They are boldly going where no man has gone before, even if they never leave the ground.

An experiment to prepare human beings for a mission to Mars began yesterday when six volunteers climbed inside an isolation chamber for a simulated space journey lasting 105 days.

Four Russians, one German and a Frenchman will be cooped up in a complex of three windowless steel capsules at the Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow, measuring only 550 cubic metres — less than a quarter of the volume of an Olympic swimming pool.

They will be cut off from the outside world and monitored by officials at a mission control centre. All communication will be subject to a 20-minute time delay to simulate contact between Earth and a spacecraft hurtling towards Mars.

Scientists said that the three-month Mars experiment will provide insights into the psychological and physical effects on astronauts of long-distance travel. It is the prelude to a 520-day experiment that will simulate the expected length of the return journey to Mars, including a 30-day stay on the surface. The institute is building a simulator that will imitate conditions on Mars.

“The Mars-105 crew is ready to start the experiment,” Sergei Ryazansky, the flight commander, said.

Members of the group will be allowed to leave only if they want to abandon the experiment. A statement on the website of the institute declares: “Evacuation of crew members due to illness or their own free will will equal ‘the death’ of a cosmonaut.”

Each volunteer has a cabin containing a bed, desk and chair. They will be able to contact friends and families only through the control centre.

“We have been working for a long time and finally we are getting to the start point,” Cyrille Fournier, a 40-year-old pilot with Air France, told reporters.

Oliver Knickel, 28, an engineer with the German Army, added: “The challenge is to live with the same people for a long period, but it is a positive challenge,”

The crew will live on the same food rations as astronauts on the International Space Station, wash with damp tissues and use recycled water.

They will conduct 72 scientific experiments, maintain the operational systems of the “craft” and wear a headcap fitted with 128 electrodes to monitor their brain activity while they sleep.

More than 5,600 people applied to join the experiment, which is a joint project between the institute and the European Space Agency (ESA). Oleg Artemyez, a cosmonaut, Alexei Baranov, a doctor, and Alexei Shpakov, a sports physiotherapist, are the other crew members, each of whom will be paid ¤15,500 (£14,300).

The ESA acknowledged similarities with reality game shows, with cameras filming the crew’s every move, but said that it was a serious experiment.

The crew of a real Mars expedition would suffer extreme isolation. Martin Zell, of the ESA’s directorate of human spaceflight, said: “It is of paramount importance to understand the psychological and physiological effects of long-duration confinement.”

In 2007 Nasa set out plans to dispatch a cargo lander to Mars in 2028 and a manned craft in 2031.

Isolated cases

— In the 1970s macaque monkeys at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were isolated for up to a year in an experiment in depression. Many emerged with symptoms of psychosis

— Last year the BBC recreated an experiment first attempted at McGill University, Quebec, in the 1950s. The six volunteers who were kept isolated had hallucinations and a low mental capacity

Source: Times archive

Times Recommends

• Baroness Ashton: EU couldn’t make it up
• The other belles de nos jours
• Why too much of a good thing is bad for you