Comments on: After Three Months in a Tin Can, Six Men End Simulated Mars Mission

By: Eliza Strickland

Eliza Strickland — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:37:43 +0000

Lynne — there’s a funny story about that, where “funny” = “sad.”

A similar isolation experiment in 1999 at the same Moscow institute included a female volunteer, but the project ran into trouble. At a New Year’s Eve party, one of the Russian men forcefully tried to kiss the Canadian woman, provoking angry talk of sexual harassment. So for the recent experiment, the organizers decided to avoid potential problems by making it a brodeo.

By: Eileen Mac

Eileen Mac — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:35:32 +0000

Four Russians, a German and a Frenchmen? I think we know who the “b/i/t/ch/” was!

By: ME

ME — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:37:52 +0000

so check it out, four russians, one german, and a frenchman are locked in a capsule for three months…bada ch!

By: CW

CW — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:49:52 +0000

Maybe they need to replicate this experiment by installing the “tin can” on the ISS? Wouldn’t that take into the factors of weightlessness and radiation?

By: Lynne

Lynne — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:41:48 +0000

There is also an interesting lack of non-male people in this experiment. where “interesting” = “disappointing.”

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:27:32 +0000

At first I was thinking, “21 thou ain’t bad for a little over 3 months of living in a tin can” and then I read that whole “No internet” thing and realized someone of my generation would never survive that thing sane… especially a near two-year stay.

” the experiment also made no attempt to replicate some important physical factors that astronauts on a real trip to Mars would experience, like weightlessness and increased radiation exposure. ” Yeah, but we’re already studying that on the ISS for 6 months at a time…. and seriously, the guy is going to criticize this endeavour because they didn’t have the foresight to invent anti-gravity for the capsule?

Anyway, by the time (well, hopefully) we’ll be able to better shield ourselves from the intrasolar radiation we’ll experience on the trip.

And hopefully we wont spent vast trillions of dollars sending for to that planet without a good reason (like having a fully functioning ground station built and tended by robots long before our fragile meatbags are sent there).