The first humans to travel to Mars returned Friday after an 18-month voyage.
Of course, it was all just pretend.
For 520 days, astronauts in Moscow took part in an experiment to study how a mission to the red planet would affect human physiology and mental well-being.
They spent the “trip” completely isolated from the outside world, save for communications with “mission control” and a short outing to simulate a walk on the planet’s surface.
Mars, the fourth planet from the sun, sits at an average distance of 225 million km from Earth, which changes depending upon its elliptical orbit. Experiments such as this will help us understand the logistics involved in such a mission.
