So you're holed up in a well-equipped shipping container for the next year and a half. How do you pass the time? By playing Guitar Hero and dreaming of showers.

You can now take a video tour of the “Mars 500″ facility in Moscow, where a six-man crew is spending 520 days simulating a round-trip mission to Mars.

Colombian-Italian crew member Diego Urbina starts out in the living room, where Urbina explains that the team can only watch pre-recorded videos, no TV (which means no World Cup!). But they can also play Guitar Hero and Wii Fit.

Scientists are monitoring the crew members, who also hail from Russia, France and China, for physical and psychological changes that might result from months of isolation. The European Space Agency is keeping the “mission” as true to life as possible — radio communications will be delayed 20 minutes, as they would be on a real interplanetary mission, and emails will take twice that time to get through.

The team members are conducting several studies on themselves, and in the video, Urbina explains how they pass certain samples through an airlock to scientists on the other side.

The crew spends about an hour a day in the gym, testing different types of exercise equipment. Urbina also shows off the “hygiene facilities,” including a special toilet. And he announces that none of the crew members has taken a shower yet.

They're only allowed to shower every 10 days, in an effort to conserve water.

“We're looking forward to this,” Urbina says.

[PhysOrg]