Slashdot Mirror
Simulating Life On The Red Planet
Cybernetic Wolf writes: "The Mars Society has just finished building the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station in the Canadian Arctic. The station has been built to simulate what life on Mars will be like for future astronauts. This is a really cool first step in getting humans closer to colonizing other planets. There is a webcam and video of them as well."
Isn't this just the set for Big Brother 2001?
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
And now, curtesy of slashdot, they also get a simulated attack on their internet connection.
(Apparently this was a problem with MIR and some shuttle missions - their communications getting DOSed at a critical point. Luckily NASA are good at building redundant systems)
this would be a "cool first step" in contrast with, for instance, sputnik, or the moon landing, or 1,001 other geek in space happenings over the past thirty and more years?
Now, I realize I'm just one person, but a lot of people are going to be thinking the same thing. Few people would want to move to Mars until life on Mars becomes normal and comfortable -- and living conditions on Mars won't improve until more people arrive. It's a classic Catch-22 situation; and I honestly don't see extraplanetary settlement appealing to anyone except a few fringe groups or the inevitable "early adopters." There's also a lot of other factors to consider: Who will make the laws on Mars? What language(s) will be spoken? Will Mars be a colony of some Earth-based country, sparking a resurrection in colonialism? Or could we make Mars an international territory for the betterment of civilization?
Before you hit that reply button to flame me, sit back and think what you would really do if you could leave on a space shuttle for Mars tomorrow. Would you really want to abandon the Earth, home of humanity for many millenia, and all of its scenic mountains, awe-inspiring oceans, and beautiful forests to go live on a God-forsaken hump of red rock? I think not.
All this talk about colonizing planets hearkens back to the Space Race days of the 1950's and 1960's when everyone was raving about how the future will bring cities on the moon. It's 2000 and I still don't see those cities. Granted the concept of a simulator is intriguing, but that is the farthest humankind will get. It's just no feasible or realistic to expect to colonize other planets.
First of all, what is the need of settling Mars, if not to satisfy the ego of 21st century manifest destiny? Earth has its overpopulation and resource problems, but we are still safely far from the brink of those issues. Besides, is this a way of abandoning hope? Earth is gonna be gone, so lets try another planet? Absurd!
Any efforts to bring large scale colonization on Mars would be prohibitively complicated, time consuming and expensive. Even if habitation is possible, there will definitely need to be some way for man to prepare for colonies and deal with such issues as temperature and air composition. It's not as simple as fly in spaceships and build a new world. The costs of settling and transporting people to Mars en masse would be exhorbitant. Maybe 10-20 people can fit on a space shuttle, and those trips cost billions and take months to prepare, as shown by NASA's adventures. It definitely wont happen on a large scale.
It's a good idea, scientists, but why waste effort on idealistic dreams of settling other planets? I'd rather see our great scientific minds work to fix the growing shortage of resources here on Earth.
Emerson Willowick: Thinker, Writer, Human Being.
It seems that although this could prove to be a good place to try out some of the "new technologies" that will be needed for a Mars mission, they will have to do a whole lot more before they show that a mission is feasible. Of course, that all comes later.
What I'm wondering is whether they're going to have some of the problems that the various "biosphere" projects had in the past (judging from some quite old Popular Science magazines I had a while back). A big problem with any Mars mission would seem to be the time from landing to liftoff at Mars.
Unlike a short-term near-earth mission, if there is any problem, even small, it has a lot more time to add up. In other words, an "Apollo 13"-style rescue operation would likely have much less chance of succeeding, and what would happen to the space program if we landed humans on Mars and then had to watch them slowly die of exposure.
That's my greatest concern. All previous space disasters involving human lives were quick. While they devastated the emotions of the whole country/world, we moved on. If the public had to watch a Mars team die slowly over the course of weeks, maybe more, it could set the space program back tremendously.
On the other hand, it could end up being a rallying point. The casulties of space could end up strengthening the will of the world to make it off this planet and back, but that's not something I think anyone wants to test.
Anyway, good luck to the Mars Society, and I hope I live to see humans set foot on another world. (Actually, I hope I live to do that myself, but that might take a while.)
Uh, they're not trying to simulate *Martian* life. Rather, they are simulating what it would be like for *humans* to live on mars in the context of a manned mission. Why don't you read some of the actual information before posting, OK big fella?
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
A cat-5 cable can be how long again??
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
The area around Sudbury has gotten much better than it was when it was used to simulate the moon.
Now they are using the Great White North to simulate Mars.Fortunately the smog in Toronto doesn't match the conditions on Venus yet.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
This rover would be used by the Artic Base simulated missions. It is also an investigation into what is possible with a Martian rover.
It will be presented at the Mars Society conference in Toronto in 10 days.
You can see an image of the
Email our team for more information.
This vehicle will be constructed in the next year or two.
----
Warren Strong
Life Support & Internal Systems Design Leader
Michigan Mars Rover Design Project
Coming soon to CBS...
BIG MARS SURVIVOR!
16 people locked in a simulated Martian colony on a frozen island with cameras in the bathrooms! Go to our gif-ridden website and vote to see who gets kicked out of the colony and forced to swim back to civilization. No sissy boat ride on this show! These people are SURVIVORS!
If the fad doesn't run out before we're done then we'll have part two: CBS EXECUTIVES ON THEIR WAY TO THE SUN SURVIVOR!
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective), no where on earth even comes close to reproducing the martian landscape. Pressure, temperature, atmosphere, gravity, light, length of day, seasons, etc are all not reproduced adequately there. Just because it looks like mars doesn't mean that the reality makes it like mars. Sounds like a PR stunt to make a show for Discovery channel. A PR stunt isn't a bad thing, necessarily, it just doesn't make for good science. Remember that biosphere, thing?
-- Moondog
SpaceRef.com has a whole section of their site devoted to providing information on the HMP/Mars project up in Haughton Crater. Marc Boucher of Spaceref is up in Haughton Crater as part of the NASA team and is the webmaster for the site. The latest entries from his personal journal are located here.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
The point is that in the far arctic it's a) very barren; you can't really derive anything from the land
b) Very remote. Just consider how LONG it takes to get from the nearest supply depot to where they are. It's FAR.
c) Wierd day & night cycle; it's certainly not a nice 24 hour cycle like we are used to.
it looks like they're planning on having macs on mars....
- passion
I don't mean to rain on NASA's parade, but, seriously, who would want to live on other planets? Personally, I'd be extremely reluctant to leave everything I know behind on Earth and ship myself off to another planet where living conditions would likely be much poorer (at least at first) -- especially knowing that I'd probably never be able to come back.
... but then, you don't see these people in your life because they've all gone elsewhere. Maybe they're living on an oil platform with 25 guys who speak Arabic, or taking an HVAC job in Antarctica. They may be Turks living in Germany, or Kazakhs living in Chicago, or Chinese living in Peru. Just because you're not one of them, don't believe they don't exist.
You're looking at moving to Mars like moving to the suburbs. Where are the movie theatres? Is there a public swimming pool nearby? Are the schools any good?
Frankly, the people moving to Mars (and there will be, not if, just when) aren't looking for creature comforts. They're looking for adventure -- a once-in-many-lifetimes adventure; looking for a challenge; looking to escape poverty, or repression (political; religious; ethnic; take your pick); looking just to get away from it all. These kinds of people have always existed, and they have always driven exploration and colonization movements. Right now people like this, in America, often go to places like Alaska; even though they grew up in cushy California exurbia, they now live in remote cabins and see people once every three months. Yes, it's an unusual way to live your life
Before you hit that reply button to flame me, sit back and think what you would really do if you could leave on a space shuttle for Mars tomorrow. Would you really want to abandon the Earth, home of humanity for many millenia, and all of its scenic mountains, awe-inspiring oceans, and beautiful forests to go live on a God-forsaken hump of red rock? I think not.
No flame. Just a straight-up Jerry-Springer-show "You don't know me!" Face it: you may be right that most people are like you, but fortunately for humanity, not all people are.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
How are they going to simulate the random NASA probe hurtling uncontrollably towards the ground?
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
Why will we colonize planets? Well, why did we colonize America? It was a long hard voyage across the ocean. Lots of people were comfortable right where they were.
But people had to flee their opressive country you say? We have incentive too.. to make sure World War III doesn't make us extinct.
Wow, when I first read this, I parsed it as "Stimulating Life on the Red Planet"! Visions of NASA terraforming Mars danced infront of my eyes. Next, I reinterpreted it as stimulating native martian life forms to grow and proliferate in a lab on earth. Still reading "stimulating", I was expecting an article of the "stimulating night life and culture" on Mars. No such luck. Of course, now that I know what it *really* says, I still keep thinking that the hidden message is really that NASA is simulating martian life forms by genetically engineering bacteria that could have evolved there...
Too many conspiracies, not enough coffee!
It's only software!
I have always been amused that we simulate a Mars-like environment here on Earth, in preparation for a journey to the Red Planet. The usual political line, and that of science as well, has always been that when we get to Mars, the things we learn will help us understand Earth better. Yet, we use our understanding of Earth to get to Mars.
:)
A woman using her understanding of me to try to help me understand her? Hasn't worked yet.
No joke. I think a nuclear war will wipe out the population of Earth shortly after we establish a viable free-roaming population off Earth.
People won't nuke their own planet, it just doesn't take that many bombs to make a planet unlivable. However, Earth will indefinitely continue to be the ultimate desirable living space and will be the focus of religious obsession for spacefarers. Whether it's "those degenerates who stayed behind and are destroying what's left of the Cradle of Man" or "the infidels who are standing in the way of Our Glorious Return," a few nukes (or big rocks, for that matter) here and there will seem acceptable. Of course, then a few more will seem acceptable, until all Holy Terra goes up in a holy fire.
I personally think that many people in high places have come to the same conclusion, and this is why space travel is so expensive. Our own little Bureau of Sabotage or I-A (see Frank Herbert's "The Dosadi Experiment" or "The Godmakers") to toss a monkey-wrench into things that will lead to planetary destruction, like space travel. I'm generally not big on conspiracy theories, but I think the surface facts of how we've avoided nuclear war thus far are simply incredible without some other organized effort.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going to hang back when people start moving out.
---
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Remoteness can be simulated. You want to simulate being remote from 24 hr pizza. Just don't order pizza at 3a.m. Simple. Barren can be simulated too. My highschool gym was completely devoid of plant life. Just like mars. The weird day and night cycle may be a little tougher unless you want to stay indoors where Thomas Edison's Amazing Invention can simulate any damn cycle you like. BTW, the arctic day/night cycle is still 24 hrs...
Let's look at the important stuff this does not simulate:
1. Gravity in Canada is the same as in the United States. The problem, though, is that it's different on Mars.
2. Certain metropolitan centres excepted, the air in the US is as breathable as in Canada... but on Mars, it's a different kettle of... air(?)
3. Atmospheric pressure. Same here. Different there.
4. UV radiation. What's the SPF of a space suit? Will my solar-powered beowulf cluster of palm pilots work on mars? A trip to Canada's Big Underdeveloped Simuland won't answer these questions.
5. Soil composition. Mars is the red planet. Nunavet is the white (and sometimes brown) territory. Hm. Must be different rocks.
Really, the only thing that northern Canada and Mars have in common is scenery and temperature. A couple of good Leibert air conditioners on a Holywood set could get that done in a thrice.
2 1337 4 u!
...that Mars is inhabited by a single sapient subariessian slime-mold colony that controls the weather and is currently in its semi-dormant period.
What do you think is interfering with all the Mars probes? What do you think makes the canals appear and disappear?
---
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
I don't mean to rain on NASA's parade, but, seriously, who would want to live on other planets?
Well, besides the grand dreams of boldly going where no one has gone before, (which would be reason enough for me, even if it was a one way trip), Mars would be a great place for an offshore data haven. Sure, the pings times would be dreadful, but those corporate lawyer types would have one hell of a time trying to shut down your servers!
Trickster Coyote
Ideology is for ideots.
Nowhere is the Devon Island project being billed as "science". Of course we cannot do Mars "science" on Earth, that would be nonsensical. This project is about the practical knowledge needed to support a long-term habitat on another planet.
"The outpost is not intended to be a high-fidelity mockup of a martian outpost, with regenerative systems and enclosed life support. Rather, the point of the habitat is to learn how to operate on Mars, to coordinate the people, robots, vehicles and mission control centers."
(Right there on the Discovery website you didn't read.)
To some extent this is above all a public relations project ("stunt" being in the eye of the beholder). The Mars Society, though, is all about making Mars exploration practical. This isn't so much a "science experiment" as it is a dry run using the model proposed by Dr. Robert Zubrin, the society's president. It's a learning experiment, in other words.
NASA does plenty of pure research science in this area -- for example, astronauts have spent months at a time in very rigorous closed systems that test air and water recycling technologies. (This is much like Biosphere, actually, but with experimental controls.) But NASA is barred by Congress from funding almost anything resembling true preparation for a Mars mission. The Mars Society is seeking to fill that niche with the Devon Island station.
Don't think of this as science, because it isn't about getting scientific results. It's about learning what works and what doesn't so that when we DO go to Mars we have plenty of foreknowledge.
It's also about education, about public outreach, and about motivating the troops. And last but not least, it's our (the Mars Society's) money -- we can spend it any way we like. So there!
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
I'd like to respond in more detail, but it all comes down to your final, appallingly ignorant line:
Emerson Williwick wrote:
It's a good idea, scientists, but why waste effort on idealistic dreams of settling other planets? I'd rather see our great scientific minds work to fix the growing shortage of resources here on Earth.
First of all, some of us do NOT believe that these dreams are at all idealistic. They are practical, they are achievable, and they represent the future of the human race. How silly to think that interplanetary exploration is within our grasp, and we won't take it! (I won't even address the vast array of misinformation you throw about regarding the cost and feasibility of Mars missions; it's plain you just don't know moe than you've learned from headlines.)
But second: the growing shortage of resources here on Earth exists for one simple reason, because Earth is finite. What resources would you have scientists conjure up? Star Trek style mass replicators? Shall we grow a continent of jungle, compress it beneath the sea, and thereby create new sources of oil and coal?
Certainly for the short-term humans will not completely use up all our resources, and even those we use up we will find substitutes for. Whether it's petroleum or simply the ever-useful copper, we'll have to face up one day to the fact that it's all been used and the rest is too expensive to mine. At that point getting resources from off-Earth sources, like asteroids, becomes not only feasible but economically necessary.
Earth is finite. You can't change that fact. What you can change is whether or not Earth is the finite boundary of human society.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Interestingly enough, most civilizations end through their own fault, they stop advancing technologically and some other civilization that hasnt been so lackadasical comes along and takes them over, then that civilization becomes complacent and falls, and so on. All I have to say is, when the alien civilization comes to conquer earth because weve been slacking off, dont blame me, i plan on voting for kodos.
(semi-OT)
It's only a matter of time before the Yuppies discover Mars as the Next Great Place to Live(TM). Before you know it there will be strip malls, chain resturaunts with 3hr wait every night of the week (doesen't anyone *make* dinner anymore?), ugly houses 3 feet apart, traffic, traffic, and more traffic.
Eventually the Yuppies will discover Mars, and they *will* destroy it.
Here's a comprehensive list of Internet resources about this story:
The original Arctic Mars homepage was providing regular updates about the research station, but they stopped around two weeks ago. They still have a lot of background material about the story.
From that point on, current news has been posted to the Mars Society Homepage.
Marc Boucher, CEO of SpaceRef is also the webmaster for the project, so SpaceRef has a tremendous amount of coverage of the project, as well as a live webcam.
In my opinion, though, MSNBC has had the absolutely best coverage, providing stories almost daily; unfortunately, they overwrite the older stories so there's no archive:
July 31 - Mars simulation begins in Arctic
And, of course, my own coverage at Universe Today:
Fraser Cain
Publisher, Universe Today - http://www.universetoday.com
What about the atmospheric pressure? Wouldn't that have a raster adverse affect on the fuel/air mixture?
If you're going to make it completely closed anyway, you might as well use an electric engine, possibly charged by RTGs.