three thirty pm in moscow the z u r t headline up to fifty thousand people expected to descend on central moscow gathering for the second major protest against the result of this month's parliamentary poll the opposition claims the vote was rigged and call for a reelection while the russian leadership has promised political reforms. no merry christmas in syria where a spiral of violence continues with two suicide blasts in damascus leaving more than forty dead the arab league is in the country searching for ways out of the crisis and the truth behind why it's happening. and with libya taken care of london has named somalia a failed state britain's security services have called it a new training ground for terrorists leading to speculation that an invasion could

be next. next up we speak with the would be space explorers who simulated a hundred million kilometer round trip to the red planet spotlight coming up. hello again a welcome to spotlight. time they were talking about traveling to mars since the very beginning of the space exploration era humans never stop dreaming of the other planets in the twentieth century you had in space flight and later the apollo moon missions were the first steps on this one and now it's time to go to mars and though a real man who mission is only being planned yet there are men on earth who have

already tried it out thanks to russian took knowledge how does it feel to fly a hundred million miles back and forth we're asking alexander small yes and to be left to spend a year in a hall and that capsule as part of russian experiment simulating a flight to mars. scientists estimate a manned mission to mars may cost from fifty to five hundred billion dollars such a huge prize and the daunting deck no logical challenge means the cherished dream is decades away. the world's main space agencies can not help but prepare for the future interplanetary flight and one of the biggest steps towards it is the russian mars five hundred project. it featured six international space much sunshine fresh air and loved ones for more than five hundred days in a cramped space ship like capsule researchers say the project was

a quiet for the future a real mission as approved such a long spaceflight could be possible. in san diego welcome to the show thank you very much for. this well and the first question i wanted to ask you do true choir a lot of imagination i mean your imagination the cruise imagination to really. talk yourself into being a part of america mars expedition did you really was it really hard to imagine yourself in space or were this simulation was so authentic that that it didn't require much imagination. well some. of the simulation where very realistic. the more not to me that is something that you can expect for sure in a trip to mars we experience that firsthand was very realistic there are some parts of a simulation for example when we have to hatch out samples for the scientists to analyze

we had stand through to another look and we can hear it when the the open the are located because we are looking to get the samples so that a little bit breaks the fantasy you know. so more parts like the martian landing were pretty realistic and we almost fell that we were on mars wasn't for it there was a look at it from going you know no noise really stick parts of us and when we simulate mars of course we was in real space you want to keep space you know which may be we'll use in kong a real space flight. we make more or take samples by instrumentals. oilier and have parked at a pool for l. r o where which can of us on sale then don't.

buy from. the reality sticker was always on the show because so we was absolutely isn't it that from a. world we cannot. see. or have on windows to have a. t.v. internet tough enough and i said well let's take a look at what the simulated flight to mars was all about in reported by spotlights you land there jimmy there are. thousands of volunteers wanted to take part but doing this six which shows and for the experiment the simulation of a flight to mars they were locked inside the mock spacecraft for seventeen months and although they didn't have to experience the takeoff for the weightlessness of real space they had to survive the monotony of more than five days in isolation and

without sunlight what made the most flight more realistic was the forty minute do in communication with the outside world which imitated the communication lag between mars and the. emergency situations stage to see how the team would cool the crew's trip cool i'm next in the simulated landing on mars but the experiment wasn't so much about plane and the cosmonaut deval trying to cool would be cut off from the rest of the world for such a long time though did participants could leave their confinement attend to time all of them stayed on board to do the durance scientists are now provided with some for. rice was psychological and medical information concerning the facts of long term isolation on humans. there was no zero gravity as i understand you in this light alexander but it didn't make much difference i mean being without zero gravity this remind you all the time that you

are on mother earth. we cannot make zero gravity here because this is absolutely impossible for such a long time here to have but before we do it in some days. make similar. conditions. you mung. bean in zero gravity you know during the flight you carried out a lot of experiments like five hundred twenty days you were so what what was the use of carrying out experiments when you actually were all no was it worth it yes indeed there are many experiments that we can expect that give us insight into what crew will go true it's what the correspondent said what was mainly psychological experiments like experimenting on yourselves like psychological but

as well some some of the feis of your logical aspects not everything because of course you don't have the radiation and you don't have the microgravity and this is clear to us but there are some other aspects for example we couldn't move to march during the during the mission because we are in a very confined space so we can expect some deterioration off or state of health and this is something that the scientists are very interesting and interested in now lasting or at deterioration in our immunological system they are there is very interesting. the idea of this whole flight is frozen and this turn was to get you into unpredicted situation some sort of a next of the something did that happen we had a couple of simulated emergencies there was one they could offer the delights of that into lately is that we had a blackout and we didn't know that this was a simulation and we thought that it was completely real so we have to go to certain

procedures that we had to do to save the food from the free. just. and we have to calculate how much oxygen we were we had left we had a couple of days we were. we did in freak out because of this situation and this is something that for example the psychologist we're very interested in now waxing reporters just reminded us that you could leave the capsule at any time during those five hundred days or any one of the do you or any other member of the crew have had that idea of quitting of getting out for me it was very difficult. participate in this experiment. i never. go out for a never never how did you cope with this with this boy do with the isolation how did you find the stress like like video games or something sports nor i.

very much free times because i have many work. biological and medical experiments. i have so much stress because of your situation is normal for me. i make the same water which i made before experiment. if i have. free time so i read special literature about biological. films we've grown members. sometimes we play a game most most often it was a counter strike. who who is better. if you want really good who is going to go but as far as i know cameras drugs play team to team

yeah you might want to we had to rush against the rest of the world so who was. fifty fiftieth's chance well it says so did you really have dear good did you really have problems with interaction with each other or not really. of course you can expect some to twitter's natural situations with your coworkers were maybe you thinking that the from the way. we were expecting. in normal space flight or in this kind of simulations you showed you could expect some very bad situations that can happen and they never happened in our case so we were really cohesive group and we had a small frictions but we managed to solve all of them successfully and you said you're playing russian and here's the rest of the world so there was this sort of a feeling that these are the russians and the that and these are the rest well but there was not a big separation we were as i said very cohesive. for example for you

know communicating in there in the game it was between the russians and it was more effective just because of that did the russians speak russian to each other all these spoke english. not can speak english. not for north from us can speak very good. so when you spoke to each other i mean the russian russian or english. most often always speak on english or russians speak between between themselves and the cells or this person on. the phone was difficult in this situation it was because he cannot speak in on cheney us with a little but i see well these are alexander small yes he had diego would be the participants of the mars five hundred experience spotlight we'll be back shortly after a break so stay with us we'll continue in less than human. wealthy

british. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cancer for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report. on the money with the business of russia.

welcome back to spotlight love and just a reminder that my guests on the show today are alexander small yes he and diego would be in a participant of the morris five hundred experiment and experiment in which a trip to mars was simulated in a cab so in here in russia. diego your daily routine your daily schedule was eight eight eight hours of sleep and hours of work eight hours at least. in the army what do you think this was right this was the right thing to do or you have you would have shifted a little bit o.

if change are bad that's the average you know in our side our side ours but there were some days in which you were working more and more than eight hours you could have easily and some days in which you have less workload that is something you can expect in a mars mission so would you have to handle these very very well the basic special base in which there's less workload because they can actually be quite difficult well you were a crew of pretty young people didn't you to sleep a bit more than eight hours i remember when i was in the army the only think i wanted it was this late in who are what we're supposed to happen to her house when you have a lot of movement you have walked all day in the streets and you spend a lot of energy in here as you move in between very short distances so perhaps you get older you will be less tired but you did do physical or so did you listen to you. did you have enough of physical i was able to if you were or are you sorry you missed it every day we have

a physical training of your income from thirty minutes until sixty minutes of this yes every day but. each. very different for for tighter there ain't one kind of training course a very easy course very. what about the food was the food depressing i mean eating the same kind of stuff i mean every day what would you eat this food again today or never again so well the food was actually quite good perhaps i would have needed right now because i have been giving it for so goes away it wasn't what we see in movies like toothpaste you know that stuff oh no no in reality we have you know some meat some fish meat and so much things that you basically you have to add water to or put them in the microwave and there are very similar to the food that we have here except they have to re more compact and less heavy so is this the

kind of the food that astros really these days that adds if we have to and you had enough of that food for five hundred days i mean on board it was more of an offer you really really so so so alexander would you for example celebrate your birthday this year and serve a table with that food from the station or you would rather buy something in the local supermarket on her own holiday or her birthday we can not eat. and we should we can we can eat only. which we have a storage. or for a special holidays we do perhaps the. loss of sarah's she loves chocolates or things birthday we grab him lots of. ice or listen you were supposed to cultivate fresh that appeals that vegetables on board as a as a supplement to the to the daily ration who was the gardener and it wasn't me

you know you were the gardener ok so and was it really rewarding i mean i mean fresh vegetables and bone i cannot speak. what all of remember me said. fresh vegetables but some of us. like. vegetable very much for example crop. a little bit less. but. don't like so much room for us all for us and lastly enough for. for so many i see so so so so it was from food to grow the vegetables but you didn't really need them and yes i am. changed into chocolates and yes yes some very seriously that i was afraid i would prefer to chocolate though there's sure to be. communication. i have different information

some people say the delay so for example if you wanted to to communicate. with your relatives with your friends via internet so people say twenty minutes delay some people say it was forty minutes delay or did it depend on the distance i mean from those simulated distance grew and the delay grew. however that is true i would have killed the computer anyway if the internet was like forty minutes like that get. so into minutes by one say i am going on her rant going to me and you push. for no no way to live and. in fact the mail arrives twice a day we get it if we send something we don't and we don't get the answer every forty minutes we get a maybe in twelve hours because there are two slots during the day which we can exchange emails so there should have been the killer in me i mean this was warranted and would have communicated you with the fly control center you did have

you did have a lot like the slots time slots when you when you had communication with them no would apply controls and that happened we were or were in error. because we're behind the earth or we weren't when we were on mars because we're behind mars interplanetary flight we have communication all the time will tours with these delay your twenty minutes route well we saw a picture right now on this screen of sort of a simulated space walk was this is space walk on morse or was it like a route around the spaceship you know themselves. which granted for space work well well well when you went out and spent away a workout in searching to see if you know what it's who was some addition or for work in mars or face on the surfaces ourselves but we use. or for instrumental we are using twitter which you need to use and.

there were designed for the moon landing because of your own landing and we're using them was quite cool. for new instruments. period special special forty six paramount ok now one of the one of the main subjects that was discussed when you were going to five hundred years was women i got to be any women and boys will actually is first i know women were excluded from taking part in the crew in order to i quote to avoid the possibility of sexual tension or competition well looking back was this a justified decision were they right or you would have preferred if you had a couple of girls and i don't know if i so far as far as i know there were some there were some candidates yes along with me in the selection so i don't know the reason why be excluded them however i think that it is quite possible for for

a woman just have to be a psychological two to today's situation. do you think it would have been more fun if you had if you had women aboard. we're like keeping it to like a boy to what i think has been you people who are participating in the flights that we've told the what this is the more difficult without you know i mean in real life or israel's ariel spirit what do you see more difficult this sort of a sexual competition they're quoting her work on because i haven't thought too many conflicts now on sexual conflicts with the women or because the only one where we have the women and the bit of in and between homo man. so so so it certainly adds some complexity to the situation but i think that we proper selection it can be done well this is this is life complexity is life so so

so is in real life. something that we have a woman who you've gone. from and your. and if you leave how you were and if it was for you well. suppose you go on a real mission on you all you have to send the guys on the real mission five hundred days in outer space would be your decision to send a whole meal crew or to mix sexes. i think it would be interesting to make a more experiment with sexist to see how it works out i think it could be a good idea if there is a good bones you know. i think you look for an all male crew let's start a little bit we are well i feel i. see your. real space flight you need to use my own crew ok would you

yourself any of you or maybe if you talked to your friends after you made this experiment choose to go on a real mission to mars or this was an earth. larry oh yeah yeah when i finally go i don't know about you here so i want to try. what about the medics didn't the medics have to do all those experiments have to you out of there did they find any negative results of this experiment. during commission the way medical examination but. not find. very different very dangerous. changes. after finish the experiment that we make more. concrete the medical examination but now we didn't notice also. quickly that. after so many

days being looked up to get there i used to add to it you see children when they're going to the other members of the general problem we have been working together and we were planning to go out in the evening. yeah i mean it's no problem so you know i think this experiment made ideal husbands out of here really for the future. because i mean i mean you hear you proved that you can that you can be a perfect partner in any closed a closed environment for so long so i mean every one of you not only you tube but the others are really perfect for being for being building real families in the future thank you have thank you and all the luck in life thank you very much and thank you to remind you that my guests today were alexandra small yes he and diego who are the participants of the morris five hundred experiment and that's it for now for all of us if you're entirely your stance spotlight we have someone in mind

you think actually interview next time you drop your would be back with more for some time and some of what's going on in and house. until then stay on target and take a. thank you. here in bygone days sleds were vital to get around. but today they're more leisure than life line. one drives people to quit their modern lives and settle in remote woods. one finds them up to

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