Life On Mars?

Anyone fancy spending a year and a half on a trip to Mars?

The European Space Agency is looking for volunteers to take part in a simulation of what life would be like for a team of astronauts travelling to the red planet from Earth.

According to the BBC report: "With the exception of weightlessness and radiation, the crew will experience most other aspects of long-haul space travel, such as cramped conditions, a high workload, lack of privacy, and limited supplies."

The ESA could save itself some money though: the experiment is taking place in Moscow - surely they don't have to build a dummy spaceship to simulate cramped conditions, high workload, lack of privacy and limited supplies? Just send the "crew" to live in a high rise block anywhere in Russia.

Even the "delayed communications with Earth" wouldn't be a problem, as anyone who's ever called Russia on a normal telephone will be able to attest to.

All joking aside, a mission to Mars sounds like a great way to spend 18 months. I would have thought it would take longer to get there, but you could do a round trip in three years, if you could build a spacecraft capable of holding that much fuel.

Ever since I was a wee laddy, I've always dreamed of going into space. I'm presuming that I'll never get the chance, although I suppose if, when they were children, you'd told my grandparents that they'd fly to France in an aeroplane, they would have had trouble imagining an aeroplane, let alone being inside one.

I don't know if the ESA will be desperately seeking overweight Scottish journalists for its maiden Mars voyage though.