Not pictured: Daft Punk lawsuit.
Last we heard from Russia’s Mars500 team, a six man crew was getting ready to lock themselves inside a station mock-up as part of a 520 day simulated journey to Mars. The concept behind the experiment is to test the endurance and psychological effects that a Mars mission could potentially pose on an astronaut -also it was a great way for the volunteers to get away from their families.
Well, the good news is that after the first initial 250 days, the crew has finally reached their faux destination: the planet Mars. Up until now the crew had all been crammed inside of a windowless hub, only communicating via internet to the outside world -including a 20-minute delay to simulate the time it takes to send a message between space and Earth.
On Saturday, the “spaceship” landed on Mars. Today’s Mars walk actually consisted of two astronauts walking to a different compartment in the steel pod, but that didn’t stop the crew members from reveling in the pomp and circumstance: with due gravity, Italian Diego Urbina and Russian Alexander Smoleevskiy planted various flags in the fake martian soil. [DiscoverMag]
In all reality, the Russian’s mock planet Mars is actually located inside of a Moscow car port (no really), but that won’t stop the crew from partying there for the next 30 days. At the end of their alloted experimentation phase, the crew will then return to their windowless mock-up to simulate their 240 day return trip to Earth. Should be just enough time for the whole crew to come up with a better story of what they’ve been up to for the last 520 days.
Video after the jump of the simulated Mars walk, though if you ask me, I think the crew possibly landed at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.