520 Days Later: Fake Mars Mission Ready to Return

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

Very cool.<p>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.<p>Nonetheless, a great experiment!

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

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)

There have been people on space station missions who've been up for more than a year:<p><a href="http://www.astronautix.com/articles/aststics.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.astronautix.com/articles/aststics.htm</a><p>However, I believe crew rotations and resupplies were taking place during these missions, and there was no communications lag.

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.

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

I hope real interplanetary space ships have wood panelling.

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

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

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