NASA is now recruiting volunteers to spend eight months locked up in a dummy spacecraft

News24xx.com - Ever since man stepped on the Moon, humanity has hoped to colonise other planets in our solar system, escaping finally from our blue planet home. 

Mars has been the planet astronauts and space scientists have focussed on, for creating the first human colony outside the Earth. However, the journey to Mars is going to be an arduous one.

To look at the effects of what astronauts will experience on this long journey, As per reports, NASA is now recruiting volunteers -- primarily US citizens -- to spend eight months locked up in a dummy spacecraft. 

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It made the announcement on its site, stating, “NASA is looking for highly motivated U.S. citizens who are 30-55 years old and are proficient in both Russian and English languages. Requirements are: M.S., PhD., M.D. or completion of military officer training. Participants with a Bachelor’s degree and other certain qualifications (e.g., relevant additional education, military, or professional experience) may be acceptable candidates as well.”

The experiment will take place in Moscow, Russia and will involve six volunteers to stay in a confined room, simulating a long space journey. In case you didn’t know, Mars is approximately 150 to 300 days away depending on the launch speed and spacecraft.

Researchers want to see the effect of such long-term confinement on the human body. The astronauts will be using virtual reality and performing robotic operations among a number of other tasks during the lunar mission. 

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Results from such ground-based missions help NASA  better prepare for challenges to anticipate during space exploration and provide important scientific data to solve some of these problems and to develop countermeasures.

In case you were wondering why don’t take information from astronauts on the ISS that have spent months in a similar fashion, you’ll be surprised to know that ISS, for how small it appears, isn’t as small as the spacecraft that the simulation is based in.