Russia and ESA joint test

The Russian's and ESA have joined together to do a simulation on isolation that would be exprienced in space for a manned trip to mars. The experiment will last 105 days with 6 men in 3 modules so see the effects on them, they will even have a 20 minute delay on messages sent to and from the capsule to mimic real time.

The only time they will be able to leave is if they quit the experiment completely or there is a major health issue.

This will allow them to do another test later in the year which will last 520 days the expected round trip that it would take for a manned Mars mission.

Just how close are they to doing this for real and are the people involved in the experiment be the ones that will go on it?news.ninemsn.com.au... a-in-mars-mission-rehearsal