An ‘astronaut’ crew of two Europeans, three Russians and one Chinese citizen will walk into a fake spaceship and seal the hatch, but it’s no joke. The team is ready for a record-breaking Mars mission simulation this summer and the European members are already set.
Europeans Romain Charles and Diego Urbina have committed to spend almost a year and a half of their lives living like Mars-bound astronauts as part of the Mars500 experiment, the European Space Agency announced Monday.
The two Europeans and their crewmates will seal themselves inside isolation modules set up at Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow. The mock spaceship also includes an interplanetary vehicle, a Mars lander and base, as well as an area carefully sculpted to simulate the red planet’s landscape.