years to simulate the psychological effects of a mission to Mars. An Italian, Frenchman, three Russians and a Chinese man will spend the next 520 days in the isolation facility at a Moscow research institute when its hatch slams shut at 1000 GMT (6pm Singapore time).

Like a real Mars mission, the crew will have to survive on limited food rations and their only communication with the outside world will be by email, with a delay of up to 40 minutes. The hatch will only re-open when the experiment is over or if one of the participants is forced to pull out. 'It will be trying for all of us. We cannot see our family, we cannot see our friends, but I think it is all a glorious time in our lives,' said Chinese participant Wang Yue, 27, ahead of the experiment.

The volunteers will have their days in the module at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) divided into eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work and eight hours of leisure. -- AFP

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Romain Charles of France (back R), Diego Urbina of Italy (front R), and Alexander Smoleevskiy of Russia (back L) enter the Mars500 isolation facility in Moscow. -- PHOTO: AFP




A man closes and locks the door on the Mars500 isolation facility with the crew members Alexey Sitev of Russia, Romain Charles of France, Sukhrob Kamolov of Russia, Diego Urbina of Italy, Alexander Smoleevskiy of Russia, and Wang Yue of China inside, in Moscow. -- PHOTO: AFP