6 ms·

Going to Mars may be routine some day, though!

• ekianjo 7y ago
  Just going to Mars will significantly increase your risk of cancer, unless we find smart ways to repair our genetic material as we go.
  • gambiting 7y ago
    Well, for the journey itself the problem has a simple solution - more shielding. Then of course we have to answer the question of how can we get ships into orbit when they are full of shielding, but that's not insurmountable. The bigger issue is actually living on mars - as romantic as that idea is, human habitation on the surface is really dumb, the radiation level is not insignificant, so anything long term would either have to be shielded or be under ground. And if we are going to build an underground colony....then why not start with one here on Earth?
    • cygx 7y ago
      Then of course we have to answer the question of how can we get ships into orbit when they are full of shielding, but that's not insurmountable. If regular travel becomes a reality, you wouldn't shield the launch vehicle, but the cycler[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_cycler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_cycler
      • isostatic 7y ago
        The benefit of using a cycler rather than a ship that travels orbit-to-orbit is that there is no need to accelerate/decelerate the mass of the ship, just the perishables (people and provisions for the voyage) You would accelerate a small vessel (like a crew dragon or orion), intercept and dock with the much larger cycler, then enter the ship for your x-month trip. When you near mars, you get back into your dragon, and burn away from the cycler, entering into martian approach. 7 people in a Crew Dragon for 18-24 months would not be pleasant. 7 people in a flying space hotel would be far nicer. You could presumably look at using a small asteroid to provide the bulk of the "cycler", offering plenty of shielding for the trip, you'd only have to get it into position once - far less fuel requirement. My understanding though is Musk is planning on using BFR to go surface-to-surface, with maybe a refuel in earth orbit. I believe this is because of the amount of material that needs transporting to Mars for the first 20 years or so, and that mass can be used as useful shielding. Even if Mars becomes self sustaining and doesn't require a large amount of cargo:people ratio, I believe Musk is aiming for a much shorter transit time than 2 years.
        • npongratz 7y ago
          > You could presumably look at using a small asteroid to provide the bulk of the "cycler", offering plenty of shielding for the trip, you'd only have to get it into position once - far less fuel requirement. Or maybe even something like, as some have suggested (not me!), Phobos: http://enterprisemission.com/Phobos.html http://enterprisemission.com/Phobos.html Warning: it's kind of out there. At the very least, it's perhaps interesting as speculative sci-fi.
          • isostatic 7y ago
            Grand theft moon? That's as crazy as Space 1999. Not as crazy as claiming Phobos is an alien spaceship though, with highly places ESA sources due to announce it soon (article date 2010)
          • deleted 7y ago
            [deleted]
    • airstrike 7y ago
      > And if we are going to build an underground colony....then why not start with one here on Earth? Because if an asteroid hits Earth or if the world superpowers decide to go full nuclear, the underground colony in Mars will survive (unless superpowers decide to nuke that from here as well...)
      • gambiting 7y ago
        I'd argue that a colony at the bottom of our own ocean would survive literally any event of any magnitude, maybe except for a direct asteroid strike. In terms of survivability of the human race, that's a better project to start with - and of course then move on to other planets, but underwater/underground colonies would give us lots of insights into living in such environments permanently.
        • airstrike 7y ago
          Fair point, but then we forgo learning how to build a rocket to leave this rock should there ever be a need.
          • gambiting 7y ago
            Just....do both? Have a proper, city-size, self-sustaining colony on the bottom of the ocean, and at the same time keep developing rockets and vehicles to bring as much material and and many robots over to Mars as physically possible. Like, I don't think getting to Mars is an issue - we probably could send and even land someone on Mars within a couple years if we absolutely had to. But then the question is - what then? That's the hard problem.
        • the8472 7y ago
          The pressure range range between vacuum, mars atmosphere and earth atmosphere is 10⁵Pa. The pressure at the bottom of the ocean is 10⁸Pa. Humans can survive the former with little more than strong tensile garment and a breathing apparatus, the latter requires massive, crumple-resistant pressure vessels around everything.
    • SEJeff 7y ago
      The good thing is that Mars is chock full of dormant lava tubes[1]. That provides a solution to the problem you propose assuming we figure out how to seal them and make them habitable for human life. It is an exceptionally difficult, but tractable problem. FTL travel however, is not tractable at all with our current tech and (lack of) understanding of physics. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_lava_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_lava_tube