ESA and the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems are setting up a fake 500-day mission to Mars to see what sorts of psychological problems may crop up due to prolonged isolation. The 500-day mission is starting sometime this month.
News like this is what makes it hard for me to disagree with President Obama’s NASA plans. Working on our ability to utilize resources from the moon is exactly what we need to be doing to secure the long-term viability of space exploration and, eventually, habitation. I will be writing a longer piece about what I think about space exploration later.
