China wants to find out whether people will be able to live on the moon
China has entered a new stage of the program of outer space exploration by launching the simulation on earth of the person on a permanent lunar station.
The group of students settled in a specially designed module to test the conditions of existence on the moon for a period up to 200 days. They will live in complete isolation from Earth.
Four student space University in the city of Beihai took on Wednesday place in the module entitled “Ogoni-1” (“Moon Palace”).
They will spend in the cockpit for about 60 days, after which they will be replaced by another group, which will remain there for 200 days. Then the first four will be back for another 105 days.
As informs Agency Xinhua, one of the main goals of this experiment is to determine whether lunar colonists for a long time to be self-sufficient without using external support.
Waste from human activity will be processed in the bioreactor with the participation of the fermentation and then used as fertilizer for growing vegetables and grains.
The pilot of the lunar station will consist of two agricultural modules and the dwelling in which four sleeping compartments, one common room, bathroom, compartment the waste and room for animals.
Although experiments in “Moon Palace” and set the goal to prepare the lunar colonists for long-term stays on the moon, China plans to send a manned mission to the Earth satellite, at least within the next 10 years.
In October 2016 in China hosted the launch of the ship with two members of the crew that docked with the orbital station “Tiangong 2” and was in orbit for 30 days, which has made a record in the Chinese space program.
China is the third country after the United States and Russia, which has its own program of manned space flight. In 2013, made the first landing on the moon Chinese station “Chang’e-3” lunar Rover “WiTu”.
China was not adopted in the project use the International space station due to concerns related to military orientation of its space program.
China is not the only country that is interested in the consequences of human presence in extraterrestrial conditions for a long time.
In the US a group of six volunteers during the year she lived in almost complete isolation in the residential module in the Hawaiian Islands in 2016, fulfilling the conditions of existence on Mars.
The group spent this time under the dome in which the air and food constantly renewed without external support.
The research was funded by NASA and conducted by the University of Hawaii. It was the longest time people stay in the residential module after a similar Russian experiment “Mars-500”.
In the framework of the Russian program of six men held in the residential module, composed of a steel cylindrical compartments 520 days. The experiment was carried mostly medical in nature and aimed to determine possible physical and psychological effects of prolonged space flight.