Russian crew breaks record for isolation in simulated 520-day trip to Mars

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The experimental Mars 500 crew has now spent over 100 days isolated in a simulated space craft. Scientists have been watching them closely to test what it would be like to travel to the Red Planet.

As well as going without outside contact, the crew has also been denied female company. Others too, like submariners or polar explorers have to spend long periods with only males. Psychologists here are taking the opportunity to see what effects it may have.

Much research work is being done onboard, which keeps the crew focused and motivated. Progress maps are updated daily, and there is an artificial time delay of up to twenty minutes for all outside communications to account for the distance from Earth.

For another 418 days the staff here will monitor the crew through the CCTV cameras 24 hours a day, every day. If problems do occur, they are supposed to be most likely after approximately nine months, but for now it’s so far, so good.

Just thought I would post this as an update for this experiment.

100 days in isolation. Im not sure if I would be able to do that. Hopefully everything goes good. If this turns out alright, hopefully we will be on Mars in the near future.

There are thousands of convicted people in isolation chambers in prisons around the world…
Ask them how it feels..!

And it is not a “simulators”.


Thanks for the post…

As well as going without outside contact, the crew has also been denied female company.

Well, then this isn't a realistic simulation. There will certainly be females as part of the first human mission to Mars, and I would like to know exactly how a mixed crew would handle themselves in isolation for over 500 days.

The sexual tension would certainly be there (it's human nature) -- So how would this sexual tension manifest itself? I think they need to find out.

As an addendum to my last post,
I suppose that if they are planning all along to do this experiment again with some female crew members added to the mix, then they would be doing it right.

Too many variables in any experiment would make it difficult to fully understand the results of that experiment. Keeping that variable (females) out this time makes sense if they will eventually add that variable to future experiments. It would make it easier to keep track of the effects of each variable.