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I think the most likely way to successfully land on Mars and stay there is to allow for frequent trips back and forth. Obviously I think Musk and SpaceX are tak

by cryptoz 14y ago

I think the most likely way to successfully land on Mars and stay there is to allow for frequent trips back and forth. Obviously I think Musk and SpaceX are taking this approach. Ensure complete and rapid rocket re-usability, make engines that take fuel that Mars mostly provides, and ensure a constant stream of supplies, growth, new people. If your colony is growing, and expanding, and there are frequently (every 2 year) opportunities to come back home, many of the psychological issues can be mitigated. Also, you'll be improving your technology as you build and expand, so you'll be able to fix problems and ensure reliability and safety too. It'll be risky at first of course, and for a long while after that. But I doubt it would be much riskier than we're currently living our lives here on Earth.

rdl 14y ago
In the long run, I agree, but I think you could get a 5-10y headstart by doing a simple "one way and ongoing resupply" profile. The risk would be if that kills demand for the "colonization" profile later, but I really don't think that's likely. Sending some pioneers who are willing to accept far higher risk, first, before a mainstream effort which could support thousands, actually seems like a way to increate demand and lower risk (and thus cost) for the colonization mission. If 5-10 people living on Mars for 5 years ahead of you kills all desire to actually colonize the place in a lasting way, then it probably wasn't worth doing in the first place.
dangrossman 14y ago
> But I doubt it would be much riskier than we're currently living our lives here on Earth. You're probably underestimating the risks associated with humans leaving Earth for any considerable period of time. Radiation is the first issue. NASA will not plan a mission that exposes astronauts to higher than a 3% risk of exposure-induced death. Their reports from 2010 based on all the studies done up to that point put the number of "safe days" at ~0.5-1 years. That assumes a healthy mid-30s non-smoker during a solar minimum. So just getting to Mars would exceed the safe limits, even if we had a very well radiation-shielded base waiting on the planet. Multiple years in space and Mars gravity will also have severe impacts on bone density and muscles. You're never going to be able to fly to Mars, spend a few years, and fly back and resume your life on Earth without long-lasting health effects.
- cryptoz 14y ago
  > So just getting to Mars would exceed the safe limits This is the problem with your argument that I'm underestimating risks. You're assuming that nobody finds a way to solve this problem or to mitigate the effects of the radiation, and that nobody would be willing to find a way to go even with the health concerns. I know this will be extremely difficult and quite costly, but I think hard work and constant innovation will solve a lot of the specific problems that you pose today. > Multiple years in space and Mars gravity will also have severe impacts on bone density and muscles. You're never going to be able to fly to Mars, spend a few years, and fly back and resume your life on Earth without long-lasting health effects. Prove it. Until you do, I disagree. Also, so what if it's true? Hundreds of millions of people on Earth voluntarily partake in long-lasting negative health effects habits. Why can't "living on Mars for a bit" be one of them?
  - smtddr 14y ago
    > Prove it. Until you do, I disagree. Well I can't personally __prove__ it, but I believe the general belief in the science community of prolonged space-travel is that it will most likely mess you up. Probably in more ways than we've even thought of. I don't think, at least with today's tech, that a human can travel to Mars and back and be perfectly okay. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/space-dangers.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/space-dangers.html http://www.cracked.com/article_19158_the-6-weirdest-dangers-space-travel_p2.html http://www.cracked.com/article_19158_the-6-weirdest-dangers-...
    - danielweber 14y ago
      A lot, not all, but a lot of those people popped up after Bush 41 said that we were going back to the moon and to Mars. NASA heard it was a JFK mission, going to be completed regardless of cost, and told their project managers to put as many things into the mission critical path so they would get funded. When they returned to Congress with a 30-year $450 Billion plan, it was funded with 0 dollars. To be fair, we don't know what 3/8 g will to do someone after a year. For all that it's important, though, it's comical that we haven't put some spinning Skylab space stations up to find out.
smnrchrds 14y ago
The thing I'm most worried about is what happens if one of the residents needs medical attention. Mars is going to be a one-way trip and while the pioneers will most probably be young and healthy, they won't stay young and healthy forever. It is entirely possible to place a doctor within the group and send medical supplies, but it could work only for the simplest medical conditions. I think it would be a long time before it would be possible to perform open heart surgeries on Mars, or even fill a tooth.
- eCa 14y ago
  I think you are right. Medical procedures would likely go back to basics: Bad tooth? Pull it out. Broken leg? Maybe amputate. However, with the right provisions fairly advanced procedures should be possible to carry out with minimum personnel. For instance, in 1961 a Russian doctor in Antarctica removed his own infected appendix [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-surgery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-surgery
  - danielweber 14y ago
    Amputate a broken leg? Just how bad do you foresee that injury? It's not like we can't ship anesthetics up there. It's not like a layman can't set a broken bone, although I dunno if an X-ray machine would be there to see.
- lsc 14y ago
  Huh. I'd assume that you'd get top-of-field type people in medicine, science and engineering along for the trip. I'd also assume that you'd get older people, too... brains and experience (and, as they say, getting along with a group) is going to matter more than physical fitness, I would assume. And from what I've seen, most people with technical skills learn social skills much later, if at all. My worry would not be that I'd get stuck with a bunch of peasants, but that the standards would be so high, with regards to education and useful skills, that I would not qualify for the trip. If I was trying to pitch myself at the interview, I'd point out all my experience maintaining older equipment with limited resources. (I'm sure they'd point out that nearly all my repair experience is board-level, not component-level, which is the right thing when you have a lot of cheap spares, such as when dealing with older equipment on earth, but completely the wrong thing when you are in an environment where you have to bring or manufacture everything you use.) I'd also point out my years of 24x7 pager experience, (and my experience in knowing where my burn out point is- I will push back rather than work myself to burn-out) Of course, they'd point out that there exist outliers who can work harder and longer than I can without burn-out, and I'm sure a few of them also know how to spot burn-out coming up. So, yeah; I would assume that if they were taking a credible run at it, they'd get some really good people (including some good medical personnel.)

by cryptoz 14y ago

rdl 14y ago

In the long run, I agree, but I think you could get a 5-10y headstart by doing a simple "one way and ongoing resupply" profile. The risk would be if that kills demand for the "colonization" profile later, but I really don't think that's likely. Sending some pioneers who are willing to accept far higher risk, first, before a mainstream effort which could support thousands, actually seems like a way to increate demand and lower risk (and thus cost) for the colonization mission. If 5-10 people living on Mars for 5 years ahead of you kills all desire to actually colonize the place in a lasting way, then it probably wasn't worth doing in the first place.

dangrossman 14y ago

> But I doubt it would be much riskier than we're currently living our lives here on Earth. You're probably underestimating the risks associated with humans leaving Earth for any considerable period of time. Radiation is the first issue. NASA will not plan a mission that exposes astronauts to higher than a 3% risk of exposure-induced death. Their reports from 2010 based on all the studies done up to that point put the number of "safe days" at ~0.5-1 years. That assumes a healthy mid-30s non-smoker during a solar minimum. So just getting to Mars would exceed the safe limits, even if we had a very well radiation-shielded base waiting on the planet. Multiple years in space and Mars gravity will also have severe impacts on bone density and muscles. You're never going to be able to fly to Mars, spend a few years, and fly back and resume your life on Earth without long-lasting health effects.

cryptoz 14y ago
> So just getting to Mars would exceed the safe limits This is the problem with your argument that I'm underestimating risks. You're assuming that nobody finds a way to solve this problem or to mitigate the effects of the radiation, and that nobody would be willing to find a way to go even with the health concerns. I know this will be extremely difficult and quite costly, but I think hard work and constant innovation will solve a lot of the specific problems that you pose today. > Multiple years in space and Mars gravity will also have severe impacts on bone density and muscles. You're never going to be able to fly to Mars, spend a few years, and fly back and resume your life on Earth without long-lasting health effects. Prove it. Until you do, I disagree. Also, so what if it's true? Hundreds of millions of people on Earth voluntarily partake in long-lasting negative health effects habits. Why can't "living on Mars for a bit" be one of them?
- smtddr 14y ago
  > Prove it. Until you do, I disagree. Well I can't personally __prove__ it, but I believe the general belief in the science community of prolonged space-travel is that it will most likely mess you up. Probably in more ways than we've even thought of. I don't think, at least with today's tech, that a human can travel to Mars and back and be perfectly okay. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/space-dangers.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/space-dangers.html http://www.cracked.com/article_19158_the-6-weirdest-dangers-space-travel_p2.html http://www.cracked.com/article_19158_the-6-weirdest-dangers-...
  - danielweber 14y ago
    A lot, not all, but a lot of those people popped up after Bush 41 said that we were going back to the moon and to Mars. NASA heard it was a JFK mission, going to be completed regardless of cost, and told their project managers to put as many things into the mission critical path so they would get funded. When they returned to Congress with a 30-year $450 Billion plan, it was funded with 0 dollars. To be fair, we don't know what 3/8 g will to do someone after a year. For all that it's important, though, it's comical that we haven't put some spinning Skylab space stations up to find out.

smnrchrds 14y ago

The thing I'm most worried about is what happens if one of the residents needs medical attention. Mars is going to be a one-way trip and while the pioneers will most probably be young and healthy, they won't stay young and healthy forever. It is entirely possible to place a doctor within the group and send medical supplies, but it could work only for the simplest medical conditions. I think it would be a long time before it would be possible to perform open heart surgeries on Mars, or even fill a tooth.

eCa 14y ago
I think you are right. Medical procedures would likely go back to basics: Bad tooth? Pull it out. Broken leg? Maybe amputate. However, with the right provisions fairly advanced procedures should be possible to carry out with minimum personnel. For instance, in 1961 a Russian doctor in Antarctica removed his own infected appendix [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-surgery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-surgery
- danielweber 14y ago
  Amputate a broken leg? Just how bad do you foresee that injury? It's not like we can't ship anesthetics up there. It's not like a layman can't set a broken bone, although I dunno if an X-ray machine would be there to see.
lsc 14y ago
Huh. I'd assume that you'd get top-of-field type people in medicine, science and engineering along for the trip. I'd also assume that you'd get older people, too... brains and experience (and, as they say, getting along with a group) is going to matter more than physical fitness, I would assume. And from what I've seen, most people with technical skills learn social skills much later, if at all. My worry would not be that I'd get stuck with a bunch of peasants, but that the standards would be so high, with regards to education and useful skills, that I would not qualify for the trip. If I was trying to pitch myself at the interview, I'd point out all my experience maintaining older equipment with limited resources. (I'm sure they'd point out that nearly all my repair experience is board-level, not component-level, which is the right thing when you have a lot of cheap spares, such as when dealing with older equipment on earth, but completely the wrong thing when you are in an environment where you have to bring or manufacture everything you use.) I'd also point out my years of 24x7 pager experience, (and my experience in knowing where my burn out point is- I will push back rather than work myself to burn-out) Of course, they'd point out that there exist outliers who can work harder and longer than I can without burn-out, and I'm sure a few of them also know how to spot burn-out coming up. So, yeah; I would assume that if they were taking a credible run at it, they'd get some really good people (including some good medical personnel.)