The study is the brainchild of a European Space Agency and Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems partnership. The subjects weren't astronauts but volunteers from various parts of the globe with backgrounds in the military and aviation.

But the worst part of the experience? It wasn't language barriers or bad food. It was the "monotony," according to one crew member.

While researchers plan a longer, 520-day simulated trip to Mars (in reality, the roundtrip would still take twice as long), 6 volunteers get to explain to friends and family the thrill of almost not going into space.

I say we just make the whole thing a reality show, drop some sharks in the tank and get the international space program some Fox sponsorship.

Intended to be a bit less intense than BSG's post-apocalyptic doom and gloom, Virtuality is about 12 astronauts on Man's first starship, the Phaeton. They're on a 10-year journey (feeling confident, aren't we Mr. Moore?) and will kill the time by plugging in to their own customized virtual reality worlds—a sort of holodeck meets the Matrix. That killing of time seems to be the focus of the show.

Our sister site io9 has been covering Virtuality quite a bit over the last year from inception to production, so they're a good resource if you'd like to read more about the pilot and potential new program. [io9]

* Wait, another promising sci-fi pilot is coming to Fox? Never mind, it's doomed.