<p><br /> A manned space mission to Mars may be decades from take off, but an international team of researchers are set to get a very close experience - without leaving Earth.<br /> </p><p><br /> Six men will lock themselves up in a windowless mock space ship for one and a half years. This roughly equates the time needed to travel to and from "The Red Planet".<br /> </p><p><br /> The Mars-500 experiment hopes to help a real space crew of the future cope better with long term isolation.<br /> </p><p><br /> The researchers will have to eat canned food similar to that currently on offer to astronauts on the International Space Station.<br /> </p><p><br /> Showers will only be available once every ten days, further mimicking space conditions.<br /> </p><p><br /> A Chinese researcher, three Russians and two Europeans will make up the team for the study which will take place in Moscow.<br /> </p><p><br /> French crew member Romain Charles said: "It will be hard I'm sure, but we have a target to stay here 520 days and we will achieve it".<br /> </p><p><br /> A similar experiment took place back in 1999-2000 but ended badly when two Russian crew members had a fist fight that left blood splattered on the walls.<br /> </p>
