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Russian Mock Mars Mission
sdriver writes "CNN reports that Russia is attempting a 500-day mock Mars mission. The article goes on to say, "six volunteers will depend on a preset limit of supplies, including about 5 tons of food and oxygen and 3 tons of water." Also, "Experiment participation is not solely reserved for Russian volunteers, institute officials added."
Mars comes to cosmonauts!
(Sorry, I had to.)
Well, if the US mocked the moon landing, I suppose it's time for the russians for their share of airtime!!!
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
On Soviet Mars, they mock Russia. "HA! Weak humans."
Mars Mission Mocks YOU!
"Capricorn One" anyone?
...it's ok for me !
six volunteers will depend on a preset limit of supplies, including about 5 tons of food and oxygen and 3 tons of water
But how is that any different from regular russia?
5 tons of hershey bars
3 tons of Jolt cola..
This is the true story of six volunteers, picked to live inside a capsule and have their lives taped to find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start being real. The Real Mars.
oops I mean, no I didn't see that, nobody saw that movie
better to find out now the likelihood of cosmonauts going nuts and killing each other when crammed in a tin for 500 days, than in the black depths of space.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
They can mock it all they want. I still think it is a good idea! Damn rooskies.
Will this be a true test of human survial though?
Since volunteers is allowed to quit the experiment if they develop a severe ailment or psychological stress, most likely they won't try hard enough to survive the journey.
However in real life-and-death situation, people tend to do amazing things just to stay alive.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
I read this as "Russian mocks Mars mission" and pictured Alexander Putin dancing around a table making fun a NASA scientist.
"Oh yes, we land on Mars, yes, aren't we clever? I'm so clever with my MIT degree, I'm a clever little scientist. Those Americans think they're so smart with their advanced rocketry. It makes me so mad. Get me a vodka, Yuri."
That happened maybe five years ago. Don't know what the duration was, though. I'm pretty sure it was only a few months.
/.'ers every day life: no women, stuck in a tiny room in front of a computer screen, food in granola bar form (Oblig. Simpsons: "if you put food in bar form, you unleash it's awesome power"), no social contact, etc.
They could probably fund this by doing a reality TV show, heh. And if you RTFA, they say that no women will be allowed to volunteer - so it'll probably be just like a
If you are not trampeled to death in the rush to volunteer for this.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Mock not the Planet Mars,
For it is large and red
And contains the gateway to Hell!
"Do you suppose that's why God lives in the Heavens? Because he lives in fear of His creations?" - Steve Buscemi
Doesn't sound terribly exciting . . . No prOn?
Polyakov told Interfax reporters that the 500 Days experiment will not include female volunteers.
:)
Geezz I wonder why. And they'll probably get a similar result just by looking into any male-only student flat
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
but what are they going to DO for 500 days?? There would probably be no experiments to run in the mock capsule..
...Mars mocks you!
It's the biodome, the biodome. The BIO DOOOOOOOOME.
yak.
Really, who wants to do it for 500 days?
What if the other volunteers are hot chicks?
You can't handle the truth.
Actually, this would make a good reality tv show, and maybe even gather public support for a mission...
However, in space, I don't know how well being "voted off" would go over...
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
no one in the team lastnamed *betruger*... he might bring DooM on earth instead of mars...
- live from Costa Rica !
In addition to the limited supplies of food, air, and water, I would think the experiment would want to mimic the other deprivations the crew might experience on the way to and from Mars. Most notably, I'd think, they'd want to emulate the lengthening communications lag between Mission Control and the "ship". Start with the sort of glitch experienced in orbit, and drag it out to the full 6-10 minutes.
Also, you'd want to make the communication link have a realistic bandwidth. Whatever is the state of the art at "launch" is what they're stuck with for the duration of the trip.
Now, if this were an episode of "Survivor: Mars", you'd throw in a monkey wrench... maybe a Galileo-style communications system error, where their phat pipe gets cut down to 300 baud, and the men fight over which supermodel pr0n picture to download each week.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
make it 3 tons of Vodka and I'll go.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Sorry... English class really messes with your head.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
3 tons of water but 5 tons of food? hmm... something seems wrong.
and it didn't work that well. The original Biosphere tried to create a totally self-contained environment that would support life. I don't remember how long it lasted but there were lots of problems.
What scares me is that to be on the safe side, the mission should have a lot of redundancy. I bet they don't get it.
http://www.bio2.edu/
"Polyakov told Interfax reporters that the 500 Days experiment will not include female volunteers." This will fail.
I'll give 2 to 1 odds against that Pauly Shore is a volunteer, to promote his new movie, "B2: Biodome", the second in his masterpiece trilogy.
I recall reading sometime ago that US Navy studies for crewing submarines showed women coped much better will prolonged living in confined quarters than men do and an all female submarine crew would probably have higher moral than an all male crew.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
(Hey, they're both Russian, they all look the same from the USA right? Dead poet, live almost-dictator, can't be bothered with trivial distinctions.)
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Obligatory: RTFcomments
5 56 &cid=10518263
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=125
I don't think women are as...driven...
And no jokes about me not getting any. I have a gf :-)
How long until TV Execs figure out how to make this a reality show. Chills, thrills, and exciting chemical spills, it's all on Survivor: Mars!
Like, ewww, dude. You DON'T want pr0n in that setting.
Where do I sign up?
-- Checking emails and kicking cheats `till the day I die.
that russia would think of this, because Americans always have to be "politically correct" it oftens halts progress. cough stem cell research cough. Keeping people in metal tubes, volunteers are not, would never be allowed/considered ethical, in the us.
Day 14 in the Bolshoi Komrade House, and Gregori has been getting to grips with failing last nights challange, the effect of martain gravity on plant life... as a result the Bolshoi Komrade team have only 16 rubels to spend on food and water supplies this week.
Russian space researchers will lock six men in a metal tube for more than a year in [...] The 500 Days experiment...
That's closer to "one and a half years" than "more than a year".
Is it so bad with the post-MTV generation that they can't cope with something happening in the future? *ducks*
bash$
That's probably for the best, as they are not equipped to handle childbirth, but that's gonna be one mighty lonely metal tube.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
According to the article, in Soviet Russia, Mars missions mock you.
Alternatively, in Capitalist America, uh... Mars missions are real? No, that can't be right...
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
In the US, they'd make it a reality TV show.
Then again, could this be a means to an end? Help out NASA by making "Mars Survivor" and
a) testing the feasibility of people living on Mars
b) donating some money from advertising revenue?
In Soviet Russia, Mars mission mocks you.
"Experiment participation is not solely reserved for Russian volunteers, institute officials added."
Also included will be non-volunteers.
Brings a whole new meaning to the term "The Red Planet".
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
anyone else read that title and think, "the russians are making fun of the mars mission?" ?
scott king
Even though I'd be crammed in a concrete bloc(oh, there's a pun!) shed for a year and a half, with 5 other guys, and after a week probably only rasin-toilet wine to drink, I'd still go. I've been wanting to go to the Aumandson-Scott reaserch station to work over the winter, but my future career probably precludes that. Might as well donate my body/time to space exploration. I doubt they'd have to pay me.
Anyone who wants me, knows where to contact me....
You'd have to be pretty dedicated to simply give up over a year of your life to live in a cramped environment with bad food, no privacy and not even get you cosmonaut wings at the end.
According to the arictle, Valery Polyakov (Russian, of course) holds the current record for the longest continuous time in space with 438 days aboard the Mir. That's pretty darn close.
I wasn't the first one who misread the headline, and thought the Russians were making fun of our Mars mission.
Which really, they have a right to do. I mean, what is a year or so in a tiny capsule, with only a little bit of food stuck in the cold dark depths of space? How is that different from living in a utilitarian concrete 50s era apartment in Archangelsk?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
The Russian space program has come a long way down from its threat to bury us with ICBMs, the first satellite and animals in space, and the "no problem" attitude of decades of the Mir space station. Now if they could just retool their "nested wooden dolls" technology...
But maybe this is all a trick to distract us from their takeover of the rest of the solar system, while we're obsessed with landing on a planet that apparently was too hostile to life, if it ever existed there? They've got solar sails, and they're working on surviving in an ark. Maybe they know something we don't?
--
make install -not war
May I suggest Dubya, who wants to go to Mars anyway?
In Soviet Russia, Mars Mission Mocks YOU!
and no lines for the food!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Survivor Mars
I wonder how relevant this really is, having some significant differences to a real Mars trip?
* Stressors related to truly being at risk are not present
* Non of the hassles of prolonged weightlessness (eating, excreting, loss of bone density/muscle mass, etc)
* Motivation of doing something truly bold/adventurous is lacking. Pretending to go to Mars is not going to Mars. Once we go, who is going to remember the crew of the pretend mission?
Not trying to disparage the project, but I'm thinking we've gathered more relevant data from extended stays on MIR and the ISS
Weightlessness would have psychological and physiological effects on humans: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4026/ noord28.html I wonder how these effects can be incorporated in the results of this experiment.
Man, I read the title all wrong. Why would Russia be mocking the mars missing? What's funny about it?
In Soviet Russia, Slashdotters mark this message as -1 Troll.
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?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So while we're all reading dupes, he'll still be just getting the originals.
It's funny because it's true.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Does anybody else think this sounds kind of like a repeat of the Biosphere experiments? Except with less living space and fewer windows...
Have you read my blog lately?
...the Biosphere 2 in Tucson, AZ.
The experiment, under management of Columbia University, was for a group of eight men and women to live for two years in a sealed environment, growing their own food and recycling their water, with no outside supplies. They couldn't make it all the way through without fresh supplies and all the participants lost a lot of weight during their two-year stint.
Quote from wikipedia: "Despite expenditure of over $150 million, this attempt at a new biosphere [could] not sustain eight humans, [even] for a limited time..."
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
"Ha! Mars has such a wispy atmosphere!"
"Lenin and Stalin could make a better Red planet than that... and they're dead!"
"You call that an ice cap?"
"You couldn't support life anymore even if your life depended on it!"
"I wouldn't touch Mars with a 10-foot Pole!"
"Martians drink American vodka!"
"Even Afghanistan was nicer than Mars!"
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Hmm, the Biosphere in Arizona anyone?
Ah man, this story brings back good memories for me.
When I was about, oooh 14 years old or so, I went to a "Space and Science Camp" one summer. We did all sorts of crazy stuff related to space. My favorite was trying to design "crash modules" to protect an egg from a two story drop (that was hella fun).
Anyways, one of the special activities we did was a mock Moon base mission. Basically we spent one day cutting black garbage bags open and duct taping them together into a series of domes and tunnels for our "base". It had two openings: one was a sealable flap (our "airlock") and the other was an open hole that they put a big fan in to inflate the entire structure (worked really well too). Oh and some small ventillation holes in each room. Anyways, the next day we went on our "mission", which was basically a dozen or more of us stuck inside this inflated garbage bag, in the middle of a gymnasium with the lights turned off. We were divided up into teams and everyone given certain tasks. I was a communications officer, which basically ment I got to sit there and communicate with "earth" (our supervisors) on an old macintosh. We were also responsible for general coordination of the base. Another team was our Medical branch. They had some generic tests/experiments to try while we were 'on the moon', in addition to being responsible for the health of the entire staff. Theirs was actually the only 'serious' mission, because they had to test everyone regularly for signs of CO2 poisioning while we were effectively trapped inside a plastic bag for six hours straight. We also had an exploration team that got to do "moonwalks", which was basically tying a rope around one guy, blindfolding him, and shoving him out into the gymnasium to see what he could find. They came in very important (more later). The only other team I remember was our "Engineering" team, who was responsible for maintaining the base's structure, armed with nothing but some spare garbage bags, some knives, and enough duct tape to wrap an army. They even got around to making a couple of small additions to the base. Those guys had lots of fun.
The cool thing about our "mission" was, in addition to trying to complete the tasks given to us by Earth base, our supervisors fucked with us at every possible opportunity. They did shit like "solar activity disrupting communications" (disconnected our Mac from the LAN) so we were on our own for an hour. They walked around with knives and poked holes in the bags to keep the engineering team busy... VERY busy. When we were done, our base looked like someone had taken a piece of swiss cheese and put tape over all the holes. They were cruel. About 20 minutes after our engineering team completed a tunnel connecting medical to communications, I hear this slicing sound and feel air rushing past my face. I turn around, and the bastards had cut a three foot gap in the new tunnel! Engineering runs over and starts trying to tape it up, but its not gonna be airtight... so the creative bastards rip off their paper medical jumpsuits (we even had mission stickers, names, rank, etc on them) and use them to seal off the tunnel. Heh that was cool. Even cooler though, was when the "alien" got into our base through the same gap. One of the engineering guys opened up the tunnel to see about further repairs, and he finds the supervisors have slashed it (AGAIN!) and dumped a plastic turtle in the gap as an "alien". The whole base erupts in panic. Engineering shows up in force as they're the only ones with knives. Medical runs in and tries to start bossing people around because "this is a biological matter". It was hillarious. We eventually figured out (with Earth's help) that the alien was dead, and medical got the goahead to start an autopsy on it. Very cool.
By far the most exciting event in the mission was our "catastrophic power failure". Everyone's working allong happilly... computers chirping, people talking, fans humming... and then no humming. People kind of looked around at eachother real slowly like "Uhh, wa
this is the reason for no females
You'd have to be pretty dedicated to simply give up over a year of your life to live in a cramped environment with bad food, no privacy
Then again, if you still live with your parents, there's not really a whole lot of difference.
I've thought about this concept for a while.
It seems likely that a significant fraction of a prolonged Mars mission would be spent inside a habitat building. That building would be functionally isolated from the outside. Also, simulating the trip there and back would also be valuable.
I would like to suggest a mineshaft. Several parallel shafts could be used to monitor the progress of the team and provide emergency egress (exits).
If the shaft were dug in a suitably solid rock, it could be sprayed with concrete, then some kind of waterproofing plastic compound. This would seal it and allow good simulation of water and air consumption. Other options, like "sealed" metal containers, might be more expensive to construct, but it's another option.
Food, other consumables, oxygen, water, yes, these are valid simulations. I'd also like to see what the options are for running a hydroponics lab to oxygenate the air and cleanse sewer waste, though not to eat necessarily since this would involve a fair amount of work.
Just some ideas. Biodome was obviously a learning process from the "sealed in" perspective and from the biodiversity perspective as well. I just wonder if there's a lower tech method for doing this experiment, and if so, I have confidence that the "plucky" Russian improvisational character stereotype is up to the challenge.
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
"Stupid Americans, going to Mars. If they want cold and barren, they should just go to Siberia. At least they have vodka in Siberia."Er, sorry for that. I'll stop now.
-V-
Who can decide a priori? Nobody.
-Sartre
What the hell are these people going to do when they've watched their porn DVDs to death?
I wonder if this is going to be like biosphere where they get their weekly allocation of Macdonalds!
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not the responsiblity of the user, as I probably stole them anyway
I think this will have a better chance of success than Biodome. First, because of funding, second because we're not worried about total internalization/sealed-in-ness, just for extended periods (500 days for now, maybe longer later) - so we're not worried about, say, jettisoning waste, or not stocking a food supply of a certain type because, "it'll run out after 2 years anyway".
NASA ran a demonstration project called "Breadboard" starting back in '86. It's still active, I think. The goal of the project were to:
1.) Develop a sealed environment plant growth capability (which is much harder than simple hydroponic farming).
2.) Develop the systems needed to control atmospheric contaminants, b) collect and regenerate condensate water, and c) recycle solid wastes.
3.) Integrate all of the systems in point 2 with the growth in point 1.
Here's a link to a page that gives a decent 'least you need to know' overview of the project.
http://www.permanent.com/s-ce-nas.htm
Of course, NASA hasn't made it to including humans yet, but since as per /. protocol I haven't RTFA, I don't know if the russians are 'cheating' on all of these mundane details.
In Soviet Union, Mars comes to you!
=-+
I think it would be much cheaper to do it like this:
1) Send a robot to a handy asteroid between here and mars.
2) Have the robot base-ize the asteroid (via solar-melt-iron-bubble technology) and fil it with air and some easy food-crop (algae?).
3) THEN send some people to this base to do the final construction. Use it as a starting point for forays to mars and beyond.
It might be cheaper and safer to do it this way. Faster? Maybe, I haven't done the math. Biggest hurdle I see is getting tons of crap out of our gravity well. Maybe a hurdle we should avoid. There's lots of nice nickel-iron and sunlight out there. Avoiding heavy-lifting unnecessary resources strikes me as key.
when's the US going come clean that the moon landing was faked in a warehouse in Arizona...
Port the linux kernel to that PDA from Doom3.
I remember seeing a doco about it. I think the ship was called "Capricorn 1"..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
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.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
"living your life is like riding a bicycle. its easier to keep your balance if you're going somewhere". I forget who said that. Voltaire? Erving Goffman? Fritz Perls? Anyway, it's true for countries too. I applaud Senor Putin. Set a goal. Get everyone to push for it.
Is'nt that what Senor Kennedy did for us with the moon? I mean, why did we go there except to have a goal?
Tell me again, who knew Mary was a virgin, and how did they know?
It's nice to see the Russians getting into the reality show thing.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Where can I join ?!!!?? I'll put off suicide until after the experiment, this is my chance to survive this lingering depression !
But be sure to check out Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy site for fact-checks.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
...to what long duration voyage submariners go through. 500 days is a long time though, I don't think any totally submerged and all sealed up submarine voyage has lasted that long, I think something like 6 weeks is more normal.(could be wrong on that, any knowledgeable folks please correct me) I am sure there are tons of scientific studies already about the physiological and psychological impacts of long term close quarters living, where you can't just "get out" and all your existence is self contained, more or less. The subs though can make their own fresh water and O2, so that makes it easier in many ways. Also no weightlessness to contend with. But....similar.
Hmm, sorta like jail, too, in a way.
Will they have their own HAL?
Yes this does appear to sound quite funny, but I think that this is very doable, without much of a health risk at all to the astronauts.
..........FULL STOP.
IIRC:
According to the doctor that was in B2, the weight loss was expected due to the diets that they were following (calorie restricted) and by and large, the crew was actually happy with the weight loss.
The reason that they had to open the doors and bring in supplies was that they didn't count on how fast the bugs would take over. The bugs started eating everything they could grow, and also were using up the oxygen.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
I read the headline "Russian Mock Mars Mission" and was all ready to fire up a "Red, White and Blue" post!
... I almost started another international incident!
How dare the Russians mock U.S. Mars missions!!!
I must be channelling GW
By definition : fair = good and unfair = bad, right?
;)
We could say that fair tend to be good to the infinite and that unfair tends to bad minus infinite, right?
So if I understand your sig, you say that the trick is to do anything possible so your life tends to be infinitly bad? Wouldn't the trick be to make it more unfair towards other, so to make it fair for you (assuming that there is a finite suply of fairness that is).
I was just wondering... I was trying to take a break from my calculus homeworks
I'd rather be sailing...
Seems it would be MUCH harder to create a robot to perform the tasks you suggest, than to use human-power to build it.
Blar.
Who read this as "Russia mocks mars mission" ? I thought they were making fun of the US again.
This is the story of six volunteers, pickled alive inside a capsule and have their livers taped to find out what happens...
I reread the headline several times trying to figure out why the Russians are mocking us.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
I think this has a better chance of success than Biodome because Pauly Shore is so annoying.
I seem to remember reading about this happening before, around the time that Soviet rule was ending in Russian. They took two volunteers and made them lie in a bed for months, simulating long term space travel. One of them gave up but the other went insane and eventually died of a genetic heart condition exacerbated by not getting any exercise.
Just sit right back
and you'll hear a tale
A tale of a faithful trip.
That started in this frosty port
Aboard this tiny ship
The mate was a mighty cosmonaut
The Skipper brave and sure
Six volunteers blasted off that day
For a 500 day tour
A 500 day tour.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Zdravstvuite Comrade!
Finally, something worth standing in line for!
I think, therefore I am an Atheist.
HAH HaH!
While pointing.
Russia: Have at you.
U.S.: You are indeed brave, sir knight, but the fight is mine.
Russia: Oh, had enough eh?
U.S.: Look, you stupid bastard. You've got no arms left.
Russia: Yes I have.
U.S.: Look.
Russia: Just a flesh wound!
Maybe it's really just an experiment on how much attention they can get. If enough interest is shown, they'll have quite a few seasons worth of "Reality TV" out of it.
they could sing the "YMCA" song...a lot.
they could add 500 lbs. of body oil, poppers and ectasy to load and get rid of half the food
the new spacesuit could be a biker outfit with leather chaps and exposed buttocks, or maybe an indian head dress.
Food, other consumables, oxygen, water, yes, these are valid simulations. I'd also like to see what the options are for running a hydroponics lab to oxygenate the air and cleanse sewer waste, though not to eat necessarily since this would involve a fair amount of work.
I'd thought about the air and water recycling problem when running a different thought experiment (was planning what amounted to a single-person spacecraft with a 1-2 week nominal mission duration capacity).
It turns out that if you're only going out for a couple of weeks, or if you have a significant mass budget, recycling isn't important at all. The mass of food consumed is surprisingly low, and we have plenty of experience keeping it light and compact (think "MRE"s; the military has a vested interest in food that keeps and is easy to transport). Oxygen consumed will at most be enough to burn that food - the part of that food that's not already oxidized (water-based). Water consumption is relatively low - a couple of litres per day for a comfortable allocation. So you have a few pounds of supplies used per day, and can easily store a year or more's supplies without the supplies outweighing the rest of your expedition's equipment.
For recycling, air and water are the most important. Water because you go through a significant amount of it, but it's still fairly easy to recycle, and air because you go through a _lot_ of it (2-3 times the dry weight of your food). Both of these turn out to be easy to do if you have _power_. Brute force chemical processes and (for water) techniques like distillation come to the rescue. While 100% recycling of water is hard to do, even 80-90% would have a huge impact on your supply mass, and air recycling is very nearly perfect.
A biologically based recycler has the advantage of being able to turn solid waste into food, but that's about its only advantage. System efficiency vs. energy in (light) is actually pretty poor, and it takes a lot of space and a lot of mass, even if you use something like algae that's near the bottom of the food chain and has low infrastructure requirements.
Biological recyclers are useful when you can afford a large facility mass, and when you have a lot of people to feed. These are true on a large space station (think "colony") or planetary base (again think "colony"), but not for most spacecraft.
Still very interesting to think through the options for.
I'd hate to be the cosmonaut that ruins everything on day 400. It's not like there are millions of cosmonauts, some of them probably wanted to be in this project but were turned down, etc? It would be even worse if they actually believed they might have a shot at an actual Mars mission in their lifetime.
This must be Russua's version of Big Brother.
Subzerorz
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If you are going to define a word right after you use it, don't bother using it. If people want to know what the word means, they'll look it up. M
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.
That idea would work better with the moon and not an asteroid. Then moon would be easier then to track an steroid and is closer to earth, making it easier to set up a base.
Make it five hot chicks and one guy. Then charge for the web feed and PayPerView.
Title says it all...
I think the asteroids are much resource-richer than the moon. Big chunks of good iron-mixed-with-rocks. Negligible gravity too.
You slashdoters can join up without having to worry about feeling awkward the whole time.
Sindri Traustason.
From the CNN article: "Polyakov told Interfax reporters that the 500 Days experiment will not include female volunteers."
I wonder if this is related to what happened last time they tried something like this. From space.com:
"Canadian physician, Dr. Judith Lapierre, tells a different tale. She was in the chamber for 110 days. "Somebody pulled me by my arm and tried to kiss me. Of course, we are not talking about [rape], but for me it was a high level of sexual harassment and if women don't stand up, the next thing that happens is usually that. I pushed the guy, but then I was told that in Russia I just should just give him a slap in the face. However, it is not my way of handling such things.""
If this (sexual harassment problems) is their reasoning behind the decision to exclude women, I think its a pretty poor reason. Why not rather exclude men?
I reread the headline several times trying to figure out why the Russians are mocking us.
Yeah, me too. Last I checked, Russia was a powerful industrialized nation that had still failed utterly to develop a sense of humor.
Like what I said? You might like my music
Think about it - all these Big Brother shows where they lock up people for a year in a container really do simulate the social and psychological aspects of a mars mission.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
She swam the Bering strait.
Although she trained a lot in cold water, the article also says she has a natural tendancy to enjoy cold water.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Then food (for fat American women) and alchohol (for spoiled Russian men who will face those ugly broads all the time) reserves should be increased al least 100 times.
He drinks Chateau Petrus and Romanee-Conti every day.
In Russia every day someone dies of laughter at general american stupidity.
Mineshaft ain't a good solution. One of the things you'll get on Mars and during the trip is light. If you don't need artificial light running your hydroponics, that's a bunch of energy budget saved. Being able to look out of a window will also help stop your subjects going crazy with cabin fever. :-)
Also, if you're going to spray the walls with concrete and some plastic, I don't see why a normal building isn't an option. It's much, much cheaper to put up a building than to excavate a tunnel.
Grab.
You don't have to launch 'em fat. You can feed them in a space station, where it's easi(er) to get food to. Then send 'em rolling to Mars!
> 1) Send a robot to a handy asteroid between here and mars.
1.5) Hope that asteroid matches the orbits of Earth & Mars well enough to make sure that after 3 years it isn't on the opposite side of the sun as the destination.
I don't know enough about planetary orbits to say if that's a valid concern, but it seems to me that it would be.
Tons of food and water, 6 volunteers.... ...just how big is this Russian mayonaise jar anyway?
As with many of my generation, the dream of cosmic exploration by the commomn-man is quickly being usurped by the likely reality that perhaps our grandkids or great-grandkids will have that chance. That said, I am hopeful that perhaps this will lead to private venture a la Ansari to egg our governements on to partner with private industry to actually move us beyond our 30-year-old boundaries.
The main barrier to the common man exploring space, and even to things like a Moon or Mars mission, is that getting into space is very expensive. This is due to physical laws (delta-v required is much higher than any chemical rocket's exhaust velocity), so it isn't likely to change any time soon.
Better materials for rockets will drop the costs by a factor of 10 within my lifetime, at minimum. Other technologies like laser launchers or space elevators have the potential to drastically reduce launch costs, but it remains to be seen whether or not they actually _will_.
If costs drop to the point where lifting a minivan-sized spacecraft to orbit costs no more than a year or three's salary, we'll see the common man in space (and doing with duct tape and baling wire what costs the government billions and industry tens or hundreds of millions, at the cost of much greater risk to the common men doing it).
The Russian mock Mars mission is a hoax perpetrated on the public by the Russian government - they really went to Mars! You can tell by the shadows in the photograph.
I'm a surgeon and see plenty of people much heavy than that who can take stressful situations (surgery!) As far as the stress of lift-off it's greatly exagerated. I'm not trying to sell obesity- but astronauts are so vigorously trained, that I bet you can get overweight, cardiovascular in shape people to easily withstand liftoff.
The amount of weight saved this way is significant, and yes I know the water and O2 are important - but these will be recycled.
..........FULL STOP.
"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
This is funny, not a troll.
The poster is "performing a mock" Mars mission. It's funny, laugh.