Candidates must be citizens of one of 15 European countries or Canada, be highly motivated, and speak English and Russian, among other requirements.
Unlike the adventurous spirits attracted to the desert island prospects of reality television, only the "serious" need apply for this simulated interplanetary voyage, the space agency said. The payoff probably is less glamorous, too. Remuneration is "in line with international standards" for clinical studies, is all the agency would say.
The Paris-based agency, known as ESA, is working on the Mars500 project with the Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow, and the simulated mission will be conducted there and include Russians. The Russian participants will be chosen separately in Russia.
The volunteers will investigate the "human factor" of a trip to the Red Planet, "a journey with no way out once the spaceship is on a direct path to Mars," the agency says.
The experiment will emphasize psychological factors, including stress resistance. The goal is to test how the volunteers hold up in nearly 1 1/2 years of confinement, in cramped quarters with others, and when communications with Earth can take 20 minutes to reach their destination -- each way.
The simulation is to take place in a series of connected modules, mimicking life in a spacecraft on a trip to Mars, including once it has landed on the planet. The routine includes scientific experiments.
It doesn't include full-time weightlessness, however. "Except for weightlessness and radiation, the simulations will be as close to a real Mars mission as possible," the agency said in its call for candidates.
The living quarters will include 30-square-foot rooms for each crew member, a kitchen-dining room, living room, and only one toilet. No shower is included, and the water supply will be limited.
Food will be "predefined and carefully rationed," the agency warns. Smoking and drinking are not allowed.
Special training that precedes the simulations will be as similar as possible to that given to astronauts, said Ngo-Anh.
