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Does anybody know how one could get involved in Mars Settlement. I would like to help out and go.

by tdhz77 10y ago

3pt14159 10y ago
If you are serious, the easiest way is to start saving a fairly big chunk of money. The first people to Mars will be astronauts, and competition for those seats is extremely high. You are better off being person 50,000 and the way that looks like it is shaping out is with a fairly large cash outlay, or an extremely valuable profession that has a statistically lower likelihood of being learned within a couple years by a very motivated person.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ryanmarsh 10y ago
Become an astronaut. I know we like to talk about privately funded trips to mars but the reality is the mission hardware for the first many missions is not likely to be entrusted to people who have not met rigorous requirements for spaceflight.
- nickff 10y ago
  The requirements for spaceflight are not so rigorous anymore. There have already been paying passengers (who were non-astronauts) on Russian space vehicles. Much like with a commercial airliner, the pilot has to know what they are doing, and the rest of the people have to know how to sit down and buckle-up. The current issue seems to be that because it is so expensive to send people up, they only send up the very best they can train.
  - schoen 10y ago
    It would probably be different for orbital missions as opposed to interplanetary missions -- at least at first!
otabdeveloper1 10y ago
We will settle Venus long before attempting Mars. Anybody talking about going to Mars is spouting marketing vapor.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  This is a really odd claim. A Venus settlement requires flying cities. I have a hard time imagining how anyone thinks that's easier than a greenhouse on Mars. Wiki says: > Furthermore, water, in any form, is almost entirely absent from Venus. The atmosphere is devoid of molecular oxygen and is primarily carbon dioxide. In addition, the visible clouds are composed of corrosive sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide vapor.
  - bilbo0s 10y ago
    Especially in 300+ Km/H winds. It'd be like building a cloud city in Hurricane Katrina.
    - gene-h 10y ago
      Of course if one moves with the wind then the apparent windspeed, or airspeed, is zero.
      - ceejayoz 10y ago
        I wouldn't assume there are no wind gusts on Venus.
- lucb1e 10y ago
  That's the first time I've heard anyone say that. Care to elaborate on why it would be easier than on Mars?
  - aetherson 10y ago
    So the advantages of Venus: 1. It's closer. 2. It has essentially Earth-normal gravity. 3. It has an atmosphere that can shield you from radiation and meteorites. 4. It's closer to the sun, so solar power works well there. 5. The atmosphere makes available a variety of useful elements that would be difficult to get on most other parts of the solar system. 6. As it happens, there's a fairly happy medium in the atmosphere in which pressure is something generally like Earth pressure and temperatures are something generally like Earth temperatures and that part is also above most of the really corrosive stuff in the atmosphere. The downsides: 1. You have to develop floating habitats. Those seem possible in theory, but would certainly be an engineering challenge, to say the least. 2. Every element that is not prevalent in the atmosphere of the planet (such as, for example, every metal) is wildly inaccessible. 3. It's a deep gravity well to get into and out of, and also you'd have to land and launch from flight, which is another big engineering challenge.
gaius 10y ago
Joining the Air Force is probably the most direct route, or becoming an expert in any of the technologies a settlement would need a human operator of, or both.
vkou 10y ago
Start by spending a winter in Antarctica. There's always demand for semi-skilled and quasi-skilled labour there. Plumbers, carpenters, construction workers, lab techs. You'll even get paid for it, and are almost certainly not going to die. Read some blogs about life in a frozen hell before you go - you may very quickly realize whether or not this kind of thing is for you. Most people find that it's not. [1] > Antarctica’s problem is that you’ve run as far as a person possibly can to “escape”. I heard about every relationship shattered by the distance to the Ice…and all the ones that ended before you even thought about coming to Antarctica. The strings of jobs and towns abandoned as you tried to make a new start, a new life, in the next town, or state, or country over. But once you get to Antarctica, there’s simply nowhere further to go. Then the station closes for the winter with no more flights for nine months. When things start going wrong for you again, because the common denominator in all the situations you’ve fled from is you, you’re trapped. So you’d better get acquainted with yourself OR you can just drink yourself to oblivion and kill the days so that you aren’t even there. I’m not going to put a number on how many people took the latter route, but I’m having a hard time thinking of any that really made the former work. [1] http://www.funraniumlabs.com/2013/06/alcoholism-in-antarctica/ http://www.funraniumlabs.com/2013/06/alcoholism-in-antarctic...
- veb 10y ago
  Fantastic read! Thanks.

Does anybody know how one could get involved in Mars Settlement. I would like to help out and go.

by tdhz77 10y ago

Does anybody know how one could get involved in Mars Settlement. I would like to help out and go.

If you are serious, the easiest way is to start saving a fairly big chunk of money. The first people to Mars will be astronauts, and competition for those seats is extremely high. You are better off being person 50,000 and the way that looks like it is shaping out is with a fairly large cash outlay, or an extremely valuable profession that has a statistically lower likelihood of being learned within a couple years by a very motivated person.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ryanmarsh 10y ago

Become an astronaut. I know we like to talk about privately funded trips to mars but the reality is the mission hardware for the first many missions is not likely to be entrusted to people who have not met rigorous requirements for spaceflight.

nickff 10y ago
The requirements for spaceflight are not so rigorous anymore. There have already been paying passengers (who were non-astronauts) on Russian space vehicles. Much like with a commercial airliner, the pilot has to know what they are doing, and the rest of the people have to know how to sit down and buckle-up. The current issue seems to be that because it is so expensive to send people up, they only send up the very best they can train.
- schoen 10y ago
  It would probably be different for orbital missions as opposed to interplanetary missions -- at least at first!

otabdeveloper1 10y ago

We will settle Venus long before attempting Mars. Anybody talking about going to Mars is spouting marketing vapor.

ceejayoz 10y ago
This is a really odd claim. A Venus settlement requires flying cities. I have a hard time imagining how anyone thinks that's easier than a greenhouse on Mars. Wiki says: > Furthermore, water, in any form, is almost entirely absent from Venus. The atmosphere is devoid of molecular oxygen and is primarily carbon dioxide. In addition, the visible clouds are composed of corrosive sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide vapor.
- bilbo0s 10y ago
  Especially in 300+ Km/H winds. It'd be like building a cloud city in Hurricane Katrina.
  - gene-h 10y ago
    Of course if one moves with the wind then the apparent windspeed, or airspeed, is zero.
    - ceejayoz 10y ago
      I wouldn't assume there are no wind gusts on Venus.
lucb1e 10y ago
That's the first time I've heard anyone say that. Care to elaborate on why it would be easier than on Mars?
- aetherson 10y ago
  So the advantages of Venus: 1. It's closer. 2. It has essentially Earth-normal gravity. 3. It has an atmosphere that can shield you from radiation and meteorites. 4. It's closer to the sun, so solar power works well there. 5. The atmosphere makes available a variety of useful elements that would be difficult to get on most other parts of the solar system. 6. As it happens, there's a fairly happy medium in the atmosphere in which pressure is something generally like Earth pressure and temperatures are something generally like Earth temperatures and that part is also above most of the really corrosive stuff in the atmosphere. The downsides: 1. You have to develop floating habitats. Those seem possible in theory, but would certainly be an engineering challenge, to say the least. 2. Every element that is not prevalent in the atmosphere of the planet (such as, for example, every metal) is wildly inaccessible. 3. It's a deep gravity well to get into and out of, and also you'd have to land and launch from flight, which is another big engineering challenge.

gaius 10y ago

Joining the Air Force is probably the most direct route, or becoming an expert in any of the technologies a settlement would need a human operator of, or both.

vkou 10y ago

Start by spending a winter in Antarctica. There's always demand for semi-skilled and quasi-skilled labour there. Plumbers, carpenters, construction workers, lab techs. You'll even get paid for it, and are almost certainly not going to die. Read some blogs about life in a frozen hell before you go - you may very quickly realize whether or not this kind of thing is for you. Most people find that it's not. [1] > Antarctica’s problem is that you’ve run as far as a person possibly can to “escape”. I heard about every relationship shattered by the distance to the Ice…and all the ones that ended before you even thought about coming to Antarctica. The strings of jobs and towns abandoned as you tried to make a new start, a new life, in the next town, or state, or country over. But once you get to Antarctica, there’s simply nowhere further to go. Then the station closes for the winter with no more flights for nine months. When things start going wrong for you again, because the common denominator in all the situations you’ve fled from is you, you’re trapped. So you’d better get acquainted with yourself OR you can just drink yourself to oblivion and kill the days so that you aren’t even there. I’m not going to put a number on how many people took the latter route, but I’m having a hard time thinking of any that really made the former work. [1] http://www.funraniumlabs.com/2013/06/alcoholism-in-antarctica/ http://www.funraniumlabs.com/2013/06/alcoholism-in-antarctic...

veb 10y ago
Fantastic read! Thanks.