Fully female crew starts virtually to the moon

A unique experiment begins this week - a fully female crew will go on an eight-day “flight to the moon” in the laboratories of the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Six out of ten female volunteers will be selected, and within a day they will be in an isolated laboratory, where the famous MARS-500 experiment was conducted. The project is quite well covered - it has its own website and Facebook page . It's time to talk about what similar experiments were conducted before, and why are new ones being put.

Year in a spaceship

Tests related to isolation in a small space began in preparation for the first space missions. Future astronauts and astronauts sat in pressure chambers and emergency rooms, confirming their mental stability. When the ships for long flights began to be developed, testers sat on the ground in their mock-ups. The isolation was associated with tests of cosmic diets and studies of the effect on weightlessness on a person (it is quite well emulated by prolonged immobility in a waterbed). But all these experiences were usually relatively short. But if you plan an expedition to Mars, then you need to check people on very long isolation, at least for a year. Such an experiment was conducted in the USSR - doctor German Anatolyevich Manovtsev, biologist Andrey Nikolaevich Bozhko and technician Boris Nikolaevich Ulybyshev spent 1968 in a simulator of a Martian ship. About this experiment, an excellent film was made by Roscosmos TV studio:



It was hard for three of us to live in a very limited space. Partners began to annoy, and some trifles. The flight took place under the conditions of testing closed life support systems; therefore, for example, the water for the crew’s needs was strictly limited. Constantly it was necessary to carry out programs of various experiments - to donate blood, record the consumption and "output" of food and water. But, despite all the difficulties, the experiment ended successfully, and the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences became the world leader in studying the issues of long expeditions.
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Underground space

Michel Sifr

In the West, the most famous isolation experiments were carried out in caves, and, unlike the Soviet ones, were carried out alone. In 1962, Michel Sifr spent two months in a cave. For 63 days in the cave, his adequacy was broken only once - one day he found himself singing at the top of his voice and dancing a twist in his underwear. Interesting were the medical results - Michel's daily rhythm was slightly more than 24 hours. It turned out that a person has an internal clock. Ten years later, Sifr conducted an experiment lasting six months. It was harder - on the 79th day Michel began a serious depression. In addition, the player broke down, and the water in the cave began to damage books and scientific equipment. For a while, a mouse that happened to be in the cave became a joy, but while trying to catch it, Michel accidentally crushed her to death. That day a diary entry appeared, "Despair overwhelms me." When a thunderstorm started at the top, electrodes mounted on Sifr's head for recording brain activity began to beat him with a current. But he got so dumbfounded from depression and prolonged isolation that only after the fourth electric shock he realized that they could be removed. Studies of circadian rhythms (sleep and wakefulness) yielded interesting results - the length of the day for Michel after two months began to vary from 18 to 52 hours. A person who is able to stay awake for 36 hours and sleep at 12 may turn out to be a very good soldier or astronaut.
In 1989, Stefania Follini spent 130 days in a cave. She could communicate with the outside world only by e-mail, but, on the other hand, her company, besides the guitar, was made up of two mice, as well as several frogs and grasshoppers. Stephanie's daily rhythm lengthened first to 28 hours, and then to 48. Perhaps because of a diet that lacked vitamin D, her periods stopped at some point. Stefania also lost 7.7 kg.
1993 in the cave spent Maurizio Montalbini. But he couldn’t spend three years in the cave - the experiment ended after 260 days.

Pit of despair

Monkey isolation chamber

Very gloomy results were obtained on rhesus monkeys. A single content in a closed cell a year later destroyed the social skills of monkeys - macaques lost the ability to communicate and mate. Two monkeys reached so far in their depression that they refused to eat and died of starvation. Females who were fertilized by healthy males did not care for their children. At best, they ignored them, but one female smashed the head of the cub against the wall, and the other cracked the fingers and toes. The “vertical apparatus”, the same “pit of despair”, showed that even a healthy, well-socialized monkey could not protect itself from depression. After leaving the cell, not all initially healthy monkeys were able to regain their mental health.
Now these experiments look creepy, but they have yielded important results - depression and desocialization are serious threats in interplanetary flight.

Preparation for ISS

Long flights were successfully conducted by the Soviet Union at the Mir station, but other countries did not have such experience. Therefore, in 1994, the European Space Agency asked IBMPI to study a 135-day experiment. The project HUBES was held from September 1, 1994 to January 14, 1995. Three test testers Vladimir V. Karashtin, Vasily Yuryevich Lukyanyuk and Igor Alexandrovich Nichiporuk spent 135 days in isolation, imitating the work of cosmonauts. The results obtained by ESA were successfully used in the 179-day flight of ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter.
In 1995, the ECOPSY (“Ecology-Psychology”) experiment was conducted. In the 90-day experiment, the interaction of the habitat with higher plants and humans was studied.


SFINCSS Experiment

The SFINCSS (Simulation of Flight of International Crew on Space Station) experiment conducted in 1999-2000 prepared the participating countries to work together on the ISS. A large-scale experiment with seven groups in isolation from 7 days (simulating a short expedition of a visit to the orbital station) to 240 days with works similar to those to be performed on the ISS gave valuable experience to participating organizations from nine countries. The successful history of the continuous finding of people on the ISS since 2000 is a merit of this experiment as well.

Forward to mars

Modern technologies say that the flight to Mars will be long, at least five hundred days. Therefore, in 2010-2011, the experiment "MARS-500" started at the IMBP RAS. Six people took part in the longest isolation experiment of 520 days - Sitev Alexey, Smoleevsky Alexander, Kamolov Sukhrob (Russia), Romain Charles (France), Diego Urbina (Italy), Wang Yue (China). The flight included an imitation of landing on the surface of Mars:



The experiment ended successfully, and if humanity ever gets to Mars, the crew’s mental and physical health will be maintained thanks to the results of the MARS-500. The project obtained data on cardiological, immersion (studies of the harmful effects of immobility), hyperbaric, radiological experiments and studies of the gastrointestinal tract.

Today

Curiously, one more experiment on prolonged isolation is underway now - three men and women from August of this year are "flying" to Mars in Hawaii:



This experiment, with its successful completion, will be the most serious experiment in the United States. You can follow the progress of the project in this blog - http://livefrommars.life/ .
Against the background of the terms on which the previous expeditions “went on the flight”, eight days of the “Moon-2015” seem small. Indeed, the isolation of girls is called short-term. But experienced specialists of IMBP RAS will take care of the difficulties and trials. And the fully female crew is interesting for science, especially since the leaders of the experiment are confident that in some respects women will be better than men.



“MARS-500” was criticized for a fully male crew, let's hope that the new results will pave the way for mixed or even fully female crews. In the meantime, follow the news of the project on the site and on the page on Facebook .

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