After being isolated from the rest of the world for nearly a year and a half, sealed away in a mock spacecraft, six volunteer astronauts "returned" to Earth today (Nov. 4) to end a simulated mission to Mars and back.

The hatch of the pretend Mars500 spaceship, which is actually a special isolation facility at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow, was opened at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT) this morning to mark the successful completion of a 520-day simulated journey to the Red Planet. The six volunteer crew members had been living and working in the Mars500 facility since June 2010.

The international Mars500 crew is made up of Italian engineer Diego Urbina, French engineer Romain Charles, Russian physiologist Alexandr Smoleevski, Russian surgeon Sukhrob Kamolov, Russian engineer Alexey Sitev and Chinese astronaut trainer Wang Yue.

After an official unlocked the large door to the mock spacecraft and removed a special seal, the first Mars500 crewmember to cross the threshold was Kamolov, followed by Charles, Yue, Urbina, Smoleevski and finally Sitev. [Mars500: Photos From Russia's Mock Mars Mission]

"The international crew of the Mars500 experiment has completed the 520-day experiment," Mars500 commander Sitev reported to project officials after emerging from the isolation habitat. "The program has been fully completed. All the crewmembers are in good health. We are ready to continue the investigations."

Video: http://www.space.com/13503-mars500-crew ... ation.html
Photos: http://www.space.com/11871-mars500-phot ... ssion.html

http://www.space.com/13500-mock-mars-mi ... -ends.html
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2 ... urns-earth

So many engineers D:

Well you need those the most

Na-ah you need geniuses the most, but only because those are so rare

No, you need people who can keep the ship from falling apart xD
The really smart people sit at home and coordinate the potential suicide mission from a distance.

But engineers are expendable D:
Geniuses are not.
And yeah, it its useful to have them inside a spaceship though - those engineers

That is what they are for, I ssly doubt that a genius could work his way out of it
Different people are good for different things.

I know, I was only kidding really

I'm pretty sure being trapped in a tiny space stuck on earth knowing you can leave at anytime (assuming this experiment was done ethically, but it is Russia ) is a lot different than being trapped in a tiny space unable to leave.

Yeah, but they did show that it's possible to survive such a long trip in an enclosed space

It baffles me how they did not kill eachother after a week or so

They didn't study theoretical physics I guess.

I think that a lot of people would do that, you need to be really tollerant to do that.

True, but they've probably thought about it before they accepted the job. They are relatively smart after all

Ofc, I would never do this, as I know Id go mad