An all-male crew of three Russians, a Chinese, a Frenchman and an Italian-Colombian has been inside windowless capsules at a Moscow research center since June. Feel free, if you must, to construct a joke based on these circumstances. Or you could be excited to learn that these six men are preparing to land on Mars on the twelfth of February.
Okay, they won't actually land on Mars, since they never left Moscow's space center. They communicate with the outside world via e-mails and video messages which are occasionally delayed to give them the feel of being farther than a few yards away. The crew members eat canned food similar to that eaten on the International Space Station and shower only once a week. No wonder mission director and former cosmonaut Boris Morukov described the voyage as being "tough on the boys."
Once they "land," they will have a couple of days to explore the diorama that will stand in for the surface of the Red Planet, then it's back into the bus for the long ride home. Boris suggests that this will be the hardest part: The long ride home. Hey Ivan! You and your crew have just landed on Mars. What are you going to do now? Go to Disneyland?
"Maybe. But first I have to crawl back into this tin can for about eight months with these guys. Maybe I'll finally get that high score on Tetris."
Boldly going where no man has gone before. Unless you count that trip across the country on Greyhound back in the summer of 1973.
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