Have you ever been on a long-haul flight? How did you pass the time? Perhaps you watched an in-flight movie or read a book.

Well it would have to be a very long book to keep you amused for 520 days. That's how long six men are going to be sealed away from humanity in a warehouse in the suburbs of Moscow from tomorrow.

No, this isn't another weird reality TV show, but an experiment from the European Space Agency and Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems to test the psychological impact of a manned mission to Mars.