The long wait

I am sure everyone has heard of the miners trapped in Chile. Already stuck for 19 days, it now appears they have another 3-4 months to wait in the heat (consistently 90-93 degrees) and dark - though thankfully they will soon be given lights and electricity, along with a permanent telephone. One would think it would also be a good time to leverage technology, and send them down some iPhone type devices along with a femtocell - let them call home, watch TV, and play games. Hopefully, these guys mostly being experienced miners, that they are able to hold out. I have to say though, 4 months is a very long time - especially when you know you are not actually in danger: you have nothing to fight against or push against, nothing to make you stay focused on making it out. Chile has gotten in contact with NASA to work on the psychology side of things, seems like that Mars 500 test currently going on in Moscow is going to be put to immediate use. There are definitely reasons to be hopeful however:
"Each of the 33 miners trapped a half-mile underground lived on two spoonfuls of tuna, a sip of milk, a bite of crackers and a morsel of peaches. Every other day.

They were so careful in eating what was supposed to be a two-day emergency supply that when the outside world finally reached them 17 days after a mine collapse, they still had some food left."