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Mars500 Crew To Open Hatch On November 4th After 520 Days Of Isolation

Tuesday, November 1, 2011 12:54
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The 520 days of isolation for the Mars500 crew will end on 4 November, when the hatch of their ‘spacecraft’ is opened for the first time since June last year. Scientists eagerly await the final samples as the crew count the hours to liberty.

 
Diego Urbina looking out from the hatch inside Mars500 facility. 
Diego looking out from the hatch

Credits: ESA

During the 17-month simulated Mars mission, the six men have run seemingly countless experiments. They have monitored their brains, scanned their bodies, given all sorts of samples and maintained their habitat.

The scientists are already happy with the quality of the unique material they have and are looking forward to working with all the new information.

Teasing out the scientific results takes a while, but the main question is already answered – or almost: “The answer is yes”, says Patrik Sundblad, the human life sciences specialist at ESA.

Crew portrait from May 2011. 
Crew portrait from May 2011

Credits: ESA

“And the scientists have already highlighted the importance of their investigations for terrestrial medical issues.

“Yes, the crew can survive the inevitable isolation that is for a mission to Mars and back. Psychologically, we can do it.

“They have had their ups and downs, but these were to be expected. In fact, we anticipated many more problems, but the crew has been doing surprisingly well.

“August was the mental low point: it was the most monotonous phase of the mission, their friends and families were on vacation and didn’t send so many messages, and there was also little variation in food.”

The crew’s spirits rose again with the approaching finale of the mission, the normal flow of messages after the holiday period and, especially, the return to real-time communications on 15 September after the artificial delay.

Key word is motivation

“The high fidelity of the simulation has been an important factor in the success of the experiment,” notes Patrik.

“Simulating a real mission to Mars as closely as is possible on Earth has been very important for the crew.

Wang Yue with EEG measurement device. 
Wang taking measurements

Credits: ESA


“Knowing this mission is really helping to make a real mission to Mars possible has made the challenging long-duration experiment somehow easier for the crew.”

Real Mars-bound astronauts will be faced with additional psychological challenges. They will be in constant danger because they can’t just step from their spacecraft in an emergency.

Travelling so far that Earth becomes just one star among many may create a feeling of detachment, adding to the other stress factors.

Weightlessness and radiation will add to the challenges.

Some factors can be explored through bedrest studies on Earth and crews staying completely isolated in Antarctica during the long, dark winter.

Alexandr (right) watches Alexey and Sukhrob in training. 
Training in Mars500

Credits: ESA


“We are using to some extent the same psychological questionnaires with Mars500 as with over-wintering crews at the Concordia base and bedrest studies,” says Patrik. “Comparing them is extremely interesting.”

Mars500 was not only about the six men in isolation – it was also about the international cooperation and the whole infrastructure around the mission.

“The crew has worked individually and as team very well, and the cooperation in the outside world has been outstanding,” observes Patrik.

“Russia, China and Europe have maintained the integrity of the unique experiment.

“This is a very important lesson for any future mission to Mars: it is not only about the spacecraft and its crew, but also about close cooperation on Earth between all the teams and the international space agencies.”

 
Romain Charles taking an air sample for the European MICHA experiment in Mars500.
Credits: ESA

Contacts and sources:
ESA


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  • very soon ships will arrive to take all evil people off of earth, to places they will find very difficult to survive-so that the evil they have done will be shown to them as the evil they themselves experience first hand. The men and women will be separated-not to breed. Evil becomes genetic-these are of no use to creation-evil is anti-life-anti love anti-creation-evil are those among you who profit off of the suffering of others-who exploit and plunder and oppress-they are your wealthy class of Bankers-you may think them the elite who go beneath the ground and disappear into DUMBS-but they will be bound in Hell for thousands of years just as it says in the Bible-for what they do-as the root of all evil-capitalism is the religion of satan and money is the one God of the jews. Russia was never communist-in name only-it had been infiltrated by jews to destroy communism-to enforce atheism=jewish religion-and pretended to be communist while the jews took the place of the Tzar and capitalist class (Oligarchs) and exploited the masses who were left alive after they massacred 66 million christians-the same evil they have planned for the world today-but when satan, David Rockefeller dies-soon-that will be the end of them all-Queen Liz-ard & family are leaving as well-that is why Charles will never be king.

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