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NASA Working on Mars Menu
DevotedSkeptic writes in with a story about the work going into feeding astronauts on a mission to Mars. "The menu must sustain a group of six to eight astronauts, keep them healthy and happy and also offer a broad array of food. That's no simple feat considering it will likely take six months to get to the Red Planet, astronauts will have to stay there 18 months and then it will take another six months to return to Earth. Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time. 'Mars is different just because it's so far away,' said Maya Cooper, a senior research scientist with Lockheed Martin who is leading the efforts to build the menu. 'We don't have the option to send a vehicle every six months and send more food as we do for the International Space Station.'"
Is it just me or are the rest of you getting a feeling of deja vu as well?
Easy...
'nuff said
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
No option to resupply? I figured that We would be sending 2-4 tons of supplies to restock every 2-3 months. I mean, it's one thing to hop in the Soyuz capsule and retrograde burn back home, but at the rate things break on the ISS, I can't imagine less than two restocking missions being sent to the mars mission en route, with another set of supplies being sent down every 3 months while they're on the planet. Things break, people get sick, shit happens.
moox. for a new generation.
Might it be time to dig out the poop steak hoax and turn it into the real thing?
Human flesh, human eye ball, and human bone, with a just a sprinkle of martian dust.
...space weevil?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna_Machine
On the way out, normal rations but watch very closely who is underperforming in their duties.
On the way back, Soylent Green for dinner.
Just an idea...
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
has too many calories
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
"the lack of gravity means smell - and taste - is impaired. So the food is bland."
Really.
How come nobody else reading Slashdot noticed this ludicrous statement? How can a lack of gravity "impair" smell? Do they mean the SENSE of smell or taste? What are they talking about?
Is there any reason a whole lot of canned/freeze-dried food couldn't be sent to Mars in advance? Now that we can target Mars with pretty much pin-point accuracy (within a few dozen KM) there's no reason a bunch of supply missions couldn't be sent before the fleshbots arrive.
We herald in the gastronauts.
I'll be back after a short break. Don't go changin'.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
People in the military say that MRE is three lies in one acronym.
.
Unmanned supply ships, why not?
You managed to land a car on mars ffs.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_(chocolate_bar)
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Send them waffles and bacon!
Oh, and always promise them cake, but never give it to them.
You want calorie dense nutrient dense foods. I can fit in a single backpack all the food needed by one person for 30 days. Problem is they will go insane eating the same ration day in and day out.
The other aspect is also choosing foods that have a higher conversion factor so the waste elimination is compact and less frequent. You cant go high protein as you have a limited supply of water and you have to have water to process protein. So it 's a balance that is hard to figure out.
The article summary is very wrong, " Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time." is really easy. Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time that dont use too much water from your finite limited supply of water and reduces the excrement output of the entire family to be as small as possible.
THAT is what NASA is trying to do, it's massively harder than planning a 3 year grocery list.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Devout Mormons are instructed to store away a year's worth of food and necessities.
Here in Salt Lake City, Utah, there are numerous stores that cater to this.
I wonder what NASA could learn from them.
Some stores sell a complete [Freeze Dried] year's worth of food prepackaged, and variety is a big selling point. (And they have various options at various at various prices depending on the variety and quantity you want. (Or buy one of their grain grinders and some grain to mix it up a bit.)
So, NASA could just mail order three one-year packages per person, and be done with it.
Erm... Why? I'm guessing there's a few supplies shops owned by senior Morman decision makers?
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Did you just crawl from under a rock? I can see I'm going to have to spell this out for you, but do you really think that male astronauts (or sailors, or oil rig workers) manage to go for extended periods without getting intimate with one of their hands? Just because the subject isn't exactly widely discussed outside the inhabitants of single-male communities, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. If that little disposal problem can be coped with, periods should be the least of anyone's worries. Pregnancy, of course, is a different matter but doesn't carry the subtext of "female body, ooh gross".
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Dude...
Every single astronaut is close to your definition. They sit on top of some megatons capable explosive fuel and light that candle, hoping to get back in home without being burned on the re-entrance.
Why?
Because they think that there's things more important than their lives.
Never underestimate the human being. Not all of us are selfish bastards.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
When the fecal mass agglutinates, reaches the asteroid belt, agglutinates some more and comes back as a honking great comet which will crash straight into us. (No, I am not serious. A maker of feeble jokes yes, but not entirely ignorant of physics).
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Still partially selfish... People love the idea of being recognised for crazy things most won't do. Same as Guiness World Record holders.
Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time.
Then forget that idea, because it's nothing like that.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
If they have the expertise, who cares why they have it if you can make use of it.
And why is a blatantly anti-mormon reply without any content relevant to the thread been given a score of 2 and the original comment with information relevant to the thread given a score of 0?
No, storage is easily solvable. Recovery isn't if you have to land on the wrong side of Mars from your cache. Curiosity manages about 4cm/min, and although that's faster than London rush hour traffic often seems to be, nobody is going to land a Cayenne and a fuel dump on Mars.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Top Ramen Dumbass... every college student knows that
Send unmanned supply vehicle(s) ahead of the mission.
If we can now park 1 tonne loads on Mars with some precision, it shouldn't be rocket science groan to send some supply drops to the landing area before the colonists/settlers arrive.
It's possible some of these drops could be hydroponically controlled environments, so that there is the possibility of some fresh food on Mars on arrival.
Or get McDonalds to start a franchise there....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
>If they have the expertise, who cares why they have it if you can make use of it.
I have no idea why a Mormon would need to stash food, it was a reasonable question. The second point was just musing about motives, hardly 'anti-Mormon' unless you have a huge chip on your shoulder.
As for the scores, I can't help the original having 0 - it's posted as AC so that's going to happen.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Devout Mormons are instructed to store away a year's worth of food and necessities. Here in Salt Lake City, Utah, there are numerous stores that cater to this. I wonder what NASA could learn from them. Some stores sell a complete [Freeze Dried] year's worth of food prepackaged, and variety is a big selling point. (And they have various options at various at various prices depending on the variety and quantity you want. (Or buy one of their grain grinders and some grain to mix it up a bit.)
So, NASA could just mail order three one-year packages per person, and be done with it.
So Mitt Romney will get us to Mars first? Color me confused :)
The military has already solved this problem reasonably well with MREs. Another possible solution would be to have progress-like spacecrafts to restock, carefully scheduling the launch dates for them to do a job similar to what they already do to the ISS. In short, do not try to send everything at once (would need a very large ship), send gradually and continuously.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Don't forget the adrenaline rush.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
OP makes a valid point, and you're not an astronaut so don't pretend to speak for them.
Wow, you're dumb. It's everything like that. Taking a chance to better humanity AND be famous for it is a wonderful thing. So what if you have to be a little different to do it?
I, for one, would definitely consider doing it if not to get off this dirtball planet. Too many problems with humans as it stands, anyway. Give me all the video games, movies, tv shows and music that I want as well as companionship and I'll really think about it.
think about it dude, mormonism is a religion that came to be not long after the colonial era where many people were homesteaders and/or rural with potential for wide distances between. Setting an edict of keeping a long term store of food would simply be good planning in case of serious disasters or crop failures or separation from the rest of society for a long term period.
Selecting a year is just a round kind of number in terms of time. At the time i'm sure it was considered good common sense.
And why is a blatantly anti-mormon reply without any content relevant to the thread been given a score of 2 and the original comment with information relevant to the thread given a score of 0?
Because of your settings: you're reading AC comments with no modifiers, and non-AC commenters with a karma bonus.
Now hop further up, go into your account, assign +3 to AC and -3 to non-AC. Happy now? The world is a better place?
Ps: and get a life!
By the way, the recipes are VEGAN, not just 'vegetarian', there is a BIG difference.
Until a propulsion method is invented that can get humans to mars and back in a few weeks the whole premise is ridiculous. No SANE person is going to volunteer to spend a year in a capsule with 18 months on a dust ball with an unbreathable atmosphere and lethal UV radiation. Sure, you'll find some volunteers but I guaranteed they'll all be mentally unbalanced and would probably chicken out at the last moment anyway. And don't anyone compare it with old sailing ship voyages - its nothing like that. On a ship you have gravity, fresh air, you can go outside, stop off at places and even swim. The nearest analogy would be to the conditions the poor slaves were kept in on atlantic voyages down in the hold.
Well, perhaps count me as insane, as I would volunteer for such a trip to Mars in a heartbeat.
Well, if I had to spend a year long voyage to Mars trapped in a capsule the size of a phone booth I would be a little bit more upset and concerned, and there is no way I would travel to Mars in the Orion capsule alone and in free fall the whole way, but there are other ways to make the trip a little more reasonable.
As for comparing a trip to Mars with a voyage from London to San Francisco in the 19th Century or even just across the North Atlantic in the 17th Century, I think the analogy is pretty appropriate. No, you didn't just jump into the water whenever you felt like it (assuming that you could even swim... that was not even a common skill for most people of that era). Regardless, I think you are making too many excuses for why it won't work.
If you want to see at least one well thought out proposal in terms of how somebody has suggested a trip to Mars can happen, here is a video for you to look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx6cioPdPZQ
For myself, I would prefer to travel to Mars in a NAUTILUS-X spacecraft. There are propulsion methods for getting to Mars that are effective in cutting that trip down to just a few weeks like you are suggesting, but most of them involve nuclear energy as an energy source of some kind. There are so many anti-nuclear nuts that complain each time NASA sends up a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (usually called simply an RTG) that assembling a full fledged nuclear reactor in space would be seen as public enemy #1 and would kill any attempt to even try. These same idiots would likely complain even if it was a nuclear fusion reactor instead, as that dreaded "nuclear" word would be used still. The trick for travel to Mars quickly is to simply have a high density energy source. Mars is just on the edge of what you can do with chemical energy in terms of using things like liquid oxygen and something else like hydrogen or methane. That is the reason why it takes so long to travel to Mars.
Or, the more likely reason - they are adrenaline junkies.
Submarine duty is a better comparison, two to three months without surfacing is typical.
OK, thanks. Makes sense in a historical sort of way. I know pretty much zip about Mormons, never met one so I really couldn't see where the food store thing came from.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
It's not rocket salad.
So Mitt Romney will get us to Mars first? Color me confused :)
Sending Mitt Romney to Mars: Brilliant plan! The benefits to the economy will even outweigh the cost of the trip
---
On the other being, being you one of the selfish bastards, rest assured I'm keeping you correctly accounted.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Sending people to mars is one thing. You schedule it to take the shortest route. But sending equipment and supplies is different. They should be sending supplies for 10 years prior to the mission.
The hard part is getting the stuff into orbit. Then you blast it on any convenient trajectory available. You don't have to go very fast at all. In fact you want it to have plenty of fuel when it gets there so that it can park itself in orbit and then be brought down anywhere on the planet using probably the bumper ball landing system. Any fuel left if the craft can be salvaged later.
The food will super freeze so it might be necessary to make a reverse fridge to insulate the food and keep heat inside the storage compartment. You can definitely send all the ice cream you want. And you probably don't need to sterilize it at all if the trip takes two years since the food will be exposed to cosmic rays all that time. The food you send should be as dehydrated as possible, sending frozen water separately. Lots of rice, beans, pasta, quinoa and spices. Dehydrated tomato paste. Lots of aging cheeses. Concentrated milk and cream.
And don't anyone compare it with old sailing ship voyages - its nothing like that.
Except that, well, it is like that. You can have fresh air and artificial gravity on the spaceship as well. You can get outside. And they're going to stop off at Mars and Earth.
People have done this sort of thing for centuries perhaps even millennia, but it's all supposed to be different now because it's in space.
No SANE person is going to volunteer
Uh huh. That's a remarkably ignorant statement. There's never been a shortage of SANE volunteers for manned spaceflight.
Dude, why waste anytime on this . There are 2012 Armageddon survival kits at Sam's club/ Costco / etc. Just wait till Jan. 1st , 2013 and score the discount.
It is different. In space, nobody can hear you scream. But I'd go in a heartbeat - assuming there was some decent insurance / payout thingy to replace my income for my family.
In space, nobody can hear you scream.
And that's different how? Keep in mind no one can hear you scream in a storm either. Or if you're adrift alone.
Devout Mormons are instructed to store away a year's worth of food and necessities.
Here in Salt Lake City, Utah, there are numerous stores that cater to this.
I wonder what NASA could learn from them.
Absolutely nothing. NASA already knows much more than they do about preserving food. They also already know something about what kind of nutrients will be needed. The Mormons also have the luxury of pantries.
So, NASA could just mail order three one-year packages per person, and be done with it.
If cost were no object, that would make sense. They'll save more be optimizing foodstuffs. I wonder if they have looked into chia seed, goji berries, and other so-called "Superfoods"? I'd guess yes, but I'm not going looking.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's a Bugblatter of Trall cookbook, partly plagairized from How to Serve Pork.
Free Martian Whores!
I will do it.
Not be Mr negativity, but this is some of the reason why many say that NASA is becoming a failed experiment not worthy of federal funding. I don't mean to discount what they do and what they have done. But sometimes, they spend far more effort engineering than actually producing which is what makes it really hard to secure public buy-in over time.
You can re-supply a mission to the planet, you can accomplish many things but NASA's model of 6 years development for a 20 year mission isn't closing the gap fast enough to keep public interested in what they are doing. Really, do you *need* to plan a 3 year mission, no, your intentionally adding a layer of complexity to try and make everything into one bubble. NASA's hayday of accomplishment where they had massive amount of public interest was because everyday people saw the things that they were doing. They took chances (measured) and didn't engineer everything to death. They simply need to get out of their own way long enough for people to actually feel inspired by them.
If someone dies a horrible, screaming death in space and there isn't a tree there to hear them, do they really make a sound?
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
"Well, perhaps count me as insane, as I would volunteer for such a trip to Mars in a heartbeat."
Go on then, put your name down. Whats stopping you?
"As for comparing a trip to Mars with a voyage from London to San Francisco in the 19th Century or even just across the North Atlantic in the 17th Century, I think the analogy is pretty appropriate"
No. It isn't. On ship if something goes wrong you have a small chance of surviving by jumping off as has happened in the past. Also when you get to your destination it will be habitable unlike mars. And all the other reasons I mentioned. If you really think they're the same then perhaps you are deluded enough to go to mars. Thought I suspect your delusion will only last long enough for you to have left earth then you'll spend the next 2 years living with the horror.
"here is a video for you to look at:"
Sorry , I don't have 75 mins to spend watching pie in the sky dreaming.
"The trick for travel to Mars quickly is to simply have a high density energy source"
You need more than just energy , you need a reaction mass - a LOT of it. You might want to brush up on newtons 2nd & 3rd laws.
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars500/
Go on then hero, give NASA a call and put your name down.
Frozen Food can last 2-3 years. Does it all the time in my freezer.
In space you have an infinite supply of cold, just keep the frozen food on the shady side of the ship.
Simple
so you lead a very sheltered safe life and have a very narrow view of what 'sane' is. You probably would become mentally unbalanced in dire or stressful situation. Meanwhile, there are plenty of tougher sane people who would do the job well with perfect mental health.
All they need is a good supply of molded protein. With a little ingenuity, you can even make a birthday cake out of it!
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
I get your point, but I think you romanticize it too much. It's not like they are going over a trench in WW1 to save the man beside them, knowing for a fact that, short of some miracle, they will die. Astronaut death rate is only about 7.5% (34 deaths per 450 visitors to space)-- and I imagine it is only getting safer. They become astronauts because the thought of going into space is sweet, it pays lots of money, gives you lots of glory, and in some case, lots of fame. Astronauts compete with many other men to be one of the few to make it into space -- It's not like they do it because "Someone has to do it! And I will do it for humanity!" or something like that. You make it seem as though they are doing something that everyone else is too scared too do. No, they actually competed and won the opportunity into travel into space.
Maybe, a few of them hold the attitude of doing the job as a dangerous and selfless act for the good of humanity, but they are few and far between. Most of them as kids watched the first man step on the moon and spent the rest of their lives wanting to follow in his footsteps (no pun intended). I don't think the dangers are really part of their consideration -- just excitement and the prospect of a childhood dream and once-in a lifetime experience being fulfilled.
"I, for one, would definitely consider doing it if not to get off this dirtball planet."
Right, because Mars is a tropical paradise. Oh , wait...
Too many problems with humans as it stands, anyway. Give me all the video games, movies, tv shows and music that I want as well as companionship and I'll really think about it."
Yeah , course you would. Now hurry up, your mum is calling you for supper.
What would you do for mental stimulation for a year?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
"so you lead a very sheltered safe life and have a very narrow view of what 'sane' is"
Speak for yourself. My life has been far from sheltered which is rather the point. Only an antisocial agrophobic who's been brought up virtually living in a closet wouldn't have a problem with spending 2 years living in an airless tin can millions of miles from earth. Try persuading some flyboy or a skydiver who's used to the freedom of the open skys and see what sort of single finger response you get. That sort might have been happy to spend a few hours or even days in space knowing they'd be home with 48 hours, but 2 years? No way Jose.
I am confused; NASA decides to kill all flagship robotic missions and gut Mars science so instead they spend money Mars food?
Our economy is in the shitter and we're spending money building a menu for Mars? Do we have a launch vehicle? A habitat plan? And I thought NASA didn't have enough money to support core missions.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Seriously. Wouldn't it make sense to launch several unmanned "shipping containers" of food and supplies well ahead of the manned craft, set to land near the proposed landing site, and to continue to send such craft during the mission timeline? (I'm aware that Earth and Mars are both in motion and travel times vary, but given the long run-up to a manned mission, there would be a lot of viable windows to launch such "advance craft".) Make plans for at least one, if not more, such launches during the on-ground mission time period. (Also, include the most advanced 3-D printers of the time on the main craft, and backups on the "shipping containers", along with plenty of raw material to feed them. The odds of needing to create a spare part, or a custom tool, to deal with unexpected events are pretty darn good, and it's better to send "tools to make tools" than to try to guess what parts you're most likely to need a spare of.)
(Hell, while we're dreaming.... why not send some kind of self-assembling farm? I'm serious. Robot craft lands. It release a greenhouse-like structure that unfolds and assembles itself. It begins drawing water from the atmosphere -- there's not a LOT, but there's some -- or from the frozen ground (am I wrong, or is there evidence of lots of sub-surface ice locked in the soil? No time to check now...). When enough is gathered, it starts off a hydroponic process. As the plants produce oxygen, it's drawn off and stored, and CO2 is drawn from the surrounding Martian environment. Yes, I know sunlight is much dimmer on Mars. I do not think it's unreasonable that some plants can be found on Earth which can survive on lower levels of sunlight, or at least genetically engineered to do so. Even very simple plants can be processed into something edible, if not necessarily gourmet.)
I'm not claiming this technology exists off-the-shelf today, but nothing strikes me as beyond 10 years or so of focused development efforts. It shouldn't require breaking any laws of physics or lifter/booster technologies orders of magnitude beyond what we currently have. (Regular, incremental improvements in lightweight materials, genetic engineering, and robotics are safe predictions, as such things go. Expecting significant breakthroughs in the cost of getting anything into orbit is probably not a safe prediction, so it's best, to my mind, to think about "What's kind of stuff could we put in a payload in 10 years?" than "How can we lift a bigger payload in 10 years?")
We are still counselled to keep a supply of food. It is for natural disasters or loss of employment.
Nobody can hear you scream on Antarctica either.
And don't anyone compare it with old sailing ship voyages - its nothing like that. On a ship you have gravity, fresh air, you can go outside, stop off at places and even swim.
I wouldn't say nothing like them, but yes, it would be very different. However, the first trips to the poles would be fairly close. Gravity, fresh air, ability to go outside or swimming aren't much comfort when you're freezing to death due to miscalculations or equipment failure.
What is this...? I don't even...
I think it makes more sense to make it a one way journey. Front load a bunch of cargo ships with MRE's, Genesis type habitats, grow lights, batteries, solar panels, seeds, RTG's, and enough spare equipment to keep them going and tools to make all the spares they'll need. Give them a food buffer and the materials to start growing their own.
The next project would be to start using indigenous materials.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Why can't you? McDonalds figured this out 40 years ago, a Drive through. Actually, I'm patenting a Drive-Thru (In Space, on a mobile device) If it's a year and a half trip, send the first batch of food 1.5 years before leaving, the second 1 year before leaving, and the third 6 months before leaving. The first one lands on Mars, the other two are put in orbit around the sun in a straight (ish) line to mars. When the ship carrying people is 2-3 days out, accelerate the food to the speed of the ship so that they are travelling the same speed beside each other. Dock, and voila! Space Drive Thru
that sending a delivery vehicle every 6 months should be part of a mission to mars. And supplies should be sent ahead of the manned mission.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
IN case they need food for a trip to another planet? No? then they probably have nothing to add. And by probably I mean, definitively.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
people have stayed in space for a year. plenty of those "flyboys" you admire have volunteered to do more. And like those in the "tin can" known as the ISS, they wouldn't be alone. Sane people do important dangerous work
Beta test on the moon not on Mars.
Beta test on the moon not on Mars.
Apollo was alpha.
A DS and like 50 games is a good start. Thats roughly the size of a shoebox. An e-reader with a memory card full of things is another good one. I assume communication with home would be on the agenda as well.
I would assume the others on the ship would make for good conversation as well.
ME ME ME Pick me! Pick me!
No sane person from civilized and urban Europe would go to explore the Africa yet we did it.
2000 tons of fuel+oxidizer is not "some megatons". In fact it is closer to two kilotons. They're not "lighting that candle", they're riding the most expensive machine ever created, with much of the cost invested to improve its reliability.
It's still a lot less reliable, but these guys are not throwing their lives away as you imply.
TFA:
Can anyone suggest to me why powdered milk, and freeze-dried or liquid nitrogen frozen meat would not last for the three year voyage? One vendor freeeze-dired meat entrees claims they last 7 years: http://www.mtnhse.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=M&Category_Code=MHDL
Is there some constraint that they are not telling us about?
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
masturbate while fantasizing about your mom.
By the way, there will be no Mars mission, ever...
The United States is broke, seriously broke from losing two trillion-dollar wars (lost in the sense that the money is gone and the assholes are still car-bombing and slicing off the noses of teenage girls). And there was the trillion dollars used to bail out the banks 'too big to fail'. Not to mention the trillion dollars pissed away on the housing bubble. And several hundred billion that disappeared after the dot-com bubble. Not forgetting the 100 million 60+-year-old people about to incur serious medical expenses for the first time. And totally ignoring the economic disruptions from peak-oil and global warming.
Broke means no money for things like manned Mars missions. So plan them endlessly to the exacting detail, debate and discuss them forever on Slashdot. But don't ever delude yourself that manned Mars missions are ever actually going to happen.
"On the other hand, you being one of the selfish bastards, you can rest assured I'm keeping you correctly accounted."
Not that this matters anymore.
(I'm going to need some more English lessons - or better yet, a geriatrician)
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Sure there will. It will be in roughly 50 years, and the astronauts will speak either Mandarin or Farsi.
the should somehow position supply pods along the way before the manned mission departs.
Buy the food from Mars, Inc.
I'm not in favor of any mission requiring rations or any Earth-sourced sustenance.
For me the whole point of a mission to that planet is to test out sustainability in space and on Mars, not to depend on Earth for everything.
There should be a hydroponics module with technology to grow food quickly. We're just not ready to go to Mars I feel. Not as a society (lack maturity) and not technologically afaik.
How much pant life could be replenished in the time it takes to send men to Mars - quite a bit!
Mushrooms spores would make good rations. Mushrooms don't take too long to grow and consume a small amount of space, and are nutritious. Sunflowers grow nice and quick and can grow big, providing good fat and vitamin E.Sending up a crap load of rations - dull uninspiring NASA mindset I'm afraid..
He has his hand.
If he gets bored, he has his other hand.
Worst comes to worst it is quite likely that the spacecraft will be packed with computer equipment and will have several TB of data containing books, games, videos and for the worst case scenario where someone is BORED there most likely will be a facility where he can go code or do actual work like scientific experiments.
Bored? No.
Go completely nuts? Sure
Where do I sign up?
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
Oh come on
Just declare in a newspaper somewhere that we are certain that there is gold on Mars and humans will be over there in any which way possible.
If that means that some government on the planet who does not have an aversion to strapping a nuclear reactor to several thousand tonnes of fuel and launching it into space to become the core energy generation system for our planet's interplanetary bus.. then it will happen.
Gold, I tell you, gold. Trust human nature to bypass all problems and concentrate on getting there and back. Greed and stupidity can solve just about any problem, in the same way that a hammer can solve just about any problem..
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
The first thing I thought of, man I hope they have a really big beer fridge, 3 years of beer is gonna take up some serious room!
Then I thought, wow that is a lot of piss, though I suppose that could be mostly recycled into water etc....
Then I thought, 3 years of food? That is an awful lot of poo. Is the spacecrft going to be making regular dumps on route, or are they going to have some vaste resivoir of poo that they are going to cart along with them...
Then I thought, I kind of hope they do, though landing with the additional weight might be hard, but they might be able to use the poo as fertilizer to establish some greenhouse on Mars...
Of course if they are trying NOT to contaminate Mars with Earth stuff, that is probably not the way to go...
I can't imagine there would be a shortage of volunteers for the one-way trip to Mars (assuming a well thought out, long-term plan), and we could do far more actual science if we were committed to long-term settlement.
I wouldn't volunteer as a 20-year old, but as a 60-year old? Hello Mars! :-)