MOSCOW, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Pale-faced but smiling, the crew of a long-duration isolation study emerged bleary-eyed to daylight and applause on Friday after 520 days locked away in windowless, cramped cells to simulate the length of a journey to Mars.
The $15 million Mars500 experiment aims to answer one of the big unknowns of deep-space travel: can people stay healthy and sane during six months rocketing to the Red Planet?
The six male volunteers were allowed to briefly embrace family and friends before being ushered into a three-day quarantine period at the end of an experiment to recreate the psychological strain of a real Mars mission as closely as possible.
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