Whaddya mean - NO HYPERSPACE??

The Mars-500 unit is experimenting with volunteers to study how the human body will respond to the stresses of long term isolation. The volunteers will be isolated in a spaceship sized unit for 500 days so that scientists can get a realistic look of how things would go on a manned trip to the planet Mars.

I was explaining all this to my daughters as we read the news together this morning. My oldest asked me, "Why does it need to take that long? Can't they just go into hyper-space?" It looks like someone has been watching a leeeetle bit too much Star Wars.