By Derrick Ho, Special to CNN
Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- In an attempt to re-create the experience of a manned mission to Mars, an international team of researchers will lock themselves up in a windowless capsule for about a year and a half -- time required for a round trip to the Red Planet.
Starting Thursday, an all-male "crew" of six -- three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese -- will spend 520 days in the cramped and claustrophobic conditions of a special facility in Moscow and will follow a strict regimen of exercise and diet.
Organizers at the European Space Agency and Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems hope the project will shed light on the physical and psychological effects of the long isolation that future Mars astronauts will experience.
