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Europe Joins Race To Send Humans To Mars
hereisnowhy writes "CBC reports that the ESA hopes to send humans to Mars within three decades. They first hope to return a Martian soil sample by 2014. They stress the importance of determining whether Mars ever supported life before humans touch down on the surface, because "You can sterilize a robot. But you cannot do the same to an astronaut. Inevitably a human will introduce microbes to the planet ... and contaminate it."" Kame-sennin links to a Reuters article on the plans.
Suits that are sterlized? Then hit with some sterlizing solution before they leave the ship and before they enter?
1888 Franklin St.
...is it just me, or does the price tag seem kind of low? I mean, if that's 1.13 billion Canadian, it's well under a billion US over the next 5 years.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
... the ESA and the Russian space agency will be co-operating now they both want to go to the red planet? Kind of doesn't make sense for Europe to have two separate space programs.
We need another space race, CMON people, pilgrims didn't send boats to america to collect soil, they populated it!
I'm sure like most people I read that they were shooting for getting a person on Mars within three decades and thought that seemed a little unambitious.
But then again, the need to return and examine samples prior to human invasion is necessary.
Of course this made me wonder A) can't they still speed up the entire process, even taking into account this need and B) what's the chance that anything we've sent so far has been less than 100% sterile.
Besides, even if we sent a person up and contaminated the place... how long would it take for that to confuse the matter of whether or not Mars previously had life? Can microbes really spread over an entire planet that quickly?
I really do wish that nations would quit thinking about sending ppl there and back. For at least the first few trips, it should be one way missions. There are plenty of ppl who would be willing to go even if it meant only a 50% chance of survivial. It would also be a out best chance of starting a real colony.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Flawed analogy. The pilgrims knew where they were going, and they were going there for good.
Nobody (not NASA, not ESA, not the Chinese) is seriously considering a one-way manned mission. Glorified soil sampling is all they are considering.
Going back to your New World analogy, you forgot that before America was colonised by Europeans that it was explored by them beforehand. Exploration is always the logical first step, whether we're talking about undiscovered continents (Americas, Australasia), extremes (South Pole), or heavenly bodies (the Moon, Mars).
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
You mean Project Orion? Interestingly, the British Interplanetary Society studied an updated version called Project Dadelus that used much smaller fuel pellets, exploded them in a reaction chamber, and controlled the thrust much better than the Project Orion plans.
Is this timeline really optimistic? Bear in mind that Europe has never had a manned spaceflight mission before. Can they pull off a Mars mission? Maybe they'd be better off teaming up with Russia or the US. Or both.
why are people concerned about contaminating mars?
should there actually be life there, it would obviously be of the microbial sort
should this microbe actually exist, it's genetics would be utterly fascinating: is there shared code between earth and mars? or did life evolve on mars by itself? so is the comet-as-interplanetary gene carrier hypothesis viable? could there therefore be life on jupiter's/ saturn's moons, on venus, or even on some extra-solar system planet? is there some sort of inter-solar system comet gene carrier system at work in our galaxy/ universe even?
these are all fascinating questions, but i posit this: the value of all that information is outweighed by the need to start terraforming mars now: put on mars, on purpose, microbes that are known to be able to survive there, such as microbes that live in antarctic/ arctic deserts
liekwise, seed venus with microbes from hot springs/ deep sea vents
why?
we need these microbes to start making venus/ mars habitable by earth life, human life, asap, and while the crytozoological/ exobiological questions are fascinating, the terraforming needs of getting these microbes on these planets asap, so they can start putting oxygen/ water there, is far more important than any interesting things we can learn from exotic, non earth microbes
seriously
i propose we send out mars and venus microbe fertilizing robotic probes now... spirit and opportunity with an on-purpose microbe payload
i'm not joking, i'm making a judgment, a choice, and i know some may disagree with me, but i am serious: the exotic information we might lose by destroying mars-native microbes is less important than the needs of human interplantary coloinzation efforts to terraform mars' atmosphere
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seems that over half the problem with sending people to mars is getting them back.
Strikes me as this may be unnessecary. Surely there would be a large number of people out there who would gladly accept a one-way ticket to Mars?
Am I right?
Any takers?
What you're saying is only partially true. Let's first take a look at Russia: Yes, they've fallen on very hard times. What's their annual budget for spaceflight? $100M? It's something ridiculously low. But they're the country that keeps the ISS supplied. They have reliable, cheap rockets that get the job done. The US has no rocket that offers the same value as Sojuz does, nor does anyone else. So, some respect is due. Though it's plain to see that these times the Russians simply don't have the money to continue their pretty impressive work of past decades.
Europe: For one, Europe never put much effort into manned spaceflight. In the 60s, there was no European space program worth mentioning, and later on, there was no will to spend much money at it. Apart from some failures of early Ariane 5 models, Europe has shown that they can build powerful rockets. Their first Mars mission is mostly successful, and for an orbiter, Mars express can compete with anything anyone else has sent up there. The SMART-1 lunar probe is tiny and not exactly a racehorse, but its techonology is nothing to just diss either.
So, in short, nobody questions that the US is ahead. But don't discount the potential of other countries. In terms of technology, I doubt that either Europe or Russia are more than maybe a few years behind the curve...
We're seeing the new space race, and it's going to be something. Competition for the "high ground" between Europe, China, and the US is really getting started. If the US continues to become more insular, this will just be one more way that Americans feel the need to prove superiority. But it's also a way for Europe to assert its own primacy, and China's motive to be seen as the next superpower is clear, as well.
Whether any of it happens is almost immaterial: the perception will drive the funding, and scientists on all sides will take the money and attention happily. Let's hope that the end result really is "for all mankind".
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
This is a real eye opener for me. When I read "three decades," then double that (since it's a government estimate), I realize for the first time that I might *not* live to see mankind on mars.
At what point do we decide that we've done our best to look for it, but that life just never existed on Mars?
Probably whenever we decide that we've done our best to look for it, but that life just never existed on Mars.
Seriously, what did you think the point of the article was? They looked at what they'd done so far, decided that they hadn't done their best yet, decided what else they needed to do to have done their best, and then made a pretty little graphic to illustrate it for us.
I was at a book signing by Robert Zubrin (Earth on Mars, The Case for Mars) and he had a Q&A session - I asked him "Have you ever seen any opposition to plans to send a man to Mars due to contamination concerns?".
His response was twofold - secondarily dismissing the possibly of a "superbug" from Mars (apparently he gets a lot more paranoid people than myself asking a similar question). On the question of us contaminating evidence of life there, he said that while we would probably spread some microbes and the like around that if we did find anything it should be easy to trace the origin back to Earth instead of Mars, so that is would pose no serious problem for scientific research. Also of course he brought up that Mars had very likely had some meteorites cast off from earth "contaminating" Mars already, so to worry about bringing new things there was foolish.
Besides, it seems like if you were really worried about contamination you would seek a few million samples, not taking two or three and then starting the landrush!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"This is truly a poverty vs. great advancement issue."
Yes, just so. Knowledge is the only true coin we can pass to the ages. Governments and economies come and go, money is made and lost, people live and die, and what remains but knowledge? And we gain knowledge through science.
I don't like sounding mean-spirited, but all too often the result of feeding poor people is just the creation of more poor people. I'm certainly not suggesting we sacrifice humanity on the alter of science, but we must have a higher purpose other than just putting another billion or two mouths on the planet.
Bottom line: we must find a way to do both.
Anti-gravity? That was *my* little secret! But I never patented it! Boy, was *that* dumb!
Inevitably a human will introduce microbes to the planet
Isn't that a bold assumption? They haven't even proven there's been any life on Mars. I think that's one of smaller problems for sending an earthling to Mars.
I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed...
This (one way trip to Mars) has been discussed extensively in previous /. article.
I'm all for it, and there are many smart, sane, competent people who would make a good first team and die with dignity and honor. How sad it is that in modern western society we've elevated the individual human life to such an extent that we cannot see this...
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We know that comets frequently consist of massive amounts of water. Water is typically associated with life (little closed minded, IMO) - and thus micro organisms should be able to survive in comets and other space debree....
It's logical to assume there is a great possibility that many viruses and bacteria found on Earth were deposited here from another planet. Or rather, that it's very provable.
Likewise, much as 'humans can contaminate' Mars, it's naive to think that Mars couldn't contaminate Earth. We have no means or comprehension of what life possibly existed (or still exists) on Mars - nor what threat that life could pose to life on Earth.
They may very well bring back an unstoppable plague in those soil samples. Who knows.
Damnit, stupid beer. It seems to enhance the conspiracy sector of my brain. Thank God there isn't another lame SCO press release out - I'd go crazy on one of those right now!
The Soviet Union managed to combine all their resources towards acheiving just a few goals. Military power, a world class space program, and Olympic sports superiority. And they did those things pretty darn well.
Of course, with everything else neglected, life there was hell in more ways than I care to enumerate. I have to prefer the society where everyone does what they feel is important to get done, and only unite behind goals for their own purposes.
This theory is known as panspermia.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.