By now, six people who were voluntarily locked into a cloister of cramped, hermetically sealed tubes woven inside a Moscow research facility the size of a high school gymnasium are entering their second week of self-imposed isolation. They are eating dehydrated food, breathing recycled air and are being denied conversation with practically everyone else but one another.

And they must stay inside for 105 days.

In a small step in the direction of Mars, the international crew is embarking on a simulated flight to the planet to test the limits of human tolerance for the isolation and monotony of interplanetary travel.

The full article from the New York Times is here. What I found most surprising about the simulated trip to Mars is the legitimately ugly simulated wood paneling inside the crew quarters of the ‘space ship’…

– S.