

520 Days Later: Fake Mars Mission Ready to Return  - joeteplow
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/mars-500-mission-end/

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jakeonthemove
I think the fact that they could leave at any moment was an advantage - the
sense that you're in control is very powerful for motivation. When going into
space for real, you don't know if you're coming back or not, and if God forbid
an accident happens, nobody knows how people would react stuck for months
inside a small capsule.

But, as others have commented on various sites, of course people can live and
work in these conditions. It is no different than a submarine, and during WW2
soldiers were on deployment for months at end.

Of course, they surfaced quite often and had some sun/air/ocean view, but it's
not that far from being inside a capsule in space.

Now if we could launch a submarine into space somehow, our problems would be
solved :-)...

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nostromo
I think the inverse might actually be true -- that it's harder to sit in a
capsule on Earth for many months compared to a mission to Mars.

In the latter scenario you're a hero on a mission to extend the reach of
humanity into space -- in the former you're just some dude in a petri dish.

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beefman
Not only that, I reckon I would tend to fantasize about leaving every time I
got upset, whereas without that choice I might give up such feelings faster.

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steve8918
Very cool.

The only hazard in this experiment is that there was no real sense of risk,
which likely would affect the results tremendously. If they could have
simulated loss of life somehow, that might give a more realistic view of how
the confinement, and the isolation would have affected the astronauts.

Nonetheless, a great experiment!

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srl
I suspect they'll repeat in a few years with a capsule in orbit. If you're in
orbit for 520 days, something's almost guaranteed to go wrong, so it'll be a
good bit more realistic.

(I'm actually pretty sure I read about plans to do this around 2018 in orbit,
but I can't find the article now. Anyone?)

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maaku
Uhh.. how is that different than the ISS?

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srl
No single crew has been in the ISS, without other non-radio human contact, for
520 days. In fact, no single person has been in space for that long, period.
The record at the ISS is 198 days; at MIR, 437[1].

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Ten...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Ten_longest_human_space_flights)

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bryze
Wow. Virtual round of applause for such dedication. Those guys need a medal:
even prison inmates are allowed more frequent showers.

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shashashasha
This would make for a terrifying twist on a sci-fi movie -- they arrive back
on Earth after being gone so long to find out that they forgot they had never
left. Any movies like that? (Planet of the Apes seems close)

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gallamine
I won't spoil it, but if you think that concept is neat, you owe it to
yourself to go watch _Moon_. It's one of the best sci-fi movies I've seen in a
long time. Highly recommended.

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shashashasha
I love Moon. I guess it's kind of the inverse of that situation :)

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ilamont
There have been people on space station missions who've been up for more than
a year:

<http://www.astronautix.com/articles/aststics.htm>

However, I believe crew rotations and resupplies were taking place during
these missions, and there was no communications lag.

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daviddoran
I wonder what the impact of knowing you can leave at any time is... Well,
short of imprisoning them I guess this is the closest we can get to simulating
the experience.

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alttag
I suspect the ability to leave at any time was a requirement of institutional
review boards (IRBs) and consent laws (false imprisonment, anyone?).

Perhaps a way to do it and remove the ability to leave would be to send them
to the International Space Station for an extended period ... (still cheaper
than a trip to Mars!)

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mdaniel
I suspect that even the ISS would still pose some significant logistical
hurdles for such a long experiment involving so many people. I don't know
anything about the physical setup of the on-Earth "shuttle", but I would hope
it is larger than the crew quarters onboard the ISS (for sanity's sake).

The trade-off, I guess, is that the simulation becomes more real when one
incorporates the very real dangers of space.

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ahrjay
Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov spent 437 days in the Mir space station in a
similar experiment.

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nknight
That was mostly a physiological experiment with a comparatively mild
psychological components. They were trying to prove the physical viability of
keeping someone in microgravity for the amount of time necessary for a Mars
trip.

Things are different when communications are real-time, resupply ships show up
frequently, and other crew members are rotating in and out regularly.

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100k
I hope real interplanetary space ships have wood panelling.

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joeyh
I hope you've read Vinge's _A_Deepness_In_The_Sky_? :)

I wonder if anyone has written an essay of the significance of wood as a
medium of value in science fiction. I first noticed it with the burl in
Niven's the _Integral_Trees_, but it also shows up in Cherryh and lots of
other authors.

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100k
Hmmm, I have forgotten the significance.

Another example: in Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon, "mirrorwood" from
Harlan's World is prized on Earth, but used as a common building materia on
its homeworld.

Let me know if you find that essay!

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beefman
No discussion of sex... one imagines it would come up.

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suivix
I think Terri Schiavo would have aced this experiment and stuck through it,
too bad she's still not around.

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chugger
That's a total waste of time. 520 days gone for an experiment.

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chugger
I have a wife, kid , family and friends and things to do and places to go to
and goals to accomplish.

I would never spend 520 days of my life stuck in a make-believe space ship.
rofl.

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nitrogen
You might if one of your goals to accomplish was getting humanity to Mars.

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chugger
i'd let someone else do it.

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MikeCampo
And isn't that exactly what's happening here? Someone else is going through an
experiment, not you. Thanks for adding to the conversation.

