Six volunteers spent 3.5 months together inside a mock Mars spaceship in Moscow, Russia (Image: ESA)

A group of volunteers that spent 105 days locked up in a mock spaceship simulating a trip to Mars is finishing up their final tests this week. The programme, which was used to test the psychological and physiological effects of isolation, will pave the way for a longer 520-day mission that will take place in the first half of 2010.

Isolation has long been a part of human exploration, both on Earth and in space. But manned trips to Mars could be a challenge for even the most balanced and carefully selected crews, since the missions would involve small crews, tight quarters, years of separation from friends and family, and communications delays that could last up to 40 minutes (see In space no one can hear you scream).

To investigate issues that would arise in such situations, the European Space Agency has partnered with the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow to arrange a 105-day simulated mission to Mars. The experiment took place in a multi-floored facility in Moscow that includes a mock spacecraft, a descent vehicle, and a simulation of the Martian surface.


On 14 July, a crew of six emerged from the module. Although researchers are still analysing the results of the tests conducted during the simulation and performing follow-up tests on the participants this week, the mission seems to have finished largely without incident.

“The most difficult part of the mission was not a single event but more the monotony,” says Oliver Knickel, a mechanical engineer in the German army and a volunteer for the 105-day mission.

Less focused

The bulk of the crew’s working day was occupied by psychological and physiological tests, Knickel told New Scientist. The crew ate astronaut-style pre-packaged meals that were intermittently enhanced by fresh vegetables like radishes and cabbage that the crew grew in a small greenhouse.

In his off-time, Knickel passed the time by writing letters, learning Russian, and playing poker and dice with his crewmates.

But the isolation and confinement in a cramped space did take its toll. “I had a hard time focusing on the things I was doing,” Knickel told New Scientist, adding that he did not retain newly learned Russian vocabulary words was well as he did back home.

Right chemistry

Crew compatibility is important for the success of future Mars missions. “You have a crew that has to live together and function as a team for a long period of time, and they really can’t leave that environment,” says Jay Buckey, a doctor and former astronaut at Dartmouth University in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Participant Cyrille Fournier, an airline pilot from France, says there was a good sense of camaraderie over the 3.5 months the six volunteers spent together. “We had an outstanding team spirit throughout the entire 105 days,” he said in a statement. “Living for that long in a confined environment can only work if the crew is really getting along with each other. The crew is the crucial key to mission success, which became very evident to me during the 105 days.”

Self-directed mission

During the mission, the crew had to respond to simulated emergencies and deal with a communication delay of up to 20 minutes each way when talking to ‘ground controllers’ – mimicking the time it takes for radio signals to travel between a Mars-bound spacecraft and Earth.

Such communication lags mean that crews would not be able to respond in real-time to commands from the ground and would probably need to function fairly autonomously.

Nick Kanas, a psychiatrist at the University of California in San Francisco, and colleagues used a month in the 105-day experiment to examine what happens when crews are given more freedom to devise their own schedules in order to meet a mission’s overarching goals.

This increased autonomy has also been tested in the Haughton-Mars Project in the Canadian Arctic (see What is it like to live in isolation for months on end?) and at an underwater facility called Aquarius off the coast of Florida. In the future, Kanas hopes to perform a similar experiment aboard the International Space Station.

Safe environment

Isolation studies on Earth allow researchers to set up carefully controlled experiments, but they do have a downside. “Ground missions don’t really capture the danger in the space environment. If someone does want to quit, they can just knock on the door and be let out,” Kanas told New Scientist.

Not so on a future trip to Mars, says Kanas: “There’s no possibility of support in case of a medical or psychological emergency. You’re really on your own.” To deal with such issues, other researchers, including Buckey, are developing software that would allow astronauts on long missions to act as their own counsellors and conflict negotiators (see Self-help software to soothe stressed astronauts).

An even longer simulated mission to Mars – lasting 520 days – is set to begin at the Moscow facility in the first half of 2010.