Life on Mars? European Space Agency crewmen simulate landing in sandpit

The exercise was the highlight and halfway point of the Mars500 project, which aims to find out how humans would cope with the psychological ordeal of a real trip to Mars. Instead of launching the six volunteer crewmen into space, the agency has sealed them for 520 days inside a pretend spaceship built from interconnected modules at a research centre in Moscow.
The crew blasted off, in an imaginary sense, in June last year and have been monitored every minute of the day since. Throughout the mission they are expected to take urine, blood and other samples for scientists to analyse. They have a gym for exercise and a small cabin each. To alleviate the boredom, they have books, DVDs and computer games. On Saturday, three of the crew simulated a descent on to the surface of Mars in a "lander" module. On Monday Russian Alexandr Smoleevskiy and Italian Diego Urbina ventured into the sandpit for their first simulated "Marswalk".

　火星有人探査の火星表面に降り立つ訓練が完了。そういえば日本人宇宙飛行士はみんなNASAにいって有人飛行をしますね。欧州宇宙局にはいかないんでしょうか？