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US & Russia Pencil in Mars Launch by 2018
snilloc writes "The Washington Times is reporting that the US and Russia (and the Europeans are mentioned too) are planning for an eventual manned Mars trip. Suggested launch years are 2014 or 2018. The article discusses unmanned probes at greater length than the manned plans, but check out the Russian isolation experiment where 6 people will spend 500 days in a simulated spacecraft environment. (Sounds like a good reality TV show to me.)"
What good is it sending a pencil to Mars?
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
China is definitely sending manned missions and no wussy probes. Why is everyone copying China?
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
While I'm happy to se that they're still talking about manned space missions, is this the best they could do to boost the economy? I don't want to wait until 2018 for a bull market.
"NASA is engaged in small-scale studies on manned flight to Mars but has no plans for a mission."
April Fool's was 2 weeks ago.
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
I thought the ESA was going to do the same thing, around 2009? Why not co-operate a little, and share the costs?
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
Why not? It could help to fund the trip and maybe even get people interested in space again.
(Sounds like a good reality TV show to me.)"
50 days, no - lets be honest FIVE days of something like Big Brother is enough for anyone - 500 days would be a fatal dose, surely!
Just so long as there isnt a hot tub, and there are no women you'd like to see nekkid we'd be safe from having to view! But just one chick in there and you know we'd all be streaming this 24/7 until it came under the Real Gold Pass (or whatever they call it this week) around about day 480.
As somebody who has been in on the Space Station debacle from the beginning, let me just say that there's NO WAY that NASA could get to Mars by 2014, and trying to do it with the Russians only ADDS to the problem, not makes it easier. The most important thing the US can do to get to Mars is make it an American-only mission. The waste in effort to include other countries is phenomenal and unnecessary. The US space program has got to believe in itself instead of being a branch of the State Department if we are going to go anywhere.
-- (Score:i, Imaginary)
but check out the Russian isolation experiment where 6 people will spend 500 days in a simulated spacecraft environment.
Jeez, and I bitch when I have to wear a tie to work.
What would they do? Vote someone out of the airlock?
This P.I.G. will walk on the water, This P.I.G. will walk on the sea, This P.I.G. will walk whereever he wants.
Old hat. Douglas Quaid cleaned up Mars back in 1990. They have a thriving mining community, breathable atmosphere and leet alien artifacts.
Trolling is a art,
I am all for space exploration, and taking a closer look at Mars is wonderful and all, I'm glad someone is scouting out area for my future apartment, but don't we remember what happened LAST time we partnered with Russia on something outside of our atmosphere? The wretched travesty of the ISS is now loping along in a slowly descending orbit, is years and years behind what it was supposed to be, and will, more than likely, never live up to the high aspirations that were originally held for the Freedom, the space station that the United States planned for years before the global consortium got together on the ISS.
Russia is simply not a viable partner, not due to their science (they were in the cold war too, after all) but their financial instability. It's not their fault, but it shouldn't become our space program's problem (again).
to leave AMIE at home.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
The size of our own galaxy is measured in hundreds of light years and the farthest we have gone off this little rock is the far side of the Moon, just a little over 2 light seconds away. It is embarrasing
Free cell phone tracking
ME WANTEE!
In Canada, we don't fancy things like socks
People are viewing human life as more sacred than they normally do, and know the risks of this ambitious project. It also comes during a serious global depression of the economy, and will of course cost a sh*tload.
That said, I hope it goes ahead and proves more successful than we could imagine.
__
cheap web site hosting from just $3 in change a month.
Yeah right. Even with having problems to fund projects of smaller scale, how could this be possible? And do they have a space ship built, because shuttles doesn't fly to Mars. I really doubt this could happend, unless some real changes occur. Isolating some guys for 500 days won't change anything.
I demand the Cone of Silence!
So, how much will it cost? I need to start saving now. And learning Russian.
Seriously, apart from the bragging rights to say "We put the first man on Mars", what benefit is there to having the US, Russia, ESA and Britain all working independently towards sending probes/manned trips to Mars? If a team made up of the best minds from each of those agencies were to work together, they'd not only be ready to land on Mars sooner, but they'd save billions in the process.
The participants, who will be given 3 tons of water and 5 tons of food, will undergo training on how to act in hazardous situations, the official said. Water and oxygen for the "flight" will be generated by means of the participants' own life processes.
I don't think I want to watch...
And before that it was 2008, now its 2018? Just face it, we will never go to Mars in our lifetime, and why? Because the government doesnt want to give NASA the money to go.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
They're not putting a pencil on Mars. It's going in the Mars launch.
It's also not any old pencil. It's a US & Russia pencil.
"(Sounds like a good reality TV show to me.)"
NO! Don't give FOX any more ideas!! I don't want to see 500 days of fake drama!
KARMA TAG! You're it.
The six participants have not yet been chosen, and the selection process will be rigorous, Mr. Malashenkov went on, saying an all-male crew was likely.
Why not an all female crew? You could save a couple of kilos on the launch, and their energy requirements (i.e. food) are likely to be lower over the course of a long-term trip, since they don't have to maintain as much body mass.
Of course there's that whole Men are From Mars thing...
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
Suggested launch years are 2014 or 2018.
I've checked my calendar and I'm free then. Sign me up.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
Do not touch the pencils. It is a Zionist American trick. They are actually bombs.
Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
Check it out, it's rather cool (still pretty geeky though).
The Flasline Mars Arctic Research Station
The Mars Desert Research Station
If you get a chance to go to one of these, take it.
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
Has anyone solved the "lethal radiation that will kill everyone aboard long before they get there" problem yet? Or the problems with the human body breaking down after extended weighlessness? Or of simply putting any more than 1 person in the same place for more than a month or two and not kill each other? Unlike the space station, if someone's causing a ruckus, you can't just haul the person out...and to make matters worse, everyone, including any potential troublemakers, will be well aware of this.
Furthermore, has anyone explained to us WHY we're going to Mars? Look what the Moon got us. Zippo. Zilch. Nada...and it was a cakewalk compared to Mars. Next to no gravity(making landing pretty easy), pretty close. Wait, let me guess...there are 'signs of life', right? I think it's high time we had someone from NASA on Ask Slashdot to explain what the big shit is about Mars, and why it ranks above providing the basic services expected in a modern civilized society.
Lastly, couldn't help but notice that all the comments questioning the mission and/or space exploration got modded to "Flamebait", and those were just the ones modded UP to 1 and 2. Why is it that on slashdot, Thou Shalt Not Speak Against Space "Exploration"? It was rather telling that those comments, while modded "Flamebait", were also modded UP; maybe the rest of us are sick of space-weenies with moderation who just can't take a little old fashioned "Why?", or the viewpoint that maybe we ought to have other priorities(like, social/human services. Trip to mars doesn't feed, clothe, and house the guy on 32nd and Main under a box.)
You can see the lights from space, but you can't see the starving children.
Please help metamoderate.
Fifteen years may as well be fifty in terms of Russian economic and political stability, not to mention international relations.
The article is light on logistical details, but assuming that we're more Robert Zubrin than we are BattleStar Galactica, the mission will involve a long period of technological development followed by deployments of resources in advance of human explorers. That's a long time for a lot of factors to remain "in the window", IMHO. Even the ISS didn't manage to remain entirely in that window, and that was far more flexible in terms of planets lining up and such.
I'm pleased at least to see that it's on the TODO list at NASA, but I don't take this too seriously.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
(Sounds like a good reality TV show to me.)
:)
Yeah, until everybody gets sick of the reporter and they steal the video-headset.
That said, I can't wait
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
It makes sense. Combining two different nations in a space program might look good for the media, but from an efficiency and productivity point of view, it's very poor. You end up with compromises at every stage of the process, with the result that noone is truly satisfied with the outcome.
Bear in mind Russia has a huge advantage over the US in both long term space missions (Cosmonauts in Mir hold the endurance record for space 'flight'), and it also has far superior heavy lift capabilities. The Energia launch vehicle is capable of orbiting a payload of 100 tons - far more than than the 30 tons capable of being lifted by the shuttle. While there have been plans for US heavy lift systems (cf. the 'Shuttle-C' cargo container, or the Ares booster) which could increase payload weight to 121 tons, the Russians designed a system (Volcano) derived from Energia which could loft over 200 tons of cargo!
NASA is at serious risk of falling further and further behind, and becoming largely irrelevant in space exploration. Mars Express (from the ESA) is a clear example of how quality research can be performed at a fraction of the cost of a typical NASA mission. Pathfinder cost 'just' $200M - compare this to the British built 'Beagle' rover, which is more capable, and cost just £10M (~ $16M) to develop! Mars Express, the overall project of which Beagle is part, cost just 203M. Compare this to the $800M cost of the latest US mission to Mars.
If NASA is to succeed in the long term, and to shine at research, it has to learn hard lessons from several sources. Satellites can be optimally placed with cheap boosters, not expensive manned shuttle missions. Productivity needs to get back, at the very least, to Pathfinder mission standards. Using proven engineering, and modularity of design, you can massively reduce failures, and costs.
For more information on Mars Express, check here and the official ESA project page here.
If its on Fox, are they going to call it who wants to marry a martian?
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
again!!!! ARggh!!"
Mission Control: "Comrades, comrades, keep
in mind, when you are in orbit of mars, we will
not be able to resupply you with
constant 'squeeze cheese'"
*dramatic music*
Voice Over: Next week find out who gets
voted out of the training pod and thrown out of
the air lock. Will it be Ivan with his insatiable
appetite for squeezable cheese? or will it be
Ivana and her insistance on leaving tampons in
the engineering section???
A very amusing story. It not that unbelievable, but I don't think it is quite true. I recived a Fisher Space Pen for a gift and it had a short history in it. I belive it said that the pen and design was given to Nasa pretty much free of charge. Of course who knows what they paid for before this pen was created. This link will tell a bit of the history: http://spaceflightnow.com/store/collectibles/penas tro.html
"Another day with Parasites!"
From the office of Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf (aka Baghdad Bob):
"There is no Mars! The red plannet does not exist! It is a trick by the coalition forces!"
More at 11.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
I think it would be very difficult to live in tight quarters with 5 other people for almost a year and a half, floating through space on a mission that would bring back all kinds of info that will be useful for humankind. "Just another few months with these freaks", you could think, "and we'll have accomplished something great. When we get home I'll be famous, and I'll have a pickup line that no one else in the bar can hope to match!" Besides, once you've launched, you can't really change your mind, so you just focus on managing the stress.
:)
Now imagine you're just one of the guinea pigs in the 500-day test. You're not going to be famous. You aren't exploring new frontiers. You're like a kid camping out in his backyard... except you promised your parent (Dr. and Mrs. Skinner?) that you wouldn't come inside for FIVE HUNDRED DAYS, even though you know that some days it's sunny outside the tent and you can hear the other kids playing in the park across the street. Sometimes a dog wanders by and urinates on the corner of the tent (days 3, 5, 16, 21, 23-twice, 28, 29...). Twice a day a scientist peers in through a porthole to see if you've cracked up yet. Can you imagine it? Wouldn't you just feel like you were pissing away a chunk of your life?
And just think -- to be realistic, their connection to the internet would start broadband, then go gradually down to dial-up and worse....
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
I thought it was recently announced there were deadly levels of radiation on Mars? That it was determined (wo)man could not go to Mars for these reasons?
How do we plan to get around this problem? Or are we expecting a group of mutan X-men to return?
The simple fact is that we're probably not going to get to Mars in the next 20 years, it simply isn't as simple as people would like to think. Most of the problems revolve around the fact that any expedition to mars would last up to 3 years(apollo 11 took around a week) and for the great majority of this the team would have to cope with problems unaided. Consider this: The CLOSEST that mars gets to earth is 86.5 million KM which means that any communication with the earth is going to take 5 minutes to get there and the response 5 minutes to get back. That means that for any problem that can't be solved in 10 minutes you're completely on your own. The astronauts on Apollo 13 would have been doomed had they had a 10 minute communication lag with ground control. other problems include sickness (its going to happen if you're away for months and illness that are trivial to cure on earth would be major problems halfway to mars, not to mention the degeneration of muscles, bones and the heart caused by being weightless for long periods of time), nutrition(how do we keep our astronauts in tip top shape for months on end when we have no way of getting food to them), radiation and pyschological problems (think being couped up in a space the size of your living room with 5 people for a couple of years). Yes, most of these problems are solvable (especially if we develop a technology considerably faster than chemically fuelled rockets) but the fact is almost everything that a manned mission would achieve can be done for less money and risk by robots. Its just not going to happen.
All that glitters has a high refractive index.
1. The astronauts use it to write in their notebooks.
2. The notebooks sell at auction 30 years later.3. Profit!!
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Ad
1. You'll pay for it with your 60% taxes (where did you get that figure from BTW?).
2. What will the benefit be? Your grandchildren will grow up to be geeks in the same way you grew up to be a geeks. Except they'll be terraforming geeks instead of programming geeks. A push to Mars will require technological development. The thing you're writing (computer) on is a direct result of warfare and space research.
3. They also had missiles pointed at your house for thirty years. doesn't mean you can't work with them. Who would have thought that France and Germany could work together in 1945? By the 1950's they were great economic and diplomatic buddies. As far as backstabbing is concerned, France threatened veto, Russia said no but was counting on abstaining in return for a further free hand in Chechnya.
As far as costs are concerned, even an enormous sum like $100 billion over 10 years is $10 billion a year which comes to $30 per inhabitant of the US, which comes to 10cents a day which comes to about a second of your daily work if you're complaining about paying the highest bracket of taxes. How long did it take to complain about the cost?
Or would you rather have the Indians send somebody to Mars so that their grandchildren own your grandchildren as you own the Indians ('own' in the broadest possible sense - i.e. are 1000 times richer, 3 times as well fed and live 2 longer).
If you're interested in Mars-Exploration, but "NASA estimated 300 billion dollars to do it" got you thinking, you might want to read these, as they come to a quite different estimate: ...and its german branch :-)
:-)
- The Mars-Society...
-
- Robert Zubrin & Mars Direct
- Robert Zubrin's "The Case for Mars", a book I can absolutely recommend
- The german link again (I'm a german, so please bear with me, ok?
I hope these may be of help...
PS: At least I wouldn't be wondering if Europe and Russia were to cooperate on this, but I sure don't hope for another "space race"... Would be one hell of sight though... Europe/Russia vs. China vs. USA?
... to fit the rocket boosters, of course. So you get to Mars in 3 hours just in time for the noon Powerpoint-fest, then back home in time for cocktails. Super!
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
Given the risks that the astronauts will be taking en route, landing, re-entry, etc. this is negligable. Of course, we still need to weigh benefits against risks/costs here...
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
I hope they have that metre and feet thing worked out this time...
Sorry but there is no way the human race (or evolutions there of) will ever reach Alpha Centauri.
I'm still confused on the issue of why we are so eager to go to Mars when we don't even have a simple colony on the moon.. can't we do mineral harvesting there first? Or at least prove it can be done before we take such a long step?
-M-
"Life is all about strategy, mathematics and psychological perceptiveness."
What an oxymoron.
1. Gave intelligence to Saddam's gov't regarding British and American communications?
2. Gave Saddam's gov't lists of assasins in the West?
Groovy.
Why not venus?
Some scientists say it is as probable as on mars to find life there...
Admitted, the surface of venus is just too hot, but wouldn't a balloon floating through venus' athmosphere (at temperatures comparable to earth's) an idea?
I often thought about that, I just don't know why noone is considering it yet. Seems to be an easier goal for human space travel.
And, venus is nearer to earth than mars.
First of all, we could send unmanned balloons.
What a silly question! Everyone knows that your civilization only truly WINS when we get to Alpha Centuri, and mars is a first step. And, now with the new cooperative alliance system found in CIV IV, we can even win with allies. How cool is that? -Iowa
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
...But we won't stop fighting enough to acheive it.
With Bush and Blair doing their bests to proliferate terror and nuclear weapons, there is no way that humanity will be able to afford this project. In fact, the only way we could afford such a plan is if we start funding countries like Syria, Iran, Iraq - actually, the whole damn world, and build their infrastructures. Once the infrastructures are built, these countries will be stable and terrorism will fall dramatically. We could use their help in building these grand projects. With the whole world pulling together we could even afford a space elevator.
Grease pencil
One summer, years ago now, maybe 10 or more, I worked at a research lab at Brandeis Univesity (high school summer program). They did research into the perception of motion and had a grant from NASA. They had a large room, about 10' in diameter that rotated. At the time I left, they were planning an experiment that would put several people into this room for something like 100 or more days while it rotated contantly to see what the long term effect of this would be for a trip to Mars. I have not idea of they did this experiment, though I have no reason to think not. I wonder now, if the results are published and available on the net.
Of course, someone has to pay for it. Preferably stockholders, but government revenue will always be needed for R&D, at a minimum.
I just get really ticked off at Luddite stay-at-homes who want Heaven-on-Earth before they do anything else. The original poster even waved the 'starving children" flag. Children are starving because their governments are corrupt, venal, uncaring, and stupid, not because a few countries spend a little bit of money on space.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Surely at this rate we can make it to Europa by 3535. Relax!
The way things are looking right now, I don't see Russia (or any other country) going along with the US on exploration, financing things, co-development of anything, or trade agreements.
The US as a nation is working VERY hard to be the biggest bully in the schoolyard. They're bombing countries at will (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria next, and then probably Iran. Who after that?), they're violating international accords (the Geneva convention) and agreements (the Nuclear Non-proliferation agreement), they're violating the trade agreements they pushed hard for (NAFTA), and then they have the gall to turn around and accuse everyone else of doing the same.
The rest of the world--ALL of the rest of the world--is looking at the US with suspicion, mistrust, and fear right now. If a republican replaces Bush (I can't imagine him getting in again), then in five years the US is going to find itself completely isolated in the world.
Sigh.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Finally, undeniable proof of martian life, and intelligent too. I mean how else would the pencil have gotten there... Though seeing as how they are still using pencils they must not be too technilogically advanced... well scrap the mission... no point in going there, except to retrieve our precious.
I don't trust Snopes, because often they make out as if they have the authoritive answer when they are just speculating themselves, or using the facts selectively.
For instance, they say that it is false to say that Bush made the comment that "the French don't have a word for entrepreneur" because Alistair Cambell (Tony Blair's "spin doctor") said that he didn't. Of course he would say that. His job is to protect Blair and it would look bad if Blair told someone that. Ari Fleischer would say the same thing, but who would believe him? To say that the story is definately false because of that is just dumb.
Look, I love to bash NASA as much as anyone, and of course I know all the answers to all their problems.
Soyuz isn't exactly a safe way to fly either, you know. Making the Russians sound all "can do!" and the US all "head in the clouds" is one thing, but comparing actual vehicle failure rates has the Shuttle and Soyuz tied for 2 each.
America has lost more people in our two because we dared to create the only space vehicle ever flown carrying up to 7 people. When Russia flies a comparable craft and does better than two fatal events in 100 missions, then we can all revisit this subject.
I imagine gradcstudents of some sort could be forced to.
What part of "no" did the poster of this not understand?
Misreading "NASA...has no plans" as "the US [and Russia] are planning" is pretty bad,even by slashdot standards. I suggest not (note that "not") applying as a rocket scientist until learning how to read a little better than that.
I mean, we've never been to Alpha Centauri. For heaven's sake mankind, it's only four light years away you know. I'm sorry, but if we can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that's our own lookout...
you haven't refuted the argument; you've only added to the list of the STUPIDITY that causes human misery. Only throwing money at these countries will solve nothing, as long as they have an evil government. The evil has to go, and I've seen many sub-saharan countries go from bad to worse in my lifetime. Sounds like violent removal of the evil is the only option, like we're doing in Iraq.
Im curious how much liveable space is in the International Space Station. All of the footage I have seen of it leads me to believe that it is very cramped as well.
4500 sq ft for 6 people on a Mars mission seems like a lot of space. That is twice as big as my house for 4 people. It doesn't sound like they would suffer from claustrophobia.
generating sufficient artificial gravity for the trip (centrifugal force?)
having a true closed loop biosphere (reusing almost everything).
Any research on this be done on the space station or elsewhere?
Launching in June 2003
Beagle 2 Home Page
By 2018 Mars will be the last territory in inner Solar system that US have not searched yet for Osama Bin Laden.
Less is more !
(Sounds like a good reality TV show to me.)
"Well, we've consumed one fourth of the food and water, and we're only one fifth of the way through the mission. We're going to have to vote someone off of the ship."
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Two guys spent a long time in an isolated spaceship with a sentient computer. The humans got along just fine. The computer became disgruntled and tried to kill them all.
The moral of this story? Uhh.... Don't use XP? Down with the RIAA? Yay for open source? Oh never mind...
This just in: Russia is going to pass along all research data on this program to Iraq.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I was wondering when we were going to drill down to this issue again.
The arguement I'd like to present is, doesn't space exploration make all our lives better? It helps feed the hungry, I mean, didn't it give us Tang, right?
Joking aside, A point I'd like to make (or questions I'd like to raise) is
Name a point in human history when we didn't have hunger, or disease, or war somewhere?
Manned space exploration is not a particularly practicle thing to do, but it drives human imagination, creativity, and problem solving.
It seems that if we are going to follow the principles of progress, we are going to have to either divert all our resources to improving the base of human condition or on the other hand, divert all our resources to improve the potential of human condition. Or we can find some compromise in the middle.
One book I found interesting on this topic is Asimov's End of Eternity
My convictions are we need to compromise. We need to continue to work to improve the base human condition, but we cannot lose scope of our potential, of exploring and expanding to survive and achieve, else all will be lost.
SCO to Hell
I was watching "The Right Stuff" the other day and it struck me that what the space program needs is a return to cool project names.
I mean, "Mercury", "Apollo", those were names you could really get behind. But what do we get now: "Space Shuttle" (or even worse "Space Transport System") and "International Space Station".
So, NASA, don't even think about calling it "Manned Mars Mission"! I guess the obvious choice would be the "Ares" project; but please, anything with a little style.
... if we don't establish any kind of permanent installation on Mars?
It just seems like, if there is ice on both our Moon and Mars, that we should first develop, test, and then implement technology that would allow us to use the ice on the Moon to power a small terra-firma based installation, as well as refuel any craft used to travel there, and then take this same base station & ice-to-fuel technology on the Mars mission. As long as we're making the trip to Mars, why not make the best use of it, and establish refueling stations on the Moon & Mars that can be used to minimize the fuel impact on future missions? There is an obvious advantage to having fueling stations along the way to Mars as well as on Mars itself - hauling fuel is expensive, in terms of the additional payload as well as the added risk of having all of that extra explosive material on board. Also, FWIW, water is also heavy & expensive to haul... having a base on the Moon & Mars where water stores could be replenished would be more economical as well. It seems logical that we could put this together between now and 2014 or 2018...
No Kidding.
0xfeedface
It's not necessarily that the British research is done more efficiently or less expensively. It's that the equipment that they build is (probably) built by the British government itself.
What this means is that some outside company like Boeing can't come up with some outlandish price for the project. (NASA, of course, accepts the high offer because of the iron triangle that exists. Many former NASA employees work at Boeing and vice-versa.)
If the United States government built its own equipment (Yes, like in SOVIET RUSSIA), then your tax dollars could be spent on getting our best and brightest on Mars, not on fire. I'm sorry that the last sentence was insensitive, but it's true.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
Who gets to be the first man to step on Mars?
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
Well, I'd do it for a few million.
It probably will be quite cool. Imagine, you still have access to technology (internet, etc.) so it's not like you're in a cave, yet you are not bugged by managers, bosses, or anyone for that matter, yet still have a lot of time to do research and other sorts of mind exercises (you could do a huge hunk of a PhD in there - maybe even on behavioral analysis or something). Or just read/write a bunch of books! Sleep! (and get paid for it!)
And 500 (or so) days is NOT a lot. Just think how quickly the last 2 years of your life passed... You probably would be a lot less stressed out than anybody. Just think, a 500 day vacation from work!
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Quote: "I do agree that it probably would be more interesting for mankind to solve our problems on this planet before heading for the next one..."
Why do we assume that there's a "solution" for being human? What could that possibly be? No matter how all-encompassing a philosophy, no matter how common-sensical a religion, there is no way to create total peace and total harmony. Empirical proof: it's never existed previously (Eden aside).
We have to accept (and to some extent embrace) the fact that what makes us unique and "human" is the fact that we're different types of people living together; a "solution" to this only allows fascism and corporate-style removal of ethics to take control and - inevitably - destroy the very things we're trying to discover about ourselves.
As for space travel, *any* type of exploration is natural, so long as we have imaginations and curiosities to healthily indulge.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
In Soviet Russia, pencil sends YOU to Mars!
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
Relevence?
Considering that George W. hasn't ruled out attacking Syria, that he hasn't ruled out some kind of retaliation in regards to France, that he isn't some wimp whose hobbies include "having his penis washed by White House interns", might choose to act on this info (assuming that it is verfied, which as yet it isn't). In short, the Mars trip may be threatened by more than the usual budget issues.
Conclusion?
The geo-political climate of the world is unstable enough that international efforts to reach Mars, or the moon, or even a consensus about countries that harbor terrorism isn't probable. Look for the Mars mission to get cut, and blame to be placed on the budget.
--
Free software, not Iraq, because Gates is evil, and Saddam is just misunderstood.
"...check out the Russian isolation experiment where 6 people will spend 500 days in a simulated spacecraft environment. (Sounds like a good reality TV show to me.)"
So do we get to vote them off? or do they vote off each other?
Question everything.
Or is at least a good marketing idea taking over history.a sp
http://www.kenpalmer.com/space/default.
a tad bit behind our "2001 a space odyssey" schedule !!:p
Somehow, it seems that space exploration has always taken a back seat in any government's agenda, which is understandable. After all, they utilize the tax-payers' money, and these very same tax-payers have been plagued by the Nasa-moon-episode conspiracy theory!
Space exploration however, would be an inevitable part of humanaity's expansion plan. We're way behind star-trek technology, but Roddenberry seemed to know what he was talking about - his communicators have become our cellphones, his interracial kiss (kirk and uhura!) happens all over, matter anti-matter exists... we just need the warp drive!!!
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
This pretty much describes "crunch time" at my job.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
They would probably simulate the latancies on the internet to find out if it contributed to stress.
So your round trip times for web page requests would start out at 1 second, but by the end of the 500 days, they would be easily several hours.
My other first post is car post.
No woman has ever left Earth orbit. No Russian either, come to think of it. The only people to go to the moon were men -- white men.
So aside from the relief difficulties, which can be solved with rotational, 1/10 gravity, why not the first person on another planet a woman?
They would probably simulate the latancies on the internet to find out if it contributed to stress.
I don't think that they'll use standard tcp/ip for missions to Mars. Even a modern mission to the moon is not likely to use straight up http. The reason is that tcp/ip is not well suited for networks with large bandwidth-delay products.
I think a much more likely possibility for Internet use during space travel is to store a large amount of material in the spacecraft before launch, then periodically send updates to that information, and new material based on crew requests.
TTFN
the Russian isolation experiment where 6 people will spend 500 days in a simulated spacecraft environment I assume that they're talking about Putin and his cabinet...
We'll be good at strong, reliable carbon nanotube cables by then, so the craft can be in two parts that are spun on a cable for (pseudo-) gravity; no worries about low gravity health effects. At Mars they will have to use ordinary rockets to go into orbit, land, and come back, but we can afford to devote a fair amount of our launch mass to them. Back at Earth orbit they'll have to rendezvous with the Elevator station at GEO, and then can ride a lifter down to the surface in comfort.
It might be interesting to spend some time designing a mission based on this assumption. What orbits are available from the elevator? Can they use the cable they take with them for rotovator-style landing and takeoff at Mars? Can you take a small nuke for power? Etc.
2018 is a little far off. But better late than never. Some day....
for using metric...
The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil
I'd prefer those billions of dollars of MY taxpayer money be spent on multiple, un-manned projects, thereby reaping a much better return on investment.
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
Comment removed based on user account deletion
One way to solve the problems of radiation, gravity, food, water, air and boredom might be cryogenic stasis. If your molecules are in stasis, they can't react to anything - unless you thaw out.
Something available in abundance in space is the absence of heat. (In space no-one can hear you freeze).
Anyone know how folk are progressing with cryogenics?
Actuallly, each of these "problems" (weightlessness, radiation, trip time, lag time) are solvable with current technology, and sending teams to Mars can be done for as little as $20 billion within 10 years.
There's an entire book written specifically to debunk these myths and present real solutions, and an active society devoted to making manned missions to Mars happen.
Don't knock it until you have all the facts!
Read the full text my book Perl for the Web
Now, there's plenty of room for argument as to whether Mars Direct (the name of the above plan) is correct in all its details. However, it seems fairly clear that producing the return fuel on Mars rather than transporting it from Earth makes the mission much more feasible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
First its the hardware companies, and now NASA.
I am sick of all these PAPER LAUNCHES!
Life on Venus?
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
..there's no OIL there.
They'll have to remake "2010: The Year We Made Contact" to "2010: The Year We Ran A Few Simulations And Continued to Recruit Potential Astronauts".