Astronauts Start 520-Day Mars Test

DigitalSushi

a gallardo? fine, I'll take it.
Dec 24, 2008
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No way I could live that long without women, no bloody way.

Also no way I could live that long without baby oil and moisturisers, I don't care if I'm seeing an alien world, I'm not doing it with dry skin.
 

Strategia

za Rodina, tovarishchii
Mar 21, 2008
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Okay, now this may come across as sexist, but it's a possibility: If they DO take a woman on board, or multiple women, being locked up for over 500 days, there's always a chance they'll throw regulations out the window and, well..... being pregnant several million kilometres from the nearest hospital can never end well for anyone. Besides, this is just an early-stage experiment - adding members of the other gender can cause more tension than a monogendered crew would experience, let's see if being isolated for 520 days is at all possible before complicating the situation any further.
 

Deofuta

New member
Nov 10, 2009
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That is pretty crazy, although I though a trip to mars would take much longer. Maybe they will spend their time wisely and train up some awesome pokemons, just in time for the new one to come out :0

Good thing space flight is still moving forward, thought it might be halted with NASA's current condition.
 

Plinglebob

Team Stupid-Face
Nov 11, 2008
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Strategia said:
Okay, now this may come across as sexist, but it's a possibility: If they DO take a woman on board, or multiple women, being locked up for over 500 days, there's always a chance they'll throw regulations out the window and, well..... being pregnant several million kilometres from the nearest hospital can never end well for anyone. Besides, this is just an early-stage experiment - adding members of the other gender can cause more tension than a monogendered crew would experience, let's see if being isolated for 520 days is at all possible before complicating the situation any further.
I hate it when someone says something both before me and better then I ever could. The results of this will be interesting though. I really hope it succeeds as we need an excuse to restart space travel and a failure here would just be another reason to stay on Earth.
 

uppitycracker

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Oct 9, 2008
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I find nothing sexist about this, at all. That's a year and a half worth of tampons they'd have to load up on the ship, and quite frankly that space could be used for more important things. Like porno mags for the guys.
 

ReZerO

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Mar 2, 2009
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this test is a failure, what it doesn't take into account is the effect of being so far away from everything, with zero chance of rescue for so long in a confined space....which will be a HUGE factor.
 

Andronicus

Terror Australis
Mar 25, 2009
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Logan Westbrook said:
The experiment has come under criticism however, for its male-only crew: "The absence of women in Mars-500 Project yet again proves the presence on old-fashioned earthly gender stereotypes," said Mikhail Salkin of the Moscow Human Rights Protection Centre, who accused the experiment of being unfairly biased towards men.
Meh, I see no problem. The idea is to gather relevant data on how well men can interact with other men in a confined space over an extended period of time. If they wanted data about men AND women, then all they'd need to do is analyse my parents' marriage. Well, before they were divorced, at least. They should probably be doing this for all female crews as well, though.
 

MercurySteam

Tastes Like Chicken!
Legacy
Apr 11, 2008
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I heard about this on Good News Week.

Apparently they will simulate entering Earth's atmosphere by setting the room on fire ^_^
 

The Great JT

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Oct 6, 2008
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I'm going to go out on a limb and make a bold statement that this is the first step toward colonization of Mars.
 

Susan Arendt

Nerd Queen
Jan 9, 2007
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The_root_of_all_evil said:
Logan Westbrook said:
The experiment has come under criticism however, for its male-only crew: "The absence of women in Mars-500 Project yet again proves the presence on old-fashioned earthly gender stereotypes," said Mikhail Salkin of the Moscow Human Rights Protection Centre, who accused the experiment of being unfairly biased towards men.
First of all, The Daily Mail? Shame on you, Nil...

Secondly...There's a very good reasons why its a male only crew. Men and women in the same space for a year and a half? Most marriages don't last that long.
Right, because it's impossible to think people who've trained for that long could, you know, act like professional adults for a whole year and a half.
 

Ekonk

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Apr 21, 2009
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I think this will result in a lot of violence and complete psychological breakdowns. Seriously. I can't stand some of my best friends after a week on vacation together, and I don't even want to think about 520 days. Dear god the horror.
 

Dr Megadeth

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May 23, 2010
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Make the crew all woman. Commission a lingerie designer for the crew outfit and lock them up for 520 days... with cameras.

It's either that or I quit the human race, simple.
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
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Im really intrested to see how this will work...its how a proper Big Brother test can be used for real science.
 

LTK_70

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Aug 28, 2009
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Makes me wonder which gender will be able to put up with each other for longer. A group of men in a confined space, or a group of women?
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Susan Arendt said:
Right, because it's impossible to think people who've trained for that long could, you know, act like professional adults for a whole year and a half.
Only took six days for some people [http://www.prisonexp.org/]. A similar experiment in 1999 got broken up by a fistfight over a kiss. Training can't overide biological imperatives unless there's some barrier there. And yes, by the end of it, I'll be very surprised if some new pseudo-sexual relationships haven't formed between those guys, training/wives or not.
There's also the mental strain as getting used to not being in it will be as tough as getting used to being in it.

But, a probable reason is the PVT and OCR recognition [http://www.nsbri.org/Research/Projects/viewsummary.epl?pid=307] that will be used to measure stresses. That sort of forces a single-gender crew to keep the baseline constant. It could, and probably will have to, be tried with all women as well.

Or, it could just be chance that all the volunteers were men. Still, like I say, watch for a couple of furtive glances when they finally leave.
 

Scabadus

Wrote Some Words
Jul 16, 2009
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Susan Arendt said:
The_root_of_all_evil said:
Logan Westbrook said:
The experiment has come under criticism however, for its male-only crew: "The absence of women in Mars-500 Project yet again proves the presence on old-fashioned earthly gender stereotypes," said Mikhail Salkin of the Moscow Human Rights Protection Centre, who accused the experiment of being unfairly biased towards men.
First of all, The Daily Mail? Shame on you, Nil...

Secondly...There's a very good reasons why its a male only crew. Men and women in the same space for a year and a half? Most marriages don't last that long.
Right, because it's impossible to think people who've trained for that long could, you know, act like professional adults for a whole year and a half.
You've got to remember though, that even if they'd all trained solidly for 30 years, they'd be fighting millions of years of evolution. People may whine a bit now that women get left out of the tests, but can you imagine both the political outcry and personal devestation if they put a token woman in and she got raped? Why risk it?
 
Nov 5, 2007
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Dr Megadeth said:
Make the crew all woman. Commission a lingerie designer for the crew outfit and lock them up for 520 days... with cameras.

It's either that or I quit the human race, simple.
Sex and the Space Shuttle.
or (520) Days of Space

But yeah, I wonder if an all-men group or an all-women group would last longer. They should try that experiment too.
 

Susan Arendt

Nerd Queen
Jan 9, 2007
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Scabadus said:
Susan Arendt said:
The_root_of_all_evil said:
Logan Westbrook said:
The experiment has come under criticism however, for its male-only crew: "The absence of women in Mars-500 Project yet again proves the presence on old-fashioned earthly gender stereotypes," said Mikhail Salkin of the Moscow Human Rights Protection Centre, who accused the experiment of being unfairly biased towards men.
First of all, The Daily Mail? Shame on you, Nil...

Secondly...There's a very good reasons why its a male only crew. Men and women in the same space for a year and a half? Most marriages don't last that long.
Right, because it's impossible to think people who've trained for that long could, you know, act like professional adults for a whole year and a half.
You've got to remember though, that even if they'd all trained solidly for 30 years, they'd be fighting millions of years of evolution. People may whine a bit now that women get left out of the tests, but can you imagine both the political outcry and personal devestation if they put a token woman in and she got raped? Why risk it?
One would hope they would put the subjects through a serious battery of pyschological testing first. I don't care how horny the average man gets, he's simply not going to rape someone.