Zurab mikvabia, Director of the Institute of experimental pathology and therapy, which supplied monkeys for experiments in space, says: "We plan to resume the flight program monkeys to Mars". Already go preliminary talks on this issue with the Academy of Astronautics.

The initiative group will build on the joint Russian-European project "Mars-500" and their experiment "Mars-105", which are held with participation of Roskosmos and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Experiment "Mars-105" with total isolation six volunteers in a space expedition began on 30 March 2009. The participants of the experiment - two representatives of the EU and four Russians have been selected from six thousand candidates who submitted applications in IBMP. Three months of isolation became for them the preparation for the main, 520-day experiment, which will fully simulate a flight to Mars.

However, recent studies have shown that exposure to radiation in a long flight, you may exceed permissible norms, and the people on Board the spacecraft would be at risk of exposure.

In this regard, the scientists concluded that the trial space flight to Mars is to go APE. It is planned that the monkey will be accompanied by a robot that will feed her and care for her. The main task of the scientists is to teach a monkey to cooperate with the robot.

At present the Institute carries out a series of studies and tests that will be selected 40 species of animals for further learning. First, scientists IBMP planned to study the effect of chronic and acute exposure monkeys on Earth. The experiment was named "breeze-M" and was held in the framework of the project "Mars-500".

The Institute was created on a machine on which to ground conditions were simulated radiation, having the same properties, which will act on astronauts during interplanetary cruise. During short sessions - 14-30 days - scientists experimentally picked up an adequate dose, then to investigate violations in animals. However, such violations may not be immediately evident, perhaps even in the next generation, so the experiment is designed for several decades.

But the trial space flight with a live monkey will give answers to many questions of the scientists in the near future.

First Soviet cosmonauts sent into orbit a monkey in 1983. Abrek and Bion spent in flight five days. After two years two more "cosmonauts", True and Proud brought this up to seven days, in Earth orbit. Three other space mission involving monkeys were conducted in 1989, 1992 and 1996, after which such flights were cancelled and all experiments with monkeys in space conditions have moved on the Earth. The oldest still the monkey, who flew into space - 16-year-old crash. Her age in human terms corresponds to 60 years.

Today specialists IBMP conduct clinical-physiological research, studied changes in the higher nervous activity of animals and monitor the health of primates, which is irradiated by radiation. However, such experiments have caused the sharp criticism organizations on animal rights.

"The people sacrificed more than 100 million animals in the name of their health and beauty, it is time to think about the alternative to this behavior, I'm sure, scientists simply repeat the story of Laika, the first dog in space. It is not a secret that she died in the first minutes of flight, and her body was traveling in space during two weeks, " said Sergei Zbarskaya, the representative of the international organization for the protection of animals WWF, expressing their attitude to the experiments on living primates.