500 day journey ends without ever beginning

It never ceases to amaze me the extents man is capable of going in the name of science. This week six people will re-enter civilisation after 520 days inside a isolation facility designed to simulate a trip to Mars.

The facility located in at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow. The six 'astronauts,' comprising of an international crew of three Russians, a French man, an Italian and a Chinese man, have been inside a windowless capsule since June 2010. The core of the mission was to test whether it is in fact psychologically possible for man to survive the trip.

When they come out this Friday, the answer will be an emphatic (if, I think, a cautious) 'yes.'



Since the astronauts boarded on June 3 last year, they have undergone experiments, carried out 'Mars Walks' in a car park outside a Moscow block of flats and monitored their own mental health and wellbeing.

To make the simulation realistic, the crew even experienced delayed communication with mission controllers at certain points during the trip.

After spending eight months simulating the journey to Mars, they exited the capsule to spend two days researching the 'Red Planet' (in the Moscow car park) before re-entering the 'craft' for the journey back to earth.

While researchers expect to use the reams of data collected to better understand the physical and psychological challenges that astronauts may face on real deep-space journeys,however, since they were not able to re-create the effects of gravity or radiation, it leaves some potential gaps in the actual results.

Early results indicate that lack of family contact and little variation in food often led to mental low points among the astronauts, which the group had to shake off in the interest of continuity. Among many experiments conducted in the capsule the astronauts even conducted various experiments on themselves to better understand the physical and psychological demands of a long space mission.

Thankfully the mission has gone without so much as a hiccup or a major crisis inside the capsule – so the scientists are confident that such a mission could one day be a reality.

What is more, and I see it as the most difficult part of the journey, is that when the six emerge from the capsule on Friday after 520 days in relative isolation, they will have to remain in medical quarantine for another three days.

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It is expected that scientists will take another year to analyse the results of the mission before they can decide on the next plan of action.

And whatever that action may be, chances are that in the first time since the Apollo missions the National Aeronautical & Space Agency (NASA) will not be taking the lead, since they don't have a capable space rocket on the horizon nor the intention to send astronauts into deep space.

Currently NASA is focused on unmanned test flights on the next generation of space rocket by 2017 and has no clear set goals to land on an asteroid or reach Mars.

All in the name of science.

READ MORE ABOUT THE MISSION.