Russia aims to conquer Mars with monkeys

	Twelve macaques have been sent into space on Russian craft on previous missions

Russia is grooming an elite troop of monkeys for a mission to Mars.

Forty macaques will be selected from primates bred at Sochi Institute of Medical Primatology and will undergo training for a test flight to the red planet in advance of a human mission.

Scientists will monitor the monkeys' reaction to prolonged weightlessness, isolation and a special diet of juice and pureed food. They will also experience the radiation which scientists say is a major hazard for cosmonauts flying to Mars.

"People and monkeys have approximately identical sensitivity to radiation," Boris Lapin, the director of the Sochi Institute of Medical Primatology, told the BBC. “So it is better to experiment on the macaques, but not on dogs or other animals.” Experiments are also being carried out on humans. The Mars 500 project will intern volunteers in a mock spaceship in Moscow for 17 months - the expected duration of return journey - to simulate conditions on an interplanetary flight.

Twelve macaques have been sent into space on Russian craft on previous missions, the first in 1983, when Abrek and Bion spent five days in orbit before returning to earth safely. In 1987, Dryoma, who had spent two weeks in orbit, was presented to Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

There were three more two-week flights in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but the project stopped in 1996, when the Russian space programme's funding was cut.

The Mars mission is not expected to take place for another decade.

Telegraph.co.uk, 16.04.2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3339825/Russia-aims-to-conquer-Mars-with-monkeys.html