Rejoice! Six fake astronauts near the end of their simulated Mars mission, and will set foot on Earth, which they will pretend is Mars. It’s the closest a human will get to the real thing for a very long time.

The journey will ultimately take 520 days, during which time these international pseudo-nauts will have been subjected to all manner of Mars voyage-related experiments, “mishaps” and just 52 showers each in their 1,800-square-foot vessel. Mishaps is in quotes because every catastrophe or challenge was created by engineers monitoring the fake astronauts from the outside.

In December, a “crisis” struck that is probably the nightmare of many an astronaut: the electricity in the module went out. Of course, every mishap is planned by the Russian engineers on the outside, but the astronauts don’t know when and how set-backs will happen. As one of the astronauts wrote in his diary:

We didn’t know how long it would take for the engineers’ team to solve the problem. So, to save some power on the emergency batteries and to avoid any new issues, we unplugged all the electric devices and we even removed the bulb of some security lamps which weren’t needed. In the end only two lights remained: one in the kitchen and one near the bathroom.

To their credit, these six men did not eat the weakest of their number when disaster struck, nor did they panic and open the fake airlocks when all seemed lost, as it did when they were pooping and showering and eating in near darkness during that harrowing power outage. With only 10,000 fake miles to go before reaching Mars orbit, the journey is nearly done. Final touchdown takes place in November.

Dammit, they survived, and we could all learn a fake thing or two from their journey into the vast unknown blackness known as “Moscow.” Rejoice!

Updated: To clarify, the “space travel” portion of the journey is coming to an end, with only 10,000 miles left to go, at which point the craft will “land” on “Mars” and begin the second phase on the surface. Discover

Send an email to Jack Loftus, the author of this post, at jloftus@gizmodo.com.

By Chris Scott Barr

If you’re wanting an authentic looking lightsaber, then you’re probably going to look at purchasing one that’s been mass-produced. Generally the Force FX sabers are the go-to for authenticity. However, not everyone wants something that was built in a factory. After all, part of the jedi training is building your own lightsaber, and that’s exactly what Bradley Lewis has done.

Looking through the pictures on his website and watching the video below, this guy has thought of everything. Something you don’t see on most crafted sabers is the ability to open it up and see the “power crystal.” Granted, it’s actually just a set of LEDs, but who cares? If you have the time, patience, skills and tools, then you’ll find the step-by-step instructions on his site most helpful on your journey to become a jedi.

Slothfurnace VIA UberReview

Posted on Dec 1, 10 01:11 PM PDT

The North American Aerospace Defense Command is launching its Santa tracker for the fifty-fifth consecutive year and has launched the NORAD Santa website to help people track Santa Claus. The website will feature rotating holiday games and activities, and on December 24th, will feature videos captured from Santa Cams along Santa’s journey. At midnight MST on December 24th, Santa will go through his check list and begin his journey and children can track his sleigh ride with up-to-the-minute map updates from Google Maps and Google Earth on NORAD Tracks Santa website.

This year, children are able to track Santa through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and TroopTube. To follow us on these Santa-tracking tools, type in “@noradsanta” into the search engine to start your tracking.

The tradition of tracking Santa began in 1958 and was inspired by a child who had called a misprinted number in an advertisement to the Contental Air Defense Command Operations Center in Colorado in 1955. The commander on duty gave the child the request information on where Santa is and his progress on his journey around the world.

Today kids can call in from 4 AM EST on December 24th through 5 AM EST on December 25th to 1-877-Hi-NORAD to track Santa in addition to visiting the www.noradsanta.org website.

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It’s that time again. GadgetReview has teamed up with Balanzza to give away one of their portable luggage scales. It’s small enough to fit in your carry on – heck, even your pocket – and let’s you measure your luggages’ weight on the fly. You can use it for the initial leg of your journey to insure you not over weight or on your return, after you’ve purchased family gifts.

We’re giving away one of these. To enter you must be a US resident and submit a comment below with an email address (so we can contact you). Don’t put your email address in the comment, just register it with the comment in the appropriate field. We’ll choose one winner at random.

The comments are moderated so please be patient and enter only one. If you want a double entry follow us on Twitter and tweet “@gadgetreview #balanzza”.

This contest ends 11/19/2010