Fake Mars Mission
June 21, 2007
Rupert Gerzer directs the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne, which is participating in the simulated Mars mission.
DW-WORLD.DE: The European Space Agency (ESA) is looking for two volunteers that -- together with four Russians -- will participate in a Mars mission. Including "flight time," the participants will have to spend 520 days in metal tanks in Moscow. What will be required of them?
Rupert Gerzer: First of all, candidates have to be healthy. Secondly, they have to have a psychological state of mind that prevents them from getting depressed when they're locked up in a can for 520 days. They also have to be compatible with the rest of the group and have no interest in dominating the others. Apart from that, they have to be able to work like a scientist on a Mars mission.
Every crew member gets a personal space of three square meters (32 square feet). There's a common living room, a kitchen and a toilet. ESA calls it a study in isolation and confinement. That doesn't sound particularly enticing. Why should someone participate as a volunteer?
It's surprising how many people want to do it. I have a full-blown scientist working in my institute who participated in the last study and who's dying to collaborate in Moscow. A lot of people are fascinated by the idea of taking part in a space mission. They say: If I cannot be a real astronaut, then my confinement can at least help to conduct these missions in the future.
There won't be a shower during the 520 days, but there will be a sauna. As a space mission physician, can you explain why a sauna, of all things, is needed?
(Laughs) That's a Russian specialty.
The experiment sounds a bit like the TV show "Big Brother." Wouldn't it be good for space exploration to broadcast live?
We don't want to examine TV stars, but find out how an isolated group reacts on the way to Mars. People inside the tank will behave according to how public the whole thing is. We want to simulate real life or at least approximate it as much as possible. There could be problems and there will be problems. We want to know them and find out how to solve them.
After the experiment, potential long-term effects will be examined for another year. Is there a chance for people to become a real astronaut if they get through the 520 days?
On the Russian side there are people that are aspiring astronauts. Anyone who gets through the 520 days and does well could be accepted to the Russian astronaut program. ESA will select new astronauts in 2008. Anyone who will not be accepted then -- because he or she is participating in the study in Moscow, for example -- doesn't stand a chance of becoming an ESA astronaut.