Can humans make it to Mars?

[Genius]

I know that this topic is debated over and over again. Bored?:blink:
The technology surely are in place to take such an mission.
And there is the WILL to do that. But the one thing that coming up in my mind is this:
The poor humans will be in confined spaces for a loooooooooong time.
The module will surely be much confined to speak the least. And when they reach Mars and land there, they will still be limited what they can do. I mean, crampy spacesuit!!!
And they will also be confined to the Lander.
THAT I think will be the real challenge.:huh:

 

[Urwumpe]

Of course they can. It is not like it is impossible. Only pretty hard. About confinement, people can work on submarines and oil rigs almost as long as required for a trip to mars. Antarctica researchers have to wear protective clothing every time they leave the secure buildings.

Also, I know many people who are happy with their 20 m², as long as they can play WoW.

 

[Belisarius]

That's why NASA is experimenting with suspended animation or induced coma right now.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/nasa-offers-500.html

I personally think the best way to get humans on Mars is the "One Way Only" mode, i.e. the astronaut or astronauts go there and never come back. Their survival would be at risk, but there is no shortage of qualified volunteers

http://blogs.abcnews.com/scienceandsociety/2008/05/one-way-flight.html

In fact I'd do it myself if I didn't have family responsibilities... Yes, really.

 

[Genius]

That's why NASA is experimenting with suspended animation or induced coma right now.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/nasa-offers-500.html

I personally think the best way to get humans on Mars is the "One Way Only" mode, i.e. the astronaut or astronauts go there and never come back. Their survival would be at risk, but there is no shortage of qualified volunteers

http://blogs.abcnews.com/scienceandsociety/2008/05/one-way-flight.html

In fact I'd do it myself if I didn't have family responsibilities... Yes, really.

OK...:speakcool:
Then you have plenty of time to create some add on's for Orbiter?

 

[Urwumpe]

I personally think the best way to get humans on Mars is the "One Way Only" mode, i.e. the astronaut or astronauts go there and never come back. Their survival would be at risk, but there is no shortage of qualified volunteers

I think this is the most stupid idea in terms of how to get to mars. If you can only get them there once, you also can't supply them - logistics are critical. Also your public image will be damaged, as you send astronauts on suicide missions. If your public image is damaged, you won't get money.

Also, qualified volunteers depends on your demands. If you only want to send monkeys, it might be enough, but these will not reach mars. Trained astronauts are expensive resources and you won't waste them. A astronaut can fly two missions to mars before he would exceed his radiation limits (3% increased cancer risk for lifetime, the same limit as for any radiation worker).

Without people who can repair a spacecraft far away from Earth and navigate it, you will not have much success. And you won't waste these people by sending them on suicide missions.

 

[pattersoncr]

I spent 8 years as a submariner so I'm no stranger to cramped places. Granted, I've never spent the amount of time in a small space that would be involved in a Mars mission (the longest I ever spent submerged was about 5 weeks). I do know this; the human mind has an incredible ability to adapt. Thing that seem like such a hardship at first are, after a few weeks, just routine. If the astronauts want to go to Mars bad enough, they'll do just fine. The real challange is for someone to muster up the political will to pay for it.

 

[TheMinister]

I think this would be more feasable in terms of funding, PR etc if you could make it an indefinite stay. So with a self-supporting lander on mars, the astronauts could stay for months, years or whatever until someone sent another vehicle for retrieval. Easy.

In fact, that was an option for the moon landings for a time. If I remember rightly, it was dismissed because of the radition hazards- which will be significantly less (although not non-existant) on mars.

And just to add my two cents, I'd go in a heartbeat for an indefinite stay. A certain length stay after which you die I might have to think about, but it would certainly be worth considering. If I were a lot older (50+) then I'd definately take it.

 

[Urwumpe]

I would suggest a risk mitigation... start with "short" stays (the 1.5 years minimum are already pretty long) and then finally change the base into a permanently manned one - when the next crew lands, the old crew prepares for leaving. A few days of hand-over, and then the old crew lifts off to Earth.

Ideally, you should have a reusable bus spacecraft available at that time, so the
round trip can be done more effective with large habitat areas.

 

[GregBurch]

I think one reason that human Mars exploration seems so infeasible is because we're thinking about it in terms of how human spaceflight gets done now -- huge government programs that send a few government employees to do something that's barely possible with the kind of funding that supports the effort. If you do things that way, it DOES look really hard.

If, on the other hand, you imagine true deep space exploration as something that gets done as an extension of a robust near-earth / cislunar infrastructure, it doesn't seem so "barely possible."

I think it's a big mistake to think about sending bio-humans to Mars the former way. The cost as a fraction of over-all space effort is so great, and the capabilities the tiny contingent of humans will have when they get to Mars will be so small that it is reasonable to see it as wasteful.

On the other hand, by the time we DO have a robust cislunar infrastructure, it may seem silly to send huge bags of protoplasm to Mars. It would be like sending a mechanical typewriter to the ISS for creating documents: Why send an outmoded and inefficient technology like that?

GB

 

[Belisarius]

The "Stranded Mars Colonists" could easily be resupplied by automatic rocket deliveries, bouncing down a la MER-2003.

And risk is just a relative term. In the long run, we're all dead.

 

[Genius]

I spent 8 years as a submariner so I'm no stranger to cramped places. Granted, I've never spent the amount of time in a small space that would be involved in a Mars mission (the longest I ever spent submerged was about 5 weeks). I do know this; the human mind has an incredible ability to adapt. Thing that seem like such a hardship at first are, after a few weeks, just routine. If the astronauts want to go to Mars bad enough, they'll do just fine. The real challange is for someone to muster up the political will to pay for it.

I never give that a thought. Submariners know how that feel. And they survive the mission. But the knowledge that the shore or surface for that matter is near enough in an unforseen event, is good. But what about the humans?
Another thing....what about robots versus humans. The MER is now on Mars for how long??? And they still operate.

 

[Belisarius]

We had an interesting discussion about a month or so ago on this:

http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=1541

 

[thomasantony]

Another thing....what about robots versus humans. The MER is now on Mars for how long??? And they still operate.

Check my posts here:
http://orbiter-forum.com/showpost.php?p=15542&postcount=9
http://orbiter-forum.com/showpost.php?p=15542&postcount=14

'Nuff said. If you want to get REAL GOOD science done, nothing can beat a hammer- bearing homo sapien 1.0

~
Thomas

 

[GregBurch]

If you want to get REAL GOOD science done, nothing can beat a hammer- bearing homo sapien 1.0

For now. But the question is, does it make sense to try to send humans to Mars in the near future when robotics is advancing so fast.

I'm as susceptible as the next guy to the romance of human space flight. But I think it makes a whole lot more sense to be working on space infrastructure near Earth for now. By the time we get a decent near-Earth foundation built, it shouldn't be THAT hard to take some meat-humans to Mars for sentimental reasons ...

 

[Carl]

I believe we can one day eventualy make it to mars, but it`ll be some time, as we`ll need to make sure it`s all safe.We`ve got the technology and we`ve made in to the moon acouple of times and that was yearssssssssss ago:lol: and technology has moved on alot and so has our knowledge of space since then, so why not.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

The thing is I'm not so sure we have the technology we really want to get to Mars. No doubt we've currently got the capability to shoot a dozen dudes in a high-tech tin can a hundred million miles across the interplanetary void. The problem is the time required. It takes six to eight months to reach Mars conventionally from Earth. We really need some more research on Nuclear Thermal technology. We know it works (Sort of) the theories are sound, and it might take only 3 months. Easily doable and less of a phychological strain. Then we can begin investing in more advanced NT rockets which may cut the trip down to 1 month, then who knows? Maybe even a week!

 

[thomasantony]

The thing is I'm not so sure we have the technology we really want to get to Mars. No doubt we've currently got the capability to shoot a dozen dudes in a high-tech tin can a hundred million miles across the interplanetary void. The problem is the time required. It takes six to eight months to reach Mars conventionally from Earth. We really need some more research on Nuclear Thermal technology. We know it works (Sort of) the theories are sound, and it might take only 3 months. Easily doable and less of a phychological strain. Then we can begin investing in more advanced NT rockets which may cut the trip down to 1 month, then who knows? Maybe even a week!

Well one of the main obstacles there is that the moment someone utters the word "nuclear" all sorts of Green'tards come up protesting and letting all hell lose. Its almost as if its the Antichrist or something.

Solar thermal rocket is another option, but its thrust is too low compared to their NT counterparts.

Nuclear power, fission or fusion, is highest density power source that we could have for use in space AFAIK other than Antimatter ( which is too far in the future to be of any use now )

~
Thomas

 

[Andy44]

And fusion is still just a fairy tale.

But fission NTR's have been tested, and they do work. Some refinement is required, of course, but it is not technically impossible.

I think I read somewhere that NASA wants a 5-month transit to Mars and back to cut down on radiation dose. I think this is quite possible with current NTR tech, but financially and politically it's about as probable as monkeys flying out my butt.

 

[tomek]

Also, I know many people who are happy with their 20 m², as long as they can play WoW.

Ping would be pretty bad on Mars though. But they could still play Stars!..

 

[Bullethead]

20-odd years ago, I was married to a rocket scientist whose main job was putting satellites in orbit but who also was part of a think-tank on a manned Mars mission. The funny thing is, what NASA's talking about now for a Mars trip is exactly what she was talking about then. 20+ years and no progress.

There are basically 2 scenarios: a) send everything, people and gear, over at once, on a slow trip; or b) send robot gear first and, a couple years later after you're sure that's all working, send the people fast. Neither alternative, from what I understand, is particularly survivable. You might get the people back alive, but they won't ever have anything like a normal life here again. Or so I've been told by folks who know, or at least thought they knew 20-odd years ago.

This is in terms of the physiological problems of radiation exposure and prolonged low-gravity. That's before you start worrying about the psychological aspects of being stuck in something the size of a dumpster (or 3 dumpsters) for several years with people you're inevitably going to come to hate within that timespan. Now, I put up with being married to that for 6 years, 2 months, and 12.5 days, usually in very close proximity. So I think it's possible to deal with the psych part without murder for the duration of the mission. It's the health effects of the trip that seem to be the deal-breaker.

The best chance the astronauts would have, as I hear things, is the fast trip to a prefab underground base. But if the robots are skilled enough to build the base, why can't they do all the exploring, too? Then what do you need people there for anyway? And what's the point of building a prefab underground base if you expect the people to go out on the surface a lot?

If you want to see what Mars looks like, go out to the Mojave Desert and put on a pair of those orange sun glasses. Then it looks exactly like Mars, only with the benefits of full gravity, breathable air, and no radiation beyond the powers of a bottle of SPF 15 sunblock. Plus, there are things to study there that are actually alive on the multi-cellular, ambulatory scale, even assuming Mars has some sort of pond scum still living in the rocks. And when you get tired of all that, you can go back home none the worse, and with a tan to show for it.