Before all the Lance Basses of the world move to Moscow, the expedition is only simulated and totally earthbound. The “flight” - set to launch in the last quarter of 2007 -  will never leave the premises of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medical and Biological Research. The "ships" are actually five modules with a total space of 19,500 square feet (550 cubic meters), representing the Mars landing craft and base.

According Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) website, to make the cut, applicants must be between 25 and 50 years old. Doctors, engineers, biologist or computation instrument specialist gets extra points during the selection process. Unfortunately, being a former member of a boy band gets zero extra points. The announcement didn't specify the gender mix of five "winners."

The "Marsanauts" will spend 520 days with an option of extending it to 700 days. The trip to the red planet will take 250 days, one way. Throughout the mission, the crew would be communicating with 'mission control' via e-mail and video links for communications within the ship and with the landing module.

The pretend crew will have a five-day working week with weekends off and will be exposed to stress tests in the form of various simulated emergencies including onsite malfunctioning of equipment and systems. The simulation will study the effect of deep space mission on the crew’s health , test remote diagnosis and treatment via video-links, and organize crew activities and work to prevent any negative impacts prolonged spaceflight would have on human health.

One more thing, neither smoking nor alcohol will be allowed so Big Brother veterans need not apply.