PARIS – The European Space Agency is looking for 12 volunteers with planetary vision who want to be on the cutting edge and don’t get bored easily.
They will make a simulated mission to Mars that will last up to 520 days in “extreme isolation and confinement.”
Despite the rigorous conditions, more than 2,000 applications have been received in two days, project manager Jennifer Ngo-Anh said Thursday.
Candidates must be citizens of one of 15 European countries or Canada, be highly motivated and speak English and Russian, among other requirements.
Unlike the adventurous spirits attracted to the desert island prospects of reality TV, only the “serious” need apply for this simulated interplanetary voyage, the space agency said. The payoff is likely less glamorous, too. Remuneration is “in line with international standards” for clinical studies, is all it would say.
The Paris-based agency, known as ESA, is working on the Mars500 project with the Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow and the simulated mission will be conducted there and include Russians. The Russian participants will be chosen separately in Russia.
The volunteers will investigate the “human factor” of a trip to the Red Planet – “a journey with no way out once the spaceship is on a direct path to Mars,” ESA says.
The experiment will emphasize psychological factors, including stress resistance. The goal is to test how the volunteers hold up in nearly a year-and-a-half of close confinement, in cramped quarters with others and when communications with Earth can take 20 minutes to reach their destination – each way.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
