Suburban spaceman

Oliver Knickel, a mechanical engineer in the German army (second from right), and airline pilot Cyrille Fournier from France (right) were selected as the two European participants in a 105-day isolation study. They joined three Russians on a three-day survival exercise in the woods near Star City, the Russian centre for cosmonaut training near Moscow.

To better understand how astronauts on a journey to Mars might cope with the confinement on the 520-day trip to Mars, the Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow, Russia, and the European Space Agency have set up such an experiment.

From 31 March, French airline pilot Cyrille Fournier, German engineer Oliver Knickel and four Russians - cosmonauts Oleg Artemyez and Sergei Ryazansky, Alexei Baranov, a doctor, and Alexei Shpakov, a sports physiologist - will be stuck in a simulated Mars spacecraft. Their communications with the outside world will be delayed by 20 minutes to simulate the radio lag between Mars and Earth.

Communications will be delayed by 20 minutes to simulate the radio lag between Mars and Earth

Conflict arises easily in such crowded environments, says Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist who once did a 402-day stint in a French research station in Antarctica. The results will help design an experiment of full Mars-mission duration.