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http://canada.marssociety.org/... ---to make plastics, someone has suggested

>> Beyond money, the measure would: Direct NASA to continue working on the Space Launch System and Orion multi-purpose vehicle that are the linchpins of a planned mission to send astronauts to Mars by the 2030s.

REALLY dumb to lock them into a particular vehicle and program. Especially one that is so outdated already. There are FAR better, cheaper and quicker alternatives to get to Mars already out there:
http://www.marssociety.org/

Turning one's head rapidly in such an environment causes a "tilt" to be sensed as one's inner ears move at different rotational rates. Centrifuge studies show that people get motion-sick in habitats with a rotational radius of less than 100 metres, or with a rotation rate above 3 rotations per minute. However, the same studies and statistical inference indicate that almost all people should be able to live comfortably in habitats with a rotational radius larger than 500 meters and below 1 RPM.

That would mean a rather massive structure. So, an alternative design that would use less material is two stations tethered together and rotating around a common center. Or a station and a counterweight. Still, this requires a strong tether, which also means additional mass.

This approach is suggested, for example, in this Mars Society article: The Use of SpaceX Hardware to Accomplish Near-Term Human Mars Mission.

For radiation shielding, they suggest to use the "consumables", which probably means fuel, raw materials, equipment and water.

I've just read an excellent book by aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, called "The Case for Mars", in which he argues in great detail for the possibility of puting humans on Mars in our own generation. His project is called "Mars Direct", and involves basically a Saturn V class launcher, which can take, on a first mission, an habitat which would be used to generate supplies (fuel, oxygen, water etc.) from Mars natural resources, and on a second mission, a crew of four Earthlings. The idea is that when the crew arrives, the factory from the first mission has generated enough fuel, water &c. for the return trip, as well as to power rovers ando other equipment.

His project is very credible, and he estimates a cost of 30 billion USD (which is peanuts when compared to other manned Mars missions projects [vide "90-day report", on the order of 450 billion USD]) for the first launch, with costs amortized over multiple launches.

Mr. Zubrin also argues that going to the Moon is pretty much useless, because it has nearly no natural resources to be explored and exploited, and almost as costly as going to Mars.

If you will, his site is at http://www.marssociety.org/ . The book is great reading too, and inspiring as it gives me the hope to see one of my own species walking over the Red Planet.

NASA has lost the focus they used for their "moon shot." It's been long speculated (and shown on paper) that the Moon, or even Mars is quite doable for a budget containing several digits less than NASA routinely goes through in any given year. A few years back I attended a seminar given by Zubrin about Mars Direct where he highlighted a pretty neat method for getting people there and back as well as outlining some of the extra vulnerabilities science programs face with entrenchment when run by a bureaucracy (it was at a different federal research center and relevant;it wasn't NASA bashing - just NASA explaining).

GET THE FUCK TO MARS?

Donate here. Convince your friends to donate also.

If they can't do it on donations, not enough people actually care about doing it.

While this is correct, the main problem is only temperature. Raise it by a few degrees and all the CO2 frozen at the poles is released.
Melt the water and you have even more pressure. Start producing hydro carbons and you easy get the pressure to 10% earth level. THEN: you automatically have effects releasing the bound O2 from the "soil" and at that pressure levels you dont need an 28% oxygen atmosphere to breath but only like 12% - 15%.

See: http://www.marssociety.org/
Dr. Robert Zubrin is working on ways how to perform this since over 50 years.
Albeit not very well known all majour problems are solved, "Earth" only lacks the will to do it. No problem in 50 years the Chinese will start without us.

angel'o'sphere

Then read here: http://www.marssociety.org/ Or read the red mars, blue mars green mars novels. Or: just think about how you would do it, lol. It is *that simple* angel'o'sphere

That simple? If you actually looked at "Red Mars" carefully, he lives in a "Star Trek" world of virtually infinite resources. Need a nuclear reactor? Just drop ship a Rickover. Need compressed gasses? Just drop ship a 737 with a bunch of compressors. It's great science fiction - it broad brushes little details like money, and especially later, the ability to create extremely complex high technology items from robotic factories. It would probably work out better if we figured out those little issues here as opposed to there. Hell, we aren't really at the level of technology that we would need to be to bolt the Ares together. Construction in outer space is slow, tricky and dangerous.

Yes we can get better. If the Chinese are trying to do it then great, we can come from behind like usual (insert tasteless joke here). But the Mars Trilogy is not yet an instructional video.

Then read here: http://www.marssociety.org/
Or read the red mars, blue mars green mars novels.
Or: just think about how you would do it, lol. It is *that simple*
angel'o'sphere

You make fuel on-site for the return trip.

=Smidge=

Here there are plenty of volunteers. They are practicing Mars exploration since many years with impressive results. As you can read perusing their EVA reports, they discovered plenty of important thinghs, like the importance of rifles for keeping away polar bears, how to study ionospheric radio propagation, and so on. Quick! Apply here now!

Here there are plenty of volunteers. They are practicing Mars exploration since many years with impressive results. As you can read perusing their EVA reports, they discovered plenty of important thinghs, like the importance of rifles for keeping away polar bears, how to study ionospheric radio propagation, and so on. Quick! Apply here now!

You're welcome.

At least some people in the space community seem to have a sense of humor about this: the Mars Society has renamed its analog Mars research station after Colbert for a week. ;-)

Here are the best (photo-quality/looks-quality) pics I could find of Dr. Judith Lapierre:

Best quality, JL center
Little more flattering (no dirt/sunburn), JL right
Artistic impression of "the incident"

You're a couple of years behind the times, they've have a simulation in the Arctic going for years now -the Flashline Arctic Research Station

The Mars Society - Mars Desert Research Station

Something like keeping people alive in space for years rather than months is the REAL issue.

You mean like this, this, or perhaps this (to count just a few among literally thousands of projects dedicated to accomplishing exactly that)?

Incidentally, the Russians have a HUGE volume of data on long-duration spaceflight, for periods that could conceivably cover an exploratory trip to Mars.

...and if you induce gravity for the majority of the trip (e.g. w/ centripetal motion), you actually discard the majority of the problems. The rest involves shielding from gamma/cosmic rays, taking along enough supplies (but water in sufficient quantities there would alleviate the majority of the burden - air, fuel, and water would take up the vast majority of the load anyway if you had to bring it all along).

/P

Sounds a bit similar to the Mars Project Challenge that was deadlined last week.

If you are a logged in member of MS, you can view the 28 entries that were submitted and will be considered for funding at an upcoming conference in Boulder CO.

Personally, I think the most worthwhile projects related to Mars exploration are the ones dealing with In Situ Resource Utilization and the idea of "manufacturing products" from the stuff that is available there (which is mainly CO2 and rocks). ;)

• http://www.planetary.org/home/ The Planetary Society
  
• http://www.marssociety.org/ The Mars Society
  
• http://www.nss.org/ The National Space Society
  
• http://www.seds.org/ Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
  
• http://www.space-frontier.org/ Space Frontier Foundation
  

The Mars Society (http://www.marssociety.org) is also ramping up their activity in the political arena. This group has been working with NASA and other "real rocket scientists" to promote the goal of sending humans to Mars.
--
Harold Miller
Life, Founding Member

Melissa adds that the extra 39 minutes does make a difference, "[you] feel like [you're] getting more work done."

OK, a real techie girl, but still....

• The Artemis Project - The project is a private venture to establish a permanent, self-supporting community on the Moon. Brief overview of the Artemis project.
• The Mars Society - To further the goal of the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet.
• The Moon Society - An international nonprofit educational and scientific foundation formed to further the creation of communities on the Moon involving large-scale industrialization and private enterprise.
• National Space Society - grassroots organization dedicated to the creation of a spacefaring civilization. Magazine.
• Stanford on the Moon (by 2015?) And yes, Stanford as in the university.
• Space Frontier Foundation - seems to have projects for space colonization, missions to the Earth's moon, and so on. Looks like a large scale organization.
• The Space Settlement Initiative
• Space Access Society - activism for getting out of the NASA-only paradigm/reality.
• Students for the Exploration and Development of Space - `... is dedicated to expanding the role of human exploration and development of space. We also seek to educate the public in such a way as to attain this goal. `
• Space Studies Institute - `SSI's stated mission is: Opening the energy and material resources of space for human benefit by completing the missing technological links to make possible the productive use of the abundant resources in space.`
• International Space University - `The International Space University provides graduate-level training to the future leaders of the emerging global space community at its Central Campus in Strasbourg, France, and at locations around the world. ` (mentions 'systems engineering' on the About page)
• Space Settlement Institute - `The Space Settlement Institute is a non-profit association founded to help promote the human colonization and settlement of outer space. `
• Cygo's Space Initiative - plan and conduct exploration missions to minor planets, build and mass produce (while in space) a multi-purpose interconnectable module, and to offer products and services using space and the materials therefrom.
• Freeluna - `Freeluna.com is dedicated to the proposition that the colonization of outer space is critical for the long term survival of the human species, and that colonization of the moon and the exploitation of the moon's natural resources is one of the very best first steps in that incredible journey off planet.` ... and when I first visited this page, I was visitor #3371. Yikes. Contact: Bill Clawson, wclawson@freeluna.com
• Island One Society - associated with the Artemis society, seems to be mostly a resource-help site.
• The Living Universe Foundation - `The Living Universe Foundation seeks to bring the galaxy alive with life from Earth, while healing the damage that humanity has already inflicted upon the Earth. We believe that expansion into space in the immediate future is a step towards accomplishing this aim.` turmith@yahoo.com --- This organization was inspired by the publication of a certain book. This is heavily related to Project Atlantis or Oceania (artifical floatin

I'd say join the http://www.marssociety.org/Mars Society and help make human space colinization a reality - a reality NOT dominated by existing governments and corporations.

Zubrin's very well-written book makes a compelling argument that a bit of cleverness and rational analysis would go a lot farther than the "drive your truck to Mars" approach (perfect "feel good" weekend read). As far as I remember, Zubrin was one of the people who got the possibility of going to Mars on the media radar. He also founded the Mars Society.

Of course, as anyone with any real interest in the topic would quickly find out, it's not in any way, shape, or form, a mission-stopper.

There's so much research out there about this! Even NASA - sensibly conservative and cranking up the "danger" to manufacture a mission for the ISS ("Seeing what radiation in space does" as if we don't know from 30+ years of space flight) - isn't as strident as some people who should search before they post.

I guess if the New York Times can get "space radiation" wrong, as they did in 2003, then Slashdot denizens can too, but I foolishly expect more tech-aware people here. Here's the real deal on Mars Mission radiation from the Mars Society based on real science, not on half-remembered sci-fi movies.

To the second point, "bone and muscle degeneration", there are two sets of data on this. First, the very real bone and muscle degeneration experienced by long-term Soviet Mir-jockeys, who simply didn't do their exercises, and second, the remarkable amelioration of these "effects" by all long-term US astronauts, who did do their exercises.

I guess we'll have to recruit the Mars crews from the pool of "following the doctor's orders" astronauts rather than the "ignoring sensible medical advice" group.

Whatever happened to Robert Zubrin & Co's ideas for bounties & private enterprise (similar idea to the X-prize)? I was inspired by his book The Case for Mars, but haven't read a whole lot in this area since ... a long time ago. The ideas proposed (very well articulated in my opinion) were visionary, but also seemed practical (still useful today for sure), so I have always wondered why this never seemed to be noticed by the "decision makers". Granted, many of the ideas can seem pretty far-out, but there must be something usable!

The Mars plan as set out by Bush, in a slightly different form, had been examined and deemed less practical too. There are lessons to be learnt, but not many are paying attention. Perhaps those who know more in this area can tell me about how realistic his ideas are. I only know of a few (well maybe a lot) dedicated and keen amateurs/professionals who are working towards the dream of Mars colonisation today in this area. Check out the Mars Society site for example.

Regardless, the book (and others by author + friends) is a good and (for me) educational read, and really did set my imaginations (but not hands) a-going.

The idea is to initiate a run-away greenhouse effect on Mars using a super-effective Greenhouse gas that is safe and easy to produce on Mars. 10-20*10^9 Kg of C2F8, a greenhouse gas 12,000 more effective than CO2, would seem to do the trick. Assuming that 10% of all sunlight reaching Mars could be trapped, Mars could be warmed enough to reach the triple point of CO2 within 100 years. This would release the CO2 (and hopefully water) frozen within the Martian Regolith into the atmosphere and possibly add enough atmosphere to allow for human exploration with only an oxygen mask a few yars later. At this point martian life, if it does exist, should flourish. If it does not we can start populating the planet with Earth species without nasty Mars life preservation debates.

This is not an easy process. Our CFCs, in the Martian atmosphere, would last for thousands of years, so VERY careful monitoring would be required in order to prevent us from terraforming a Venus.

Mars does not have a magnetosphere so our terraformed atmosphere would only have a life of about ten million years before evaporating.

I have notes of the ongoing Mars Society Conference here if you want more information on the current state of manned Mars exploration.

Actually, chemical rockets can get us there in about 6 months. Go check out the Mars Society FAQ for more information, or The Case For Mars if you want lots and lots of detail.

Zubrin is president of The Mars Society where you can find all the details about his plan, called Mars Direct.

Bob Zubrin of the Mars Society has also expressed his approval of the choice of Griffin, though I couldn't find a link on their website.

I tried submitting a story on SpaceX a couple of weeks ago, but it was sadly rejected. Here's the text of the submission, along with some other interesting info:

Spaceflight Now has an article on SpaceX, a low-cost space launch company started by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk (he is no longer with PayPal). The article describes SpaceX's small-size Falcon I rocket, scheduled to launch a military imaging satellite on its maiden flight in March, and their medium-size Falcon V rocket, scheduled to lift a prototype Bigelow inflatable space habitat next year. Interestingly, the Falcon V has enough capacity to lift a Gemini-style capsule with 5-6 people to orbit. Both rockets have per-pound launch costs approximately one-fifth that of comparable rockets. Long-term plans call for evolving the basic design to heavy-lift and super-heavy lift rockets, assuming SpaceX survives its legal battles with defense giants like Northrup Grumman. Musk believes that ultimately a launch cost of '$500 per pound or less is very achievable' (compared to $10,000 per pound for the Space Shuttle). Elon Musk is a member of the Mars Society, and started SpaceX after he realized that current launch costs would be a large barrier to his plans for a philanthropic mission to put an experimental greenhouse with food crops on Mars.

This radio interview with Elon Musk from 2001 is pretty neat, and has some information I haven't seen elsewhere.

The oceans are a good start but why not Mars? Lets start planning now! Shoot with another 1000 yrs even a sub-light trip to Alpha Centuri is not out of the question.

Isn't this already being done by the Mars Society's Mars Analog Research Station project? I'm kind of surprised that the Russians don't just collaborate with them.

The Mars society has conducted similar research during these experiments although the Mars society research focuses less on duration and psycological effects and more on requirements analysis. (i.e. not can we survive, but what will it take to survive and accomplish useful science.

The Mars society has conducted similar research during these experiments although the Mars society research focuses less on duration and psycological effects and more on requirements analysis. (i.e. not can we survive, but what will it take to survive and accomplish useful science.

While it might be a nice stunt, I really feel like Zubrin's Mars Society is going about the whole mars station research thing in a much more realistic fashion.

They have much shorter missions, but they also try a lot more things to see what works. What kinds of suits work, what tools work with the suits, what kind of mobity wrks best for exploration, what crew mixtures work best. Even what kinds of toilets work best! Those are the kind of nuts-and-bolts things you really need to know to maximize chance for succces in a Mars mission.

The Russian effort is just another Bioshpere, how much was really learned there?

Actually, while the Mars Direct mission plan is highly ambitious, I wouldn't say they "hand-wave" away anything. They have extensive plans on how to deal with these issues, as you can see by browsing the Mars Society web site.

speaking as someone who is part of the political wing of a space advocacy group, we are fighting for this legislation to be pushed through.

It provides legitimacy for this budding industry and give legal avenues for people to develop it. Think of it this way: Without any regulation saying where and how a group can launch into space, the government can just shut them down based on noise pollution, safety hazards, possession of dangerous materials, any number of things. By having prescribed rules, groups shooting for space can do so without worrying about operating within a legal vacuum (and later physical one).

There's also the safety stuff that others have commented on but that's been covered.

The Mars Society, AIAA and I think the NSS are all pulling for this so that should tell you something about how spacers view such regulation.

I don't care how many authors and futurists claim that it's only going to cost 79 cents to pull off the mission.

How about NASA and the ESA saying that it will cost tens of billions? Do the analyses of rocket scientists and nuclear physicists carry any sway with you?

Of course, I could always trust estimates that work like this: "It costs $X to do something easy. Therefore, it will cost 1000 times that to do something harder".

The prediction of 20+ years to go to Mars is inaccurate and misleading. We have the technology to go to Mars in place and it would only take 8-10 years of work for a total cost of under $30B. Recent European Space Agency Estimates of the cost to go to Mars using Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct plan ran about $27B. For more about the Mars Direct plan see the Mars Society.

This launch signals more than simply the end of that particular series of rocket.

It also signals the end of NASA's two-decade old "Shuttle + Small Rocket" schema. Hooray.

To put it another way, about *$#&#*$ time!

The "Shuttle + Small Rocket" paradigm has kept us firmly in Earth orbit for a generation, and is actually (always was) a step back from the 100-useful-tonnes-to-L.E.O. capabilites of the Apollo-era Saturn V.

This move is a move back to heavy boosters, and can't come soon enough for those of us who are keen on "seeing what's out there".

In weight terms, with 60's technology (ie the Saturn V) we could have lifted the whole ISS in two shots. With the Shuttle (ie the Winnebago of Space exploration) that has had to be stretched out over a decade, cost far more than it had to, and prevented any other human space-flight programs from going ahead.

Sending up 100 tonnes, and bringing 90 tonnes back (the Shuttle model) was always a dumb idea. If you go to the trouble of sending 100 tonnes to orbit, you should get more bang for your buck than a measley 10%.

End of an era, well overdue.

They are:

1. In a stand while hunting deer - I purposely placed a deer stand where it could get a CDMA cell connection to surf on my Treo 300 and hunt at the same time. Pr0n and firearms, no place but Texas!
2. MDRS, the only thing strange about there was that none of my other crewmates had ever heard of /.

I've read it from the Mars Society's Desert Research Station, located in the Utah desert. It's not Mars, but it might as well have been since we had to wear spacesuit-analogues when going outside...

The Mars Society
Project Gutenberg and the Distributed Proofreaders
Wikipedia (sorta, soon it'll be 501(c)(3) )

The reason Mars is fascinating is because, while it's further away, it's a much, *much* more hospitable and useful environment than the moon. For example in terms of hospitality: since Mars has a C02 atmosphere, we can easily manufacture fuel for our return flights on the surface; we're just screwed on the Moon. In terms of usefulness, another example is that the Moon has always been dead; Mars may have had life that we can discover, either as fossilized remains or a few plucky remaining patches of bacteria.

Besides, the Moon is actually harder to get to in terms of propulsion. It takes 4.5km/s of delta-V to launch straight to Mars...but it takes 6km/s to land on the Moon, because you can't aerobrake or parachute down.

The reason Mars is fascinating is because, while it's further away, it's a much, *much* more hospitable and useful environment than the moon. For example in terms of hospitality: since Mars has a C02 atmosphere, we can easily manufacture fuel for our return flights on the surface; we're just screwed on the Moon. In terms of usefulness, another example is that the Moon has always been dead; Mars may have had life that we can discover, either as fossilized remains or a few plucky remaining patches of bacteria.

Besides, the Moon is actually harder to get to in terms of propulsion. It takes 4.5km/s of delta-V to launch straight to Mars...but it takes 6km/s to land on the Moon, because you can't aerobrake or parachute down.

Need I say more?
Hm, maybe... Support Spacegeeks Worldwide at these (and many more) organizations:
Mars Society
Mars Frontier
Planetary Society
Space Frontier

You don't scratch build the factory on Mars. You build it on Earth, send it to Mars 18 months before the astronauts, let it churn away for that time, lots of consumables for them by the time they get there. In case of problems, you send an identical automated factory in a separate ship at the same time the manned ship leaves, which will arrive at roughly the same time. Seriously, the GP is correct; it's not that hard to get there using Mars Direct; see here, here and even here (NASA adopted a more conservative version of Mars Direct some time ago). Or read The Case for Mars .

You know, you really ought to catch up on the FAQs. It's only a 6-month flight to Mars, and astronauts would be on the surface of the planet for 1.5 years -- for a total round-trip of less than you're saying it'd take one-way. Besides that, if we're smart enough to use resources on Mars -- i.e. carbon dioxide in its atmosphere to manufacture rocket fuel for the return trip -- we can pare down the amount of materials necessary for this trip greatly.

Mars today is doable. We just have to do it right.