'Mouse-onauts' in Mars mission

By Mike Workman
BBC News

The mouse-onauts will parachute back to Earth

Fifteen mice are to be sent into space to help preparations for possible human missions to Mars, scientists say.

The US and Australian university space researchers say they hope to launch the "mouse-onauts" sometime in 2006.

The rodents will spend five weeks in low Earth orbit before parachuting back to Earth.

Although animals have been used in the space programme since its inception, this mission would be the longest that any have spent in space.

Paul Wooster from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - who is in charge of the project involving three universities - said the mice would provide valuable data about the effects that the low gravity of Mars would have on the human body.

"What we're really trying to find out is what the effects are while they're there, and if there are any countermeasures we should be developing to help them out while they're on the surface including different types of exercise protocols as well as various pharmacological methods," he said.

The scientists say the data from the tiny space-travellers could then be used to plan exactly what humans would be capable of while they were on the Martian surface.

Earth understanding

Mr Wooster also says the data obtained could cast new light on the treatment of the bone disease osteoporosis here on Earth.

"The rate of bone loss in an astronaut is actually about 1%-2% of their bone mass per month which is equivalent to an 80-year-old grandmother with osteoporosis over the length of one year," he said.

"As we look at the bone loss we can begin to understand, to a better extent, the overall process of osteoporosis."

The project, which has the support of Nasa, is one of the most complex ever under taken outside of the space agency.

Significantly though, it is not just being funded from public sources: its success will also depend on raising enough money from the private sector.