Simulated Mars Mission

   Today i read about a simulated mission to mars that had been going on for about a year and a half. I guess i'm a little late on this then, but i thought i would give my opinion on it. So three Russians, two Europeans, and a Chinese man were locked in this capsule for 520 days. This capsule had different locations for the simulated mission.

•  Medical Module: A cylinder that acted as the laboratory. It was also the sickbay were a crew member to become ill
• Habitable Module: The main living quarters. this area has beds, a galley, a social area, and the main control room
• Landing Module : This was for a 30 day landing operation where three crewmembers visited the "surface of Mars"
• Utility Module: Has four compartments, to store food and other supplies, to house a greenhouse, a gym,and a refrigeration unit
• Surface Module: This was use to walk across the soil and rocks of Mars, crewmembers put on Orlan spacesuits and passed through an airlock.

    The crew also had limited communications with the outside world and messages had a rough delay of about 25 minutes to reach the crew members from the outside.

      The capsule couldn't simulate everything obviously. A mission to mars would take about double the time(about 3 years), Living in a weightless environment which could cause muscle deterioration, Space radiation that could cause serious health issues, and the surface itself would be much different than simulated.

   So a mission to mars is not actually in the near future either. A mars mission would take around 20 years to actually get off the ground. So one thing that i can't seem to find out is either they are training these people for this event or just testing the human body as a whole. I mean having these people train for a year and a half is nice and all, but for twenty years they will be out of the conditions and they will age. As far as training the human body goes, i would say this is a major event for space travel. This makes us well on our way to reaching the red planet but is it worth it? We as a whole put a mass amount of money into space travel, but i think its just part of the human condition to want to know more. 

 My personal opinion is that if we want to send people to mars, then the training should start right now. Not these people who seem pretty old( I don't know the age of the people), but young people who WANT to spend 20 years of their lives exploring where no man has gone before. 

 

    Space travel is a very big part of our society now. Some people seem to think it is a waste of money, while others seem to think we should be putting more money towards it. I personally think that we shouldn't give up on space travel. There are so many new things we could learn from space.Well whatever you think one things for sure, Space is full of wonders that we just don't know about. 

   Maybe one day aliens will come to earth and share everything they know with us about space travel, but until then we have to take it upon ourselves to see what is out there.