14 Year Celebrity Challenge
An organisation such as NASA could consider using the global popularity of reality shows to test the ability of humans to undergo a 14 year round trip. It could offer a competition prize of million dollars and propose say 20 contestants need spend 14 years aboard an aircraft carrier. All 20 successful applicants would share the index linked prize sum. The aircraft carrier would need converting to be similar to the reality show environments, film crews and contestants kept separate.
Marriage and childbirth upon the aircraft carrier would be permitted. Before the start anything pre-booked will be kept in the carrier's holds. Unlike a real flight in space, TV crews will be allowed on and off the aircraft carrier. Also unlike a real flight in space supplies held on board the carrier may be changed upon request. This would help establish what supplies a group kept in isolation for a 14 year trip would really require, both for psychological and practical reasons. Contestants would be allowed to leave the aircraft carrier for medical treatment only (including childbirth) but in special conditions that prevents any access to world or family news. Any contestants giving up would not be replaced because it would invalidate the "isolation test".
14 Year Celebrity Challenge continued
The conditions imposed may seem impossible for humans to endure. However contestants would have three important things that astronauts in a real space trip would not. Firstly, access to top quality medical treatment at any time. Second, there is no danger of the craft being destroyed in an accident. Lastly supplies are not limited by any factors other than perhaps the show's budget. However the show's income from the television rights would make budgetary constraints unlikely.
Therefore this contest is proposed to test the psychological effects of a 14 year space flight, not what could be realistically placed into orbit and carried aboard a real space craft. Indeed those who firmly believe in a light speed limit might be nicknamed the "baked beans focus group". That is because the issue of nutritional supplies in a real flight would require endless focus upon the weight and integrity of nutritional intake if sub light speeds are being assumed.