The Russian laboratory dedicated to space medicine has said it will confine and isolate six cosmonauts for 17 months to test the ability of a crew to survive a return trip to Mars. Dmitry Malashenkov of the Institute of Biological and Medical Problems in Moscow (IBMP) says the chosen participants will have to cope as if on a real trip to the red planet: “If a crew member falls ill, the other members will have to provide aid on their own.” If outside help is needed, “it would be considered defeat, as if that person had died.”