Moscow: The initial 14-day experiment to prepare a manned flight to Mars started at the Moscow Institute of Biomedical Problems today, the institute's deputy director Boris Morukov said at the 7th international conference "Manned Space Flights".

The director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems, Anatoly Grigoryev, said that a simulation of manned flights Mars included a 14-day and a 105-day mission. "During 14 days we shall check technical equipment, and then we shall select for the 105-day experiment Russian and European proposals that will be later implemented in the programme Mars-500, Grigoryev said. He said an international crew of volunteers would be formed for the 105-day experiment that begins in early 2008.

Intensive selection of a main crew for the "Martian flight" is going on. It will include four Russians and two Europeans. The main requirements for candidates are command of the Russian and English languages, physical fitness and professional skills, preferably in several specialties. Grigoryev said the candidates, who had undergone a preliminary medical examination, included women.

However, sexes of crew members will be certain by the end of the next year, when a short list of the "Martian crew" will be published. They will be isolated from the external world in a 550-cubic meter model of the Martian spaceship that was designed at the Institute of Biomedical Problems. The crew will communicate with the word only by electronic mail. All life support systems of the "spacecraft" are self-contained. Preferable professions of candidates are physicians, engineers, biologists and computer technology specialists.

Source : PTI