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)
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.
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.)
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
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.
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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
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.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
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.
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.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
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!
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}