Crew Ends Trek to Mars, Mock Mission Accomplished

MOSCOW (AP) — Six men who lived in cramped, windowless compartments for more than 17 months to simulate a mission toMars emerged Friday from their capsules, looking haggard but all smiles, and dreaming of lying in the sun, taking long strolls and driving fast cars.

Oleg Voloshin/Institute for Medical and Biolog, via Associated Press

A six-member international crew completed a grueling 520-day simulation of a mission to Mars on Friday in Mosco

Organizers said the 520-day experiment was the longest mock space mission ever, measuring human responses to the confinement, stress and fatigue of a round trip to Mars, minus the weightlessness. They described it as a vital part of preparations for a mission to the planet, even though it may be decades away because of huge costs and technological challenges.

The facility at the Institute for Medical and Biological Problems in Moscow, Russia’s premier space medicine center, included living compartments the size of a bus, connected with several other similarly sized modules for experiments and exercise.

The crew of three Russians, one Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian man and a Chinese man carefully descended a metal ladder on Friday to a greeting from a crowd of officials and journalists.

“The international crew has completed the 520-day experiment,” the team leader, Alexey Sitev, told Russian space officials. “The mission is accomplished. The crew is in good health and is ready for new missions.”

Organizers said each crew member would be paid about $100,000, except for the Chinese researcher, whose compensation has not been disclosed by officials from his country.

The crew will spend three days in quarantine before holding a news conference. They spoke to relatives and friends from behind a glass panel to minimize the risk of infection.

Mr. Sitev, who led the team into the quarters in June 2010, just a few weeks after he married, said he dreamed of going to the beach.

“I want to go somewhere to the warm sea as we have missed two summers here,” he said in remarks carried by the news agency RIA Novosti shortly before wrapping up the mission. “My thoughts are drifting toward swimming at sea and basking on warm sand.”

His Italian-Colombian crewmate, Diego Urbina, told RIA Novosti that he would like a vacation in the Caribbean and would spend his earnings on a sports car and a pilot training course.

Sukhrob Kamolov, the Russian mission doctor, said he thought the $100,000 was a lot of money when they went in, but after a year and a half in the confined space, it no longer seemed so.

During the simulation, the crew members were under constant surveillance by scientists and communicated with their families and officials via the Internet, which was delayed and occasionally disrupted to imitate the conditions of space travel. They showered only once every 10 days or so, to mimic the need to conserve water. Their food was similar to that provided on the International Space Station.