Participants in the "Mars-500" experiment are taught to breathe "Martian air"

Russian scientists closed four voluntary participants in the Mars-500 experiment in the Barocamer for ten days to find out if they can breathe "Martian air".

“For 10 days, four men will be in the barorammer. In the first six days, the barocamer will maintain normal oxygen, then from the seventh to the tenth day of stay in the gas environment will create a reduced content of oxygen,” the press service of the Institute of Biological Problems (IMBP, Moscow), widespread in Tuesday.

The study is carried out as part of a large-scale experiment "Mars-500". Its main goal is to study the effect on the human body of a prolonged stay in the oxygen-ozotino-argon medium with a different oxygen content. Such an atmosphere will avoid fire on board the spaceship.

As explained in the press service of the IMBP, due to the fact that an argon was discovered on Mars, the crew of a spacecraft can be replenished with its reserves right on the planet, and not take with him from the ground. “In ten days, scientists will receive all the data that interests them, so it is not planned to extend the experiment,” the press service told Interfax .

It is planned that the preliminary 105-day experiment “Mars-500” will begin this year, and the 520-day experiment will most likely begin in 2009.

Recall that the previous two-week study in the framework of the Mars-500 project in November last year ended successfully . During the experiment, a crew of five men and one woman worked out actions to eliminate emergency situations, most of which concerned the refusal of various equipment and module systems. For two weeks, the crew lived in an “spacecraft” isolated from the outside world, consisting of two modules - a residential with a volume of 150 cubic meters. meters, as well as a medical volume of 100 cubic meters. meters. The experiment experienced newly developed life support systems, control and management, information support, a local telemedicine network, then the IMBP said.

In the preliminary 105-day experiment, which, as planned, will begin in the first half of 2008, four modules will be involved, and mainly a 500-day experiment will add to them a compartment that will imitate the surface of Mars. The total volume of all five modules will be 550 cubic meters. meters.

According to the plan for simulating the flight on the Red Planet "Mars-500", the total duration of the main experiment will be 520 days. That is how much it will be required for the flight along the Earth-Mars highway (250 days), the stay of three crew members on the surface of this planet (30 days) and return to Earth (240 days).