7 ms·

With manned missions on the horizon, are there any plans to settle the question for good? Once humans are living there for weeks (months?) it would be very har

by narag 3y ago

With manned missions on the horizon, are there any plans to settle the question for good? Once humans are living there for weeks (months?) it would be very hard to enforce a no-contamination policy.

gigglesupstairs 3y ago
Manned missions are not in fact on the horizon. At all.
- narag 3y ago
  I guess we have different notions of what the horizon is. For me is "in my lifetime". To put it in context: I watched the first Moon landing on TV as a child, so I'm used to wait.
  - ninkendo 3y ago
    If you are old enough to have watched the moon landings on TV, my bet is that we will not see a manned mars mission in your lifetime. (I have my doubts it will happen in the next 40 years.)
    - narag 3y ago
      Do you accept the bet to be paid in person? :) You all are focusing on labeling the time to humans in Mars. But how about the time to completely discard that life exists now in Mars? How much time would it take to design, build and send a mission of this nature? It's the ratio of the two times that matters.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      It's funny how much things change over a decade, yet it never feels like anything is happening on a day by day, or even year by year basis. Just imagine going back 10 years in time and trying to describe to yourself what the next 10 years holds. You'd probably think yourself crazy! But to the point, in 2011 the US passed a law banning China from participating in the not-so-international ISS. The arguments given were that China had nothing to offer, and implicitly - that they'd just steal everything. Today, just slightly more than a decade later - they have one of the most advanced space programs on the planet, have built, launched, and manned their own space station, executed sample return missions from the Moon (the first since 1976!), and more. What would you have thought the odds of that in 2011? And all of these things are the sort of stuff that is happening in just a decade. The world is changing extremely quickly (even if it often doesn't feel like it), and space tech is one of the fastest advancing industries right now. I think the best window into the future is the past. Look at the trajectory we're on, not necessarily just the US - but the whole world. It's a good one, at least as far as space goes.
      - bnralt 3y ago
        Here's an NPR article from 2011: > The country is now due to launch Tiangong-1, the first module of its own space station, possibly before the end of September this year. This will dock with an unmanned spaceship, Shenzhou-8, in China's first ever in-orbit docking attempt. Next year, two or three astronauts will be sent into space for the first manned docking. > Beijing hopes to put a rover on the moon by 2013, and then a man on the moon, as well as opening its own space station by around 2020. But its ambitions could be greater still than those being publicly announced. > "What we have seen again in reporting, as opposed to official documents, seems to be a group of Skylab-type Tiangong stations to be followed by a Chinese version of the International Space Station, which would suggest that China is aiming for a long-term human presence in [inner] Earth orbit," says Dean Cheng, an expert in China's space program at the Heritage Foundation. "Given past Chinese history — which is that their missions always last longer, weigh more, achieve more [than U.S. missions] — it is quite likely that the Chinese would try to set up some kind of longer-term presence on the moon, measured in weeks or maybe months." https://www.npr.org/2011/07/13/137815962/china-seeks-to-carve-out-a-space-of-its-own https://www.npr.org/2011/07/13/137815962/china-seeks-to-carv...
  - monkeynotes 3y ago
    I don't think it's a very common understanding that on the horizon covers a span of 50+ years. It doesn't conform to any definitions I can think of, I'd hate to wait for a payrise that's "on the horizon" in your world.
  - bregma 3y ago
    I watched the moon landings as a child. I don't expect to see humans set foot on the moon again in my lifetime. I do however expect to see opportunists suckling on the fatted pork barrel here on earth up until my expiry date. Mars is a realistically unobtainable goal but certainly a lot of people will be gainfully employed not getting there.
    - borissk 3y ago
      There will be people on the Moon within the next 10 years. Both Chinese and American. Sending humans to Mars is completely doable with chemical rockets. Just a matter of investing enough money. If SpaceX is successful with further development of Starship they can very likely send people to Mars by 2040.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      Why? I can understand the pessimism about bigger goals (like colonizing Mars), even I may not agree with it, but a man on the Moon? Even if one thinks the entire US Public system is dysfunctional, SpaceX is actively pursuing such a goal and advancing space tech at a rate faster than any time in our history, excepting perhaps that magical ~1959-1969 window. And even if you have doubts about private industry, then there's China. They have all the motivation, capability, risk tolerance, funding, and more necessary. They have the stated goal of putting astronauts on the Moon by 2030, and there's no reason to think they won't succeed. They've been nailing their space goals in both terms of success and timeline. And if we look a bit more optimistically there are all sorts of third parties that would like to get back in the game, or newcomers looking to find their own place in it.
- QuadmasterXLII 3y ago
  Well, neither are vertical landing re-usable rockets, a rocket twice the thrust of saturn V, or a mass market electric car.
  - RetpolineDrama 3y ago
    With Raptor 3 Starship will pass _three_ times the thrust of Saturn V! It's absolutely nutty.
- RetpolineDrama 3y ago
  You're in for a wild surprise then. I almost envy that.
api 3y ago
There aren't any manned missions to Mars on the horizon. Returning to the Moon possibly to stay is on the horizon for the next decade or so, with concrete plans taking shape and launch capabilities either there or nearly there. I think we'll see what amounts to McMurdo on the Moon long before we see humans on Mars, and it really makes the most sense because the Moon is only a few days away vs. months away. If something goes wrong on the Moon supplies can be sent or people can come home quickly, whereas on Mars a major failure or health problem equals almost certain death with no hope of rescue or return in time. The Moon makes more sense economically too. It's close enough for mining and/or tourism to at least offset the cost a little. Elon's fixation on Mars or bust is kind of irrational and monomaniacal.
- narag 3y ago
  Elon's fixation on Mars or bust is kind of irrational and monomaniacal. I'm more of a Moon fan really, but I wouldn't bet against him reaching Mars in the next twenty years or so. The man is persistent.
  - Zigurd 3y ago
    I would readily bet against that. It is unclear if humans can be delivered to Mars in good enough condition to do meaningful exploration where a human presence would make a difference. Shorter-term, it is unclear if Starship is the right rocket for any purpose due to being spec'ed for such a wide range of purposes, and incompletely spec'ed due to faith in an iterative development process that may be totally inappropriate for developing large complex systems. It is conceivable that a Moon station could be built and manned for a relatively small multiple of the cost of the ISS. It is conceivable such a station could be evacuated in the event of a serious failure. It is conceivable that humanity will learn interesting things about the Moon and perhaps do astronomy that would be otherwise impractical. Landing humans on Mars and not killing them would be the highest accomplishment of sending humans to Mars. Some things will have to wait for post-humans to be created, if that ever turns out to be a good idea.
    - narag 3y ago
gregoriol 3y ago
The scale of systems to set up there for humans to stay for weeks is mind-blowing compared to the robots currently there: it's likely not before tens of years. Even doing so on the moon is years away. Sending robots with more science equipments seems more likely in our lifetime. Would humans there be more efficient than robots to solve this question? not very likely: humans would need more tools to perform the same research.
- the_duke 3y ago
  The next US moon landing will use SpaceX Starship, which is huge and totally oversized for the purpose of getting two or three people on the moon. They could probably easily load up enough supplies and equipment for longer mission durations, depending on fuel requirements and boil off.
  - sdenton4 3y ago
    Assuming it lands right side up, of course...
- lukan 3y ago
  "The scale of systems to set up there for humans to stay for weeks is mind-blowing" Aren't they basically the same systems, that also sustain them in space? Like on the ISS? So you need to land such a module and have enough fuel, oxygen and supplies? Not saying, that it is easy, but you make it sound like it is a completely different and harder challenge than living in space? The only increased problem I can think of, might be the microdust.
  - dmurray 3y ago
    Energy is another increased problem. You need a lot more solar panels, and likely batteries, to supply the same energy as you get in lunar orbit. At least one order of magnitude more mass.
    - lukan 3y ago
tiborsaas 3y ago
I'm not sure I understand this whole contamination argument. There are so many ways to find signs of life, it could be a fossil, it could be frozen in ice deep underground it could be evidence of non-Earth compatible biology. Sure, once humans are there we should check every alien life discovery with unprecedented rigour, but there could be evidence which can't be explained with "humans brought it with them" type of reasoning.

by narag 3y ago

With manned missions on the horizon, are there any plans to settle the question for good? Once humans are living there for weeks (months?) it would be very hard to enforce a no-contamination policy.

gigglesupstairs 3y ago

Manned missions are not in fact on the horizon. At all.

narag 3y ago
I guess we have different notions of what the horizon is. For me is "in my lifetime". To put it in context: I watched the first Moon landing on TV as a child, so I'm used to wait.
- ninkendo 3y ago
  If you are old enough to have watched the moon landings on TV, my bet is that we will not see a manned mars mission in your lifetime. (I have my doubts it will happen in the next 40 years.)
  - narag 3y ago
    Do you accept the bet to be paid in person? :) You all are focusing on labeling the time to humans in Mars. But how about the time to completely discard that life exists now in Mars? How much time would it take to design, build and send a mission of this nature? It's the ratio of the two times that matters.
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    It's funny how much things change over a decade, yet it never feels like anything is happening on a day by day, or even year by year basis. Just imagine going back 10 years in time and trying to describe to yourself what the next 10 years holds. You'd probably think yourself crazy! But to the point, in 2011 the US passed a law banning China from participating in the not-so-international ISS. The arguments given were that China had nothing to offer, and implicitly - that they'd just steal everything. Today, just slightly more than a decade later - they have one of the most advanced space programs on the planet, have built, launched, and manned their own space station, executed sample return missions from the Moon (the first since 1976!), and more. What would you have thought the odds of that in 2011? And all of these things are the sort of stuff that is happening in just a decade. The world is changing extremely quickly (even if it often doesn't feel like it), and space tech is one of the fastest advancing industries right now. I think the best window into the future is the past. Look at the trajectory we're on, not necessarily just the US - but the whole world. It's a good one, at least as far as space goes.
    - bnralt 3y ago
      Here's an NPR article from 2011: > The country is now due to launch Tiangong-1, the first module of its own space station, possibly before the end of September this year. This will dock with an unmanned spaceship, Shenzhou-8, in China's first ever in-orbit docking attempt. Next year, two or three astronauts will be sent into space for the first manned docking. > Beijing hopes to put a rover on the moon by 2013, and then a man on the moon, as well as opening its own space station by around 2020. But its ambitions could be greater still than those being publicly announced. > "What we have seen again in reporting, as opposed to official documents, seems to be a group of Skylab-type Tiangong stations to be followed by a Chinese version of the International Space Station, which would suggest that China is aiming for a long-term human presence in [inner] Earth orbit," says Dean Cheng, an expert in China's space program at the Heritage Foundation. "Given past Chinese history — which is that their missions always last longer, weigh more, achieve more [than U.S. missions] — it is quite likely that the Chinese would try to set up some kind of longer-term presence on the moon, measured in weeks or maybe months." https://www.npr.org/2011/07/13/137815962/china-seeks-to-carve-out-a-space-of-its-own https://www.npr.org/2011/07/13/137815962/china-seeks-to-carv...
- monkeynotes 3y ago
  I don't think it's a very common understanding that on the horizon covers a span of 50+ years. It doesn't conform to any definitions I can think of, I'd hate to wait for a payrise that's "on the horizon" in your world.
- bregma 3y ago
  I watched the moon landings as a child. I don't expect to see humans set foot on the moon again in my lifetime. I do however expect to see opportunists suckling on the fatted pork barrel here on earth up until my expiry date. Mars is a realistically unobtainable goal but certainly a lot of people will be gainfully employed not getting there.
  - borissk 3y ago
    There will be people on the Moon within the next 10 years. Both Chinese and American. Sending humans to Mars is completely doable with chemical rockets. Just a matter of investing enough money. If SpaceX is successful with further development of Starship they can very likely send people to Mars by 2040.
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    Why? I can understand the pessimism about bigger goals (like colonizing Mars), even I may not agree with it, but a man on the Moon? Even if one thinks the entire US Public system is dysfunctional, SpaceX is actively pursuing such a goal and advancing space tech at a rate faster than any time in our history, excepting perhaps that magical ~1959-1969 window. And even if you have doubts about private industry, then there's China. They have all the motivation, capability, risk tolerance, funding, and more necessary. They have the stated goal of putting astronauts on the Moon by 2030, and there's no reason to think they won't succeed. They've been nailing their space goals in both terms of success and timeline. And if we look a bit more optimistically there are all sorts of third parties that would like to get back in the game, or newcomers looking to find their own place in it.
QuadmasterXLII 3y ago
Well, neither are vertical landing re-usable rockets, a rocket twice the thrust of saturn V, or a mass market electric car.
- RetpolineDrama 3y ago
  With Raptor 3 Starship will pass _three_ times the thrust of Saturn V! It's absolutely nutty.
RetpolineDrama 3y ago
You're in for a wild surprise then. I almost envy that.

api 3y ago

There aren't any manned missions to Mars on the horizon. Returning to the Moon possibly to stay is on the horizon for the next decade or so, with concrete plans taking shape and launch capabilities either there or nearly there. I think we'll see what amounts to McMurdo on the Moon long before we see humans on Mars, and it really makes the most sense because the Moon is only a few days away vs. months away. If something goes wrong on the Moon supplies can be sent or people can come home quickly, whereas on Mars a major failure or health problem equals almost certain death with no hope of rescue or return in time. The Moon makes more sense economically too. It's close enough for mining and/or tourism to at least offset the cost a little. Elon's fixation on Mars or bust is kind of irrational and monomaniacal.

narag 3y ago
Elon's fixation on Mars or bust is kind of irrational and monomaniacal. I'm more of a Moon fan really, but I wouldn't bet against him reaching Mars in the next twenty years or so. The man is persistent.
- Zigurd 3y ago
  I would readily bet against that. It is unclear if humans can be delivered to Mars in good enough condition to do meaningful exploration where a human presence would make a difference. Shorter-term, it is unclear if Starship is the right rocket for any purpose due to being spec'ed for such a wide range of purposes, and incompletely spec'ed due to faith in an iterative development process that may be totally inappropriate for developing large complex systems. It is conceivable that a Moon station could be built and manned for a relatively small multiple of the cost of the ISS. It is conceivable such a station could be evacuated in the event of a serious failure. It is conceivable that humanity will learn interesting things about the Moon and perhaps do astronomy that would be otherwise impractical. Landing humans on Mars and not killing them would be the highest accomplishment of sending humans to Mars. Some things will have to wait for post-humans to be created, if that ever turns out to be a good idea.
  - narag 3y ago

gregoriol 3y ago

The scale of systems to set up there for humans to stay for weeks is mind-blowing compared to the robots currently there: it's likely not before tens of years. Even doing so on the moon is years away. Sending robots with more science equipments seems more likely in our lifetime. Would humans there be more efficient than robots to solve this question? not very likely: humans would need more tools to perform the same research.

the_duke 3y ago
The next US moon landing will use SpaceX Starship, which is huge and totally oversized for the purpose of getting two or three people on the moon. They could probably easily load up enough supplies and equipment for longer mission durations, depending on fuel requirements and boil off.
- sdenton4 3y ago
  Assuming it lands right side up, of course...
lukan 3y ago
"The scale of systems to set up there for humans to stay for weeks is mind-blowing" Aren't they basically the same systems, that also sustain them in space? Like on the ISS? So you need to land such a module and have enough fuel, oxygen and supplies? Not saying, that it is easy, but you make it sound like it is a completely different and harder challenge than living in space? The only increased problem I can think of, might be the microdust.
- dmurray 3y ago
  Energy is another increased problem. You need a lot more solar panels, and likely batteries, to supply the same energy as you get in lunar orbit. At least one order of magnitude more mass.
  - lukan 3y ago

tiborsaas 3y ago

I'm not sure I understand this whole contamination argument. There are so many ways to find signs of life, it could be a fossil, it could be frozen in ice deep underground it could be evidence of non-Earth compatible biology. Sure, once humans are there we should check every alien life discovery with unprecedented rigour, but there could be evidence which can't be explained with "humans brought it with them" type of reasoning.