Air is crucial to human life, and the absence of a breathable atmosphere is one of the main obstacles to discovering other planets. Russian scientists have reproduced a gas mixture that human beings may breathe on the way to Mars and when on the Red Plane

Staff at the Moscow Biomedical Problems Institute have constructed an experimental capsule and reproduced within it the conditions that might be encountered during a mission to Mars.

The gas inside accounts for only one per cent of the Earth’s atmosphere but there’s plenty of it on Mars as the gas inside is  argon.

Mixed in the right proportion with oxygen, it can secure reliable supplies of breathable air.

“We’ve had 60 per cent argon in the capsule. The rest was oxygen and nitrogen. We’ve been testing how humans would react to this mixture of gases and whether they would still be able to fulfill their duties under the psychological and physical pressure,” said project head, Aleksandr Dyachenko.

The ten-day experiment is now officially complete and volunteers say the gas mixture inside the capsule is totally different from the air outside.

“When the hatchway opened I could feel how different the air was. It actually smells. It can’t be compared with the cocktail of gases we’ve had in there,” said volunteer Roman Chernogorov.

Two more experiments are being planned: one for 120 days and another, a real-time simulation called Mars 500, will confine volunteers in the capsule for 500 days.