A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed in Moscow between the Biomedical Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Science and the Italian scientific and industrial consortium “TuscaRnet” to launch a new season of studies on isolation and human interplanetary flight simulations, as part of a five-year project known as Sirius (“Scientific International Research In a Unique terrestrial Station”).
The consortium consists of four Italian universities (University of Pisa, University of Florence, Scuola Normale Superiore, Scuola Sant’Anna), the CNR and around 40 high-tech companies. The estimated investment by Italy is 40 million euros. The project plans to develop innovative and dedicated instrumentation technologies to conduct an extremely wide range of joint Italo-Russian experiments. The subject of the study is human beings and their normal or abnormal reaction to the “stress” associated with the extreme conditions of space travel. The programme is expected to have a significant impact on terrestrial medicine and biomedical technologies in general.
