Mars500 Reality Dysfunction

Finally the Mars500 project comes to an end today (4 June). After 520 days in simulated mission to mars reality six men will emerge from a large pipe to discover that they never left planet Earth at all. It was all a mind bending experiment.

During their first awakening they may have seen images of the planet, star fields, and instrument readings showing speed, altitude, and orbital parameters. They were immersed in deep troughs of unfathomable dark emptiness between massive gaps of nothingness separating the occasional dust particle or hydrogen atom and then finally presented with the incongruous gargantuan notion of a planet sized new world of rock and dust and thin feeble atmosphere.

During their second awakening they discovered a network of steel pipes, a few wooden surfaces, cables and displays all hooked up to a computer on the other side of the artificial boundary of illusion created by the design team. The tinkers of the trade. The illusion artists. The reality manipulators.

Deep seated in their psyche will forever lie the reality dysfunction of a discontinuity in logic, time, space and reason. They will carry this shrapnel shard of splintered black obsidian in their minds for as long as their memory can weather the passage of time.

The splinter. The itchy splinter, that just won't go away. What really happened back then? Which reality was true? The one they believed in, the one that created the illusion or maybe both. Yes, both were simultaneously true but paradoxically incompatible with each other. Oh the splinter, the itchy splinter. It taunts the mind and tortures the memory.