Oddly Enough Blog
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Going to Mars: Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
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Okay, this has got to be the most thankless job of the entire decade. These six astronaut guys are going to spend 520 days going to Mars and back.
That’s a long, long time to be away from family and cable TV and doughnuts and stuff, but this is how history gets made. This is how real pioneers rock ‘n’ roll.
Except that these six aren’t REALLY going to Mars. They will just be locked up in this clubhouse with attractive hardwood floors and PRETEND to go, to test the long-term impact of such a journey.
Are you fricking kidding me? I can TELL them the impact. Six men, no women, 520 days. You do the math.
These poor dudes are going to emerge in November of 2011 a year and a half older, with nothing to show for it except an item on their résumés saying, “Most recent employment: Pretended to go to Mars.” Yeah, I bet lots of employers are looking for that.
Our story says the six men will follow a seven-day week, with two days off. Days off? “Say, Lamar, can you swap with me this week, I have special plans on Wednesday…”
My favorite part of this simulated module is that clock above the hatch. Is that REALLY necessary? “Well, I see by the old clock on the wall that it’s 11 a.m. again on our trip to nowhere, just 502 days to go.”
But I saved the best for last. These six guys are from a bunch of different countries and don’t even all speak the same language. As one of the crew said yesterday, “If we fail to understand each other, we will employ body language.”
Yeah, I think we all get what that means. Within two months of “blast-off,” all communication in the clubhouse will be reduced to a single gesture….
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A technician participating in the Mars500 experiment, which simulates a 520-day flight to Mars, is seen at a confinement module in Moscow May 18, 2010. A crew of six, who will begin a simulated mission to Mars in a mock-up that includes an interplanetary spaceship and Mars lander, will be isolated for 520 days to test human endurance. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin
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Perhaps they should sign the actor and the director from that last post up for a prestigious, 520 day stay in the Mars500 chamber!
But they’ll have access to the internet right?
I’d love to be hired for that but I can’t be without my OE, FB and OOTS!! (and a couple of other sites that can’t be mentioned in public
)
E. (who is still having a bad day and never got her doughnut
)
Aww E!!! Didnt the hug work?
But really no internet sux… BIG TIME!!
Now hold on. Judging from some of the comments I get – present company excepted – I’m pretty sure they get my blog on Mars….
“Explore the far reaches of space! Then after that join the Oddly Enough blog network!”
Six dudes, no women, cramped up in a tiny space with no access to the outside world other than the internet.
I just hope they packed enough boxes of Kleenex. Otherwise they could very well find themselves in some very sticky situations.
Give them 600 Cds of p*rn and you don’t need ANY tests…just confinements
Shra, just saw the hug now. Thank ye! Yes, it does help!
Of course, it also helps that it’s almost time to go home and I think I’ll pick up a treat for myself along the way. Then settle in with my cat and my OOTS and maybe start a war on MW.
E.
Spinster, I’m with you in this one. Imagine, 520 days away from your boss, the bills, etc… AND YOU STILL GET PAID!!! Where do I sign???
Just like being on a sub. 98 sailors submerge and 49 couples surface (give or take a few).
But in this case I think that it will be more like 6 highly trained and motivated team members go in and 6 apathetic individuals that all hate each others guts emerge.
Two things strike me about that photo:
First, I don’t think that office furniture, ergonomical or not, belongs on the weight schedule for a mission to Mars.
Second, when that nifty hardwood paneled hobbit-tunnel catches fire, I don’t think that those 4 dinky extinguishers are going to cut it!
They must not be family men…
Moscow’s newest reality show, So You Think You Can Fly to Mars. Yes, I can see the TV camera on the ceiling!
It’s important to have a genuine round hatch for a door in your wooden space ship!
Can they pack enough doughnuts and vodka in there to last six months? They’ll need ‘em.
They should run a test with six women in parallel. Equal opportunity and stuff.
0.52 of a day trapped with people of any sex or origin is my idea of hell. Whilst the panelling is odd, I have to admit that I used to have a tent with a round hatch doorway. It was pretty great.
And you know once they begin their “mission” all those pictures of who I am assuming are important figures in space exploration come down in favor of many VS models!
Hey, and isn’t that a giant HDTV stuck to the wall on the left? Seriously, between an Xbox and a month of the World Cup this summer, these guys will be finished before they know it!
And just whose pics have been posted on the wall???
my flatmate had a chair like that… it isnt as comfy as it looks…
“I was pretending to travel to Mars, in a re-modelled 1970′s sauna, along with five other people”.
That’s a really good excuse for not going to that meeting with the boss, returning emails, paying bills, turning up for jury duty etc.
Just think, living rent-free for a year and half, no traffic jams, not having about what to wear to work each day, no nasty supermarket queues, no risk of accidently listening to a Justin Bieber song when you switch on your car radio, no worrying about where to go for your vacation, no deadlines, no worrying about the weather, none of those annoying dinner-time phone calls asking if you want to switch your long-distance service.
The only down-sides I can see are some titanic fights over the remote, and if you put on too much weight, you won’t fit through the exit hatch when the time is up.
That is a pretty good summation, Z… sweeeeeeet!!
One ping only!
ifly, good one!! I <3 Sean Connery!
E.
Can`t make it to Mars, HELP! I`ll take a plane to the Caribbean instead, get me a beach villa in the Dominican Republic: http://www.goldenkeymanagement.com
Mars is still too far way for me, dunno what`s there Dude.
Travel guy! Welcome! Instead of the Caribbean, why dont you take a trip to BG’s lair? I am sure it would WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than the DR…