Simulation crew takes first steps on mock Mars

http://timesofearth.com/ A Russian space mission "landed" on Mars today, but it wasn't exactly one giant leap for mankind.

The mission was only simulated, so the Mars walk didn't actually take the six men outside of Moscow. The mock landing is part of an experiment to test the effects of the long flight to the actual red planet -- which takes more than a year -- on astronauts. So far, all missions to Mars have been unmanned.

After spending 257 days traveling in the simulated conditions of outer space, the crew of Russian, French, Chinese and Italian-Colombian cosmonauts emerged from their tiny capsule to plant flags on the mock Mars and take "samples" of the planet's red dust, The Associated Press reported.

The men have been working alongside one another in the claustrophobic capsule since June. Vitaly Davydov, deputy chief of the Russian space agency, said the cosmonauts were doing well. "All systems have been working normally. The crew are feeling fine," he told the AP.

The Mars500 mission is designed to help scientists at the European Space Agency and Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems test the psychological and physical impact of a real mission to Mars. Researchers in mission control even set up a 20-minute delay when communicating with the crew, to simulate conditions in outer space, according to CNN.

Diego Urbina, the Italian-Colombian cosmonaut, tweeted an update from the crew early Monday morning on the eve of the landing. "Exploring faraway lands, dreaming of open spaces, freedom given by a little golden cage that keeps you alive," Urbina wrote, expressing both the frustration of being confined for a long period of time and the excitement of the simulated mission.

This morning the men were roaming through red dust meant to imitate Mars' Gusev crater, the European Space Agency said in a statement on its website. The crater is believed to be an old lake bed that may help scientists unlock the planet's greatest secrets.

The agency said the men will head home March 1. The entire mission will last 520 days.

President Barack Obama has said that a manned mission to the planet may not happen until the 2030s. "By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth," he said. "And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it."

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