Mars Trip Simulation: Volunteer Today

Do you have 17 months of free time on your hands that you're not sure what to do with?  Are you willing to be locked in a box with a bunch of strangers for the entire time?  Does the idea seem any cooler if I tell you it's for a Mars expedition simulation, being run by the European Space Agency?

The ESA is preparing to run a 17 month test to simulate a human expedition to Mars and is looking for volunteers to join the project and spend the duration in an isolation tank.  Volunteers will live and work in a series of modules in the tank, located at a research institute in Moscow.  The test will be accurate to the point of a simulated "radio delay" to communications, getting longer and longer as the test progresses.  The goal is to see how the crew will react in close quarters and heavy workload of a mission for an extended period of time.

So if you've got some free time coming up, and can make it out to Moscow, you might want to give the ESA a ring.  More details at the BBC News story linked below