Mars Explorers Face Huge Radiation Problem

astroengine writes "A radiation sensor inside NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows that even under the best-case scenario and behind shielding currently being designed for NASA's new deep-space capsule, future travelers will face a huge amount of radiation. The results, based on Curiosity's 253-day, 348-million-mile cruise to Mars, indicate an astronaut most likely would exceed the current U.S. lifetime radiation exposure limit during one round trip mission. "Even for the shortest of missions we are perilously close to the radiation career and health limits that we've established for our astronauts," NASA's chief medical officer Richard Williams told a National Academy of Sciences' medical committee on Thursday."

Comments

Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[jellomizer]

Radiation only has positive outcomes!

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[Tablizer]

You mean Ann Coulter is right?

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, she's right. Right into crazy.

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[Tablizer]

If you dig a bit, her "logic" is more or less akin to: The more you hit a spot on your head with a hammer, the more it swells up such that subsequent blows are padded by the swelling, doing less damage on each blow.

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[ShanghaiBill]

her "logic" is more or less akin to:

Actually I think this is Ann Coulter's logic:
1. Say the most outrageous thing she can think of
2. ... which generates lots of outrage among liberals
3. ... which generates publicity
4. ... which generates traffic and hits to her blogs and videos
5. ... which generates income and talk show invitations
6. Goto 1

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[X0563511]

Which is actually true... if you leave enough time between hammer blows for your osteoblasts to do their job.

Repeated stress on a bone results in that bone being strengthened. Here's what this looks like after a good long time of it. That's one of the leg bones from a Cobbler. Holding shoes over his/her leg and pounding nails into them through the majority of their lifetime resulted in that large reinforcement of bone.

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rays shower you, child. Bask in its gloooow !

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[rtb61]

So let's turn a problem into a solution. A lot of radiation, add a layered antennae tuned to the radiation to convert the energy into usable power. Nano structures can absorb and convert a lot of energy, it only remains to engineer the right one that can absorb and convert the most problematic frequencies. Often just attempting to block specific frequencies is less efficient than absorbing and converting to use full energy and then absorbing and converting to heat.

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[davester666]

I would think a 'solution' based on the OP would be to throw a variety of insects and small animals into the spaceship, in boxes timed to periodically release them into your cabin.

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Space radiation is primarily high energy charged particles (e.g. nuclei of atoms whizzing around near the speed of light). So, it's not electromagnetic radiation that can be captured with an antennae. And even if it were electromagnetic, the amount of actual power coming in is ridiculously tiny. And even there were a lot of power, your statement that "nanostructures absorb and convert a lot of energy" is not even true for visible light (plain silicon solar panels still do much better!) let alone moving into the realm of hypothetical nanostructures that absorb other wavelengths. But, congratulations, your last sentence is true, though vacuously true. Yes, converting something to energy is (by definition) more efficient than not converting it to energy...

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[greenfruitsalad]

Has nobody read Joe Haldeman's Marsbound? Clearly the solution is to set up a camp under ground. It's obviously working well enough for the Martians.

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[steelyeyedmissileman]

Well, with that kind of logic, she's never going to reach

7. Profit!

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[hlavac]

Radiation only has positive outcomes!

Well, japanese people are testing that hypothesis right now, we will find out in a few years!

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[bkcallahan]

Ah, she thinks we build up a passivation layer. Explains why no new knowledge gets into her head...

Re: Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

#5 spins out profit

Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought ant expedition to Mars was a one way trip. So, the radiation during the trip would be half that of a round trip. That dose would be well within the limits. Of course, now we have to think about radiation on Mars surface. How many inches of surface would it take to bring radiation down to acceptable limits?

Okay

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice. How about on-planet? If you're talking about a one-way trip, you've cut that exposure in half, so what's the exposure rate on the ground? Is it habitable, given a reasonable amount of shielding, or is it a pipe dream without some type of yet-to-be-invented magnetic shielding?

Re:Okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, the radiation levels on the surface of Mars are roughly the same as low-Earth orbit. Definitely feasible, but you've still got to get past deep space, where you're trying to do in the space of a few meters what the Earth does with miles of atmosphere and a huge magnetic field. I'm honestly impressed that their designed shielding keeps radiation so (relatively) low.

Re:Okay

[Baloroth]

Best source I can find is this article, which lists the surface radiation as around .7 millisieverts a day, or around the same as low Earth Orbit (Mars atmosphere is extremely thin, so it doesn't give as much protection as Earth's does from cosmic rays). This is vastly more than people are exposed to on Earth, and could definitely pose long-term health risks for a colony or other one-way mission.

Re:Okay

[Synerg1y]

Agreed, I wonder if there's something that can be done about the atmosphere itself. If not, this may all be for naught, as its not easily habitable if massive amounts of shielding are required to form even a basic settlement.

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

So limit outdoor activity, and bury the colony shelters so that you can leverage inxpensive dirt for shielding.

Say, with sandbags packed with martian regolith.

(With a solar sintering machine, and "refined 19th century tech*", you could produce all the glass fiber sandbags you could possibly ever want on mars.)

* 19th century version
*refined modern and cheap consumer version

[For the imagination impaired, you use the solar sintering machine to produce a small, stationary bead of melted glass from abundant martian regolith, use a steel mandril to pull several glass fiber pulls off that bead, thread them through some eye-hooks in a halfcircle around the bead, then thread them through one last eye-hook as a bundle, and then feed the bundle into the knitting machine. Turn the crank, and a continuous tube of knitted glass fiber gets pooped out. Cut the "sock" at desired lengths, and use more glass fiber in a handheld bag stitcher to close the end, and stuff them with martian regolith. You can then stack them up to make 1950s style bunkers around the the habitat structures, which will not only keep the wind off of them, but also provide radiation shielding on the cheap for the colony. The total equipment needed would be well under 20kg, and would allow unlimited sandbag production at the colony site.]

Re:Okay

[wagnerrp]

I would love to see this 20kg solar blast furnace capable of refining, producing, and weaving aluminosilicate glass fibers from Martian regolith.

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

Solar sintering machine.
http://www.markuskayser.com/work/solarsinter/

Instead of attempting to use it as a 3d printer, you keep a fixed focal point, and simply melt the regolith into a small (US quarter sized) bead of hot glass.

You use a small metal mandril to pull glass fiber pulls off of that. The drawing of the glass shrinks the bead, but the sinter just makes more to replace it. Multiple pulls are made from the same bead, at different angles, then combined into a bundle.

Note how the 3d printer version fits in a suitcase.

Mars has 1/2 the solar irradiation as earth, so it will need a larger fresnel lens. Otherwise, same setup, minus the build table mechanics.

Re:Okay

[Kreigaffe]

I don't care. Put me on that rock. Hell, I'll go tonight. Let's do this.

Get me there, let me walk on Mars. The rest is details, nothing that happens after taking a step on another planet could possibly ever matter to me ever again, and whatever was done, whatever was sacrificed, whatever the cost, it would be worth it. I don't care. Let's go.

Re:Okay

[JWSmythe]

    Ya, there's something that can be done. The government is being very hush-hush about it. Until now, only those "in the know" have been told.

    Just under the surface of Mars is a vast quantity of water ice.

    In the Cydonia region of mars, there is an ancient pyramid. Deep within the pyramid is an alien device which will turn the water ice into a Earth-like breathable atmosphere.

    There is a catch though. There are agents already on-planet who will stop at nothing to keep you from activating the machine.

    It would take a madman to even consider it. More specifically, a madman who's mind has already been scrambled by a dramatically failed lobotomy. That man may be you.

Re:Okay

[roycepipkins]

No need to fill sand bags or dig holes. Mars has big lava tubes and other caves that could be put to the task. It would probably be possible to take advantage of the cave walls themselves when building the habitat.

Re:Okay

[Synerg1y]

Ah, that's what that face is for.

Re:Okay

[Iskender]

There's still the problem of constant lack of sunlight inside the habitat. Therefore we need to send only Slashdot users. These colonists will be well-adapted to the circumstances, and there will be no risk of them approaching the harmful "daylight radiation".

I think we should start with users with six-digit or lower IDs, to be on the safe side.

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

Note that the earth's atmosphere, at ~15psi sea level pressure, is equivalent to being under ~10m of water. While there's less solar irradiation at the surface of Mars, there's also not much of a magnetosphere to divert lots of charged radiation. So, to rough order of magnitude, one would need about the same amount of shielding as offered by Earth's atmosphere: about fifteen pounds of material per square inch, requiring a shell on order of 10 meters thick. That's a lot of material to melt/form! We're not talking about a couple-inch-thick shell, but an extremely thick and heavy structure. Tunneling underground would be a much more practical way to accomplish this than trying to sinter new structures on the surface. Of course, that doesn't fix the problem of dangerous doses on the trip over.

Bottom line, Mars is an extremely hostile environment for humans --- it won't be an attractive location for large-scale human habitation until we've overpopulated the much more attractive and liveable regions like the Antarctic continent and the entire ocean floor (and, based on current trends, population growth will turn around well before then). And, for pure science research purposes, remote robotic rovers are already super awesome (and will only continue to get better in the future); far preferable to sending humans.

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

Why pick and choose? It is perfectly sensible to do both!

Use the caves and lava tubes for the main structures, and use sandbags around entrances, exits, and surface structures. (Like the communication antennas, wind generator foundations, etc. Things that can't sensibly be underground, but still need protection from wind erosion.)

The ability to make inexpensive glass fiber cloth has other ancillairy uses besides the obvious as sandbags. It is also a very good structural material in a number of other situations, and shredded glass fibers make a good substitution for steel rebar in poured concrete.

For use in the creation of tethers, ropes, and stretched skin concrete forms, glass fiber and glass fiber cloth are very useful, not to mention the seriously insulative properties it has. You could stuff it between the natural cave walls and the alls of the habitat to greatly reduce habitat energy expenses for climate regulation.

The rinkydink sintering and knitting kit would have a *LOT* of direct applications, and be well worth the added weight.

Re:Okay

[Shadowmist]

Mars has no effective ozone layer or magnetic field. In other words, it's pretty much almost the same exposure to radiation as being in space. The atmosphere offers a little bit of protection, but not much. And definitely not on the long term. To make Mars habitable on the ground, you've got to build up a decent oxygen atmosphere that will give you an ozone layer. the lack of magnetic field though, may mean however that this isn't enough.

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

The vast majority of the mass of a sandbag, is the sand it is stuffed with. Also, you don't need to make the entire 10 meters out of the sandbags. The sandbags allow 2 things:

1) a stable dome structure onto which you can pile a lot of dumped dirt, and keep the habitat underneath completely free of bearing any weight. (Bunker)

2) an outer casing on top of said dirt mound to prevent wind erosion from blowing it all away, and exposing the colonists to the radiation outside.

You don't have to make nearly as many sandbags as you are letting on. Just enough to do landscaping and soil management with.

Re:Okay

[Phase Shifter]

Note that the earth's atmosphere, at ~15psi sea level pressure, is equivalent to being under ~10m of water. While there's less solar irradiation at the surface of Mars, there's also not much of a magnetosphere to divert lots of charged radiation. So, to rough order of magnitude, one would need about the same amount of shielding as offered by Earth's atmosphere: about fifteen pounds of material per square inch, requiring a shell on order of 10 meters thick. That's a lot of material to melt/form! We're not talking about a couple-inch-thick shell, but an extremely thick and heavy structure. Tunneling underground would be a much more practical way to accomplish this than trying to sinter new structures on the surface. Of course, that doesn't fix the problem of dangerous doses on the trip over.

This cloth shield you speak of could be refined, perhaps. It only needs to protect people, so you could reduce it to human-shaped cloth bundles so you don't waste material shielding unoccupied surface area. Once colonists get crops growing they could use less expensive straw as a construction material, thus giving each colonist a straw man to hide behind.

Alternatively, you could own up to the part you're trying to ignore, where he said "sandbags packed with regolith". I'm pretty sure you need a minimal thickness of cloth to contain a much thicker load of dirt.

Re:Okay

[ColdWetDog]

Wow, that's a great story. You should sell it as a movie script!

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

From a practicality perspective, moving enough dirt and making a stable dome structure that can hold up the weight of ~10m overburden is a lot harder than just digging tunnels (or using existing cave / lava tube structures) --- if you can move and reinforce enough dirt for 10m over the living space volume, then you could more easily tunnel out and reinforce a 4m-high underground habitat.

Of course, "practicality" isn't really a concern for Mars Colony considerations, because a Mars Colony is a stupid and impractical idea (at least at anywhere near our current level of technology). There are a lot of easier places to colonize/survive on Earth: deep underground; the ocean floor; etc. --- all of these are technologically far easier than Mars, yet still daunting challenges. Send rovers to Mars for science.

Re:Okay

[ShanghaiBill]

Apparently, the radiation levels on the surface of Mars are roughly the same as low-Earth orbit.

Simple solution: dig a tunnel and build your habitat underground. This will not only shield you from the radiation, but also give you some protection from the rather chilly Martian winters.

Re:Okay

[r1348]

My eyes just popped.

Re:Okay

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it. Who's on Space Nutter Downmod patrol tonight? Jimmy?

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

With that kind of negativity, of couse you won't look for sensible options.

Like, using marsian weather to deposit the dirt for you, or noting that martian surface gravity is 1/3 that of earth, and that a "50lb bag of sand" will weigh only 16.6lbs on mars.

Don't let those little things trouble your already made up mind though. (Like how at that kind of mechanical strain reduction, glass fiber tethers can hold up loads that you need high grade steel cables for on earth, and all the engineering tricks this simple fact would let you get away with on mars, that you simply would be unable to do on earth in any of the other harsh environments you cited, especially the ocean floor, where you would need a habitat made of pure premium unobtanium to hold back the hundreds of tons of pressure per square meter of water overhead.)

If you approach your problems with the preconception of "Its hard, and can't be done, and isn't worth the time!", then it will never be done, even when conditions have changed, and it most certainly can be done.

The purpose of building a colony outside of the earth is NOT to solve word overpopulation. The purpose is to put our eggs in many baskets. Or did you learn nothing from the celybinsk(sp?) Meteor incident?

Life doesn't have to be fun, glamorous, easy, or desirable there. The reason for putting life there isn't to crow about accomplishments, to solve some "overpopulation problem", or due to some science fiction fantasy utopian ideology or dream. Those are all popular canards used by people who hold your viewpoint, but none of them are the reasons why we should build a martian colony.

So, why then? Ask Mr Sagan. The basic gist is that keeping all the humans in one basket (earth) is a recipie for extinction on the long term. We have had at least one mass extinction event on this world. (And likely many others.) If it has happened once, it can and eventually will happen again. Refusal to accept this as a rational reason to expand our holdings as a species in favor of petty indulgences and empty arguments about difficulty are not founded on reason. Or did the recent russian meteor event not provide enough impetus for you?

No-one is saying a martian colony will be anything but a torturous, inhospitable, and eternally drudge-infused effort to barely survive. We are saying that the adversities that would be present are not insurmountable, and that you only truly fail when you fail to try, and are offing suggestions on how those adversities could be effectively overcome.

Take your recent one: moving hundreds of tons of dirt on top of the habitat's dome of sandbags.

Here's an inexpensive way to do it, that makes use of the martian environment, rather than fighting it:

Mars has seasonal winds that blow the powder fine regolith all over the place, and routinely move huge dunes of the stuff around. You build a wind control wallaround the leeward sides of the dome, so that the dust carried by the winds gets dropped. Mars itself willdump the dirt you want if you are patient.

You can test this out in earth based deserts right now if you want. It's how lost cities in the sahara from antiquity get buried over.

When faced with a very daunting engineering challenge, don't work hard and go nowhere; work smart, and get shit done.

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

The "avoid mass extinction event" reasoning is basically rubbish. If we have the technology to survive on the surface of Mars --- no water, air, or food except what you bring and raise in your sealed habitats; open a window and you die --- then we can survive the very worst planetary extinction events right here on Earth. Giant meteor smashes into the planet; toxic dust cloud blocks out 50% of sunlight; ecosystems thrown into havoc; flaming ashy death raining down from the skies for decades? *Still* easier to survive than Mars. The engineering know-how to create sustainable human habitats on Mars could do much more on Earth, even in such a worst-case scenario.

All the recent Russian meteor did was remind me of how gigantic a panic is made over extremely rare events, causing very little harm, while millions of people are dying from much easier to fix problems. We can start worrying about once-in-a-million-years vague possibilities after we've solved the issue of murdering each other for profit on a daily basis.

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

that argument is self defeating on its own merits:

You are basically saying that it is easier to make humans not be humans (alter human behavior such that competition is no longer performed for personal gains) than it is to build a self sufficient martian colony.

That does not follow.

Also, your rebuttle of the extinction reason for building the colony is not well established, and is easily picked apart, since it is based on suppositions, and not substantiated past events, ad relies heavily on magical thinking that humans are magically capable of adapting to anything (that isn't on mars of course!).

Nevermind that I already established that you can do things on mars that you simply can't on earth, simply from the materials sciences involved. That alone makes your argument not hold.

I can give you facts and figures as to why it most certainly *is* possible to build long term settlements on mars, with current technology and the available resources there on the planet. The best you have been able to offer are handwavy excuses and "oh, but this difficult thing makes that totally impossible!" Then shout loudly " I SAID IMPOSSIBLE!" When a simple solution to said "insurmountable problem" is broached.

One of us is being reasonable. The other is not.

Re:Okay

[rmdingler]

Hmmm. Simple and effective. How efficient.

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

Also, your rebuttle of the extinction reason for building the colony is not well established, and is easily picked apart, since it is based on suppositions, and not substantiated past events, ad relies heavily on magical thinking that humans are magically capable of adapting to anything (that isn't on mars of course!).

Not sure where you're getting the "magical thinking" or "assuming that humans are capable of adapting to anything" from my post above, but here are some basic science/engineering reasons why a worst-case Earth (atmosphere not directly breathable; solar input reduced to Martian levels by dust; death of most biomass) is still easier to deal with (without need for "magic"):
- Atmospheric pressure still exists. Habitation structures only need to block/filter undesirable atmospheric contaminants; not also hold 15psi of pressure. Far easier to create basically livable spaces (correct pressure and temperature to not immediately kill you) than in vacuum, without so much risk of structural failure turning areas deadly within seconds.
- Basic resources for life --- human and agricultural --- still readily available in large quantities, even if requiring some additional processing. Water, oxygen, and highly importantly: soil, containing the immensely complex mix of trace nutrients needed for life, are all available in massive quantities from day one.
- Transport: a lot easier to get people to on-Earth disaster shelters, both in order to save those people and to bring helpful expertise on site, than year-long journeys requiring expending a few typical lifetime's worth of energy/resources for each individual.
- Prior to a hypothetical disaster, all construction/testing/development takes place with the ease of doing things on Earth.
- Terraforming: over many decades, the Earth will pretty much automatically recover ecosystems, and terraform itself back into a hospitable planet. Although re-emerging ecosystems will be quite different (with initially greatly reduced biodiversity), in just about any conceivable "planetary extinction" scenario there is still plenty of raw material for surviving life forms to repopulate. Scatter tons of seeds on Mars, and they shrivel and die; but even if you razed every square inch of the Earth's surface with fire, everything is still teeming with viable life. This is based on "substantiated past events" that you seem to insist on.
- Political support: Earth-based disaster shelters, that can save large numbers of Earth-dweller's lives from catastrophic events, are much more likely to gain political support for the necessary massive expenditures by Earth-dwellers.

Making colonies on Mars may not be "impossible," but it's damn hard --- and isn't a better solution to the types of problems it's supposed to fix ("eggs in one basket") than applying considerably less resources to the far easier (yet still very hard) tasks of making "disaster-proof shelters" that could assure survival of large numbers of humans on Earth in the case of global extinction type events.

Re:Okay

[Xyrus]

It is pitch black. You will most likely be eaten by a grue.

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

You are forgetting several very important things:

1) these structures must already exist, when no apparent threat is known of.

2) people must be actively livng inside them when the calamity hits.

3) the structures must survive the initial upheval and chaos of the calamity.

By your own logic, 1) will never happen until humans stop being humans, because it is a big todo about "nothing. So, no calamity shelters will ever be built to preserve the human population on earth, because of "more pressing concerns."

Because no shelters will ever be built, not humans will be living inside them, so when the afore mentioned inevitable calamity DOES strike, humanity will be completely unprepaired for it, and will all die out.

*that* is why your argument is self defeating, and relies on magic.

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

1) these structures must already exist, when no apparent threat is known of.

Just like a Mars colony. Only several orders of magnitude less expensive to build per inhabitant.

2) people must be actively livng inside them when the calamity hits.

Just like a Mars colony. Only you've also got a lot more time/resources to move many more people into said structures, in addition to the skeleton crew needed to keep them prepared.

3) the structures must survive the initial upheval and chaos of the calamity.

Yep, just like a Mars colony would have to be able to adapt and carry on after being cut off from all Earth support.

By your own logic, 1) will never happen until humans stop being humans, because it is a big todo about "nothing".

Just like a Mars colony; only Earthbound shelters offer a much better "return on investment" --- much lesser resources required to make a lot more people likely to survive major disaster. So, if you're actually worried about saving some humans in the event of "extinction type" events, then you'd be enthusiastic about much more efficient and effective Earth-based solutions. Of course, "manifest destiny" space nutters have deep-seated irrational concepts that "live on Mars!" must be the one true solution to problems, instead of considering much more practical steps to achieve the same supposed ends.

Yes, I think protecting against once-in-millions-of-years to once-in-trillions-of-years events is a poor use of humankind's present resources, when "everyday" problems are much more pressing. However, for anyone who does want to get a head start on protecting against hypothetical disasters, you might want to employ far more practical (better chance of success for less resources invested) approaches like building self-sustainable "sealed" habitats on Earth --- unless the entirety of your scientific knowledge and engineering judgment comes from reading Sci-Fi fantasies.

Re:Okay

[ZorinLynx]

Sure, but only if I can bring my cat. I adore my kitty!

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

Wait, what's this?

http://applicants.mars-one.com/

A website with almost a quarter million people wanting to go build a martian colony, and willing to pay with their own money and lives for the mere opportunity!?

Clearly, that website and that project must be a pure fabrication! It couldn't possibly be real, when no such effort to create thse "oh so much easier!" Earth shelters has even been seriously proposed by *ANY* nation capable of carrying out such a plan!

Because that would mean that a martian colony is clearly more favored than an earth fallout bunker, and has a higher chance of being built, and that would totally ruin your argument!

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

That is to say, your argument is mypoic, and ignores all the politics involved in creating such a series of organized structures on earth, all the political dick waving over who's in charge of what, and of course, the fact that serious plans to go fucking build a martian colony are seriously on the table, and has real backers, and real offers to be pulled off, and isn't a hypothetical petard that can't be handwaved away.

You can arrogantly assert that they are dumb and will all die, but that's just your opinion.

I prefer to contemplate what they would need to do to succeed, and offer those ideas, so that their chances of success increase.

Unlike an earth based shelter network, a martian one can just be abandoned in 4 years due to a newly elected president deciding to cut the last administration's projects. If it gets built, and occupied, it will stay built, and occupied.

No earth based solution offers that level of commitent to the project, simply becase the shelters don't provide immediate needs to their inhabitants, and would therefor be seen as collossal wastes of taxpayer resources that could be used for (feeding ethipian babies, fighting crime, stopping child pornographers, stopping internet media pirates, fighting terrorists, %boogeyman_policy%, etc.).

Because humaity will have to fucking EVOLVE before those problems go away, and mars one is RIGHT FUCKING NOW, *and* can't be terminated because somebody has a dick waving fetish to the detriment of all humanity, I see the mars one offer as fantastically more appealing than your bullshit canard.

If you'l excuse the harsh language.

Re:Okay

[hcs_$reboot]

So if you don't die from take-off, the very very long trip, the landing, ... radiations will get you.. Definitely a suicidal mission!

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

Yes, you can find a quarter of a million people eager to be groundbreaking new explorers on the adventurous forefront. But I bet if there were already 249,999 people scraping by on a Mars colony, that you'd have a harder time finding eager applicants to go on a one-way suicide mission to be the 250,000th person doomed to die on Mars. A Mars colony is conceptually exciting to a lot of people now because it is new, and expensive, and a rare distinction. But the *desirability* of heading to a Mars colony is roughly inversely proportional to the *usefulness* of a Mars colony: as a colony heads towards being a routine, self-sufficient, boring place, the only people eager to get there are people in much more dire conditions on Earth (and, with the resources required to get such a person to Mars, you could give them a fantastically luxurious life on Earth --- which they'd likely prefer once the initial "got there first!" charm of Mars wore off).

How many people on that list of brave Mars volunteers would be equally happy to trade their life savings, and their life, for a chance to live a couple years before dying on the shores of Antarctica? A trip like that was once the forefront of human exploration --- and the brave, bold, and proud would risk their very lives in perilous journeys to reach the South Pole. But now it's boring and routine; some people are willing to winter over to run scientific experiments in Antarctica, but no one is lining up to sacrifice their life for the opportunity.

After you strip away the hype and hubris of those selfishly wanting to be immortalized in the pages of history, Mars isn't so hot as a practical solution to potential real problems. So, yes, you can find a lot of eager support for Mars --- but that doesn't mean you've found a lot of people being smart and rational about the subject. All you've proved is that a spectacularly flashy suicide is an attractive prospect to many.

Re:Okay

[dbIII]

The lack of magnetic field and lower gravity means you don't get to keep that Earth type atmosphere or anything remotely close even if you could dump one there instantly by magic. That means doing something completely different that delivers the same goal. For example, you only need enough volume inhabitable as required by whoever ends up there and if they can do everything outside with robots or environment suits it gets the job done, or if edible organisms are developed that can handle Martian conditions then there's less need to pressurise large volumes.

Re:Okay

[Will.Woodhull]

The simplest solution is to use astronauts who are immune to lifetime radiation exposure.

I am serious.

An astronaut who is 65 years old is safe from radiation damage that will kill him 40 years later. He or she is relatively immune to radiation damage that would be a threat to their health 20 years down the road. Not only that, but the corps of potential astronauts is expanded to include all the women who are post menopause.

I doubt that there would be much problem recruiting astronauts from the pool of USA retirees. Since computerization has also pretty much eliminated the need for astronauts with fast reflexes, there is no reason at all not to do this.

As a possibly major fringe benefit, the possibility of aging into the USA Astronaut Corps would encourage a lot of the middle aged to fight harder against that midriff bulge. We would have a much healthier populace.

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

Because humaity will have to fucking EVOLVE before those problems go away, and mars one is RIGHT FUCKING NOW

Global extinction events only occur on "evolutionary" timescales. You're "hedging bets" against events that might occur between once in a million and once in a billion years. Thinking on "humans can evolve" timescales is perfectly appropriate for thinking about addressing events that occur on "we'll be a completely different species by then" timescales. Yes, I think people/society will need to "evolve" (hopefully on a much faster "memetic evolution" timescale of changing ideas than "genetic evolution" timescales) to solve problems --- but "we've got time" (with high statistical probability) before a "planet-killer" shows up. So, in the meantime, I prefer solutions that involve working towards a better, more "evolved" humanity, able to deal with the problems we have *on Earth*. Turning Mars into a new Wild West frontier for a select few to escape is not particularly a useful step along the way to "evolution" of a more robust society. Focusing resources on making Earth habitable enough (and humans good enough neighbors) that humankind won't slaughter each other back to the iron ages over the next few millennia is, in my opinion, a more pressing matter than sending some yahoos to spread capitalist violence to the next planet "RIGHT FUCKING NOW." And, I think, if humankind can progress towards more "evolved" forms of organization, it will be far easier (and far more *worthy a project*) to do "adventurous" things like living in space in the "evolved" future.

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

Does the hubris matter, if the structure is built, maintained, and crewed, rather than written off as too expesive?

The whole point of building the mars colony is to build the mars colony, as a life insurance policy that you hope to never cash in on.

If its built, there's no need to pay more: 250 thousand people is enough for a viable population to be sustained, so more people aren't even needed. This is a non-argument.

If you supply those risk takers with tools and plans to help them succeed, then they may well do so. That's the point.

Since they won't be disuaded, and want to go, regardless of the risk, at least capitalize on the effort, rather than sabotaging it.

Making assertions about the difficulties says nothing that was not already known, and is therefore without value. You can dislike that these people have chosen to go anyway, but you shouldn't be so self-righteous that you overtly try to stop them, and force them to spend that money and their lives doing things that in YOUR opinion hold greater value.

Life, lemons. Make lemonade. Don't whine and bitch that you can't have the mountain dew you want instead.

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

You are forgettng that humans are without question altering the environment of the earth in such a fashion that its continued habitability will become much more difficult in a mere 200 years.

Humans *are* the extinction level event. Or are you a climate change denier, that thinks the 97% consensus in the scientific community is wrong?

The calamity doesn't have to be a big space rock. It could just as easily be runaway methane release from continental shelves, and wild environmental conditions, and be completely man made.

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

Yes, that's the kind of more pressing problem that I think it's more important for humanity to buckle down and deal with than Mars colonization. And it won't help to be burning an extra gazillionty-zillion gallons of fuel for rich folks to gallivant about in space.

Disastrous global ecosystem changes from climate change --- while a terrible thing from which billions will suffer in starvation and war --- isn't a "wipes out humanity" type of event (even in rather pessimistic predictions). It's certainly not worth *accelerating the pace* of climate change to get a few people on Mars (still *far, far* less inhabitable than a climate-change ravished Earth). So, if you're looking for a "save humanity" type project over the next couple centuries: yes, you should be far more worried about climate change than Mars colonization. But it seems that you're only "worried" about climate change so far as you can use it for an argument for Mars colonization --- and imagine leaving everyone on Earth to rot in misery so long as you and/or your children can make it to Mars.

If enough humans can't survive on Earth with poor outdoor crop yields, unpleasant temperatures, and bad weather, then we won't be surviving on Mars (where the weather forecast is "You die, puny human!" 24/7/697).

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

One further followup: so far as humankind "RIGHT FUCKING NOW" is the kind of species that is *willing and able* to bring about *global extinction,* then I don't want humankind to survive and spread into the universe "RIGHT FUCKING NOW". If humans are necessarily as terrible as you posit, then the only ethical thing to do would be to sabotage --- by whatever means necessary --- humankind's ability to spread (at least until they become something else). Like the German resistance fighters against the Nazis, only trying to prevent future *interplanetary holocaust* by a species that, at all costs, must be stopped. I don't think humankind is all that bad --- but if you do, why do you consider it such a noble prerogative to preserve the species?

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

That's a pretty profound jump, to state that I don't take climate change very, very seriously, and have used it only because it was convenient as an argument.

Far the contrary, in fact. I believe that it is a very dangerous thing, and that the ensueing chaos associated with food and energy shortages as people attempt to live in an environment that no longer has the human carrying capacity of former generations will definately result in wars, precious few resources squandered on ensuring that only "americans" (insert whatever group most floats your boat here. I'm not picky.) Will be the "haves", and damn all everyone else. I fully expect bullshit like scorched earth policies to be vividly and bombastically be discussed, because of the gravity of that kind of environment, and expect true reason and sensibility to have flown the coop long before.

Our chance to avert the disaster was 20 years ago. We blew it, because it was much more profitable to keep on doing what we were doing before, and to foofoo the data and castigate the science and scientists behind it instead.

The data shows we are now beyond the tipping point. The point of no return has been crossed. Signs are showing up everywhere, and it can't be denied anymore (though many still try anyway.)

The biggest threat will be other people. To me, it would be comforting to know that at least somewhere else in the solar system, a group of people would be huddling in a metal shell growing tomatoes instead of shooting other people, raping other people, and stealing shit as society comes down around all around everyone on the earth.

The calamity is already started. No shelters on earth will be built. There will be worldwide disasters, and instead of working to resolve the proble, people will look for who to blame.

There is a long body of evidence to support humanity behaving in this fashion, as resource collapse has been a recurring thread in human civilizations over the ages. Up until now, those collapses have never been global in scale, however.

This is very much an "act now" moment. This is an achivable goal. I hope they succeed. Fixing the fuckup we have caused on earth is far harder than building a martian greenhouse, and really would be science fiction terraforming. At least on mars, the colonists won't have armed robbers demanding their food.

The earth is in store for some very dire shit indeed, and that doesn't even count what the unknown variable of mass animal and plant form extinctions the changed climate will introduce for continued human activity on earth. Look at the serious dangers that just losing bees offers.

Even if we 100% stop all burning of fossil fuels right now, the warming trend won't stop, and the coastal methane realse will still occur.

We have well and truly fucked ourselves.

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

What about your Mars colonists make them so much more perfect people than any small enclave on post-apocalyptic Earth? Why would they, in the wake of collapse of any accountability towards the standards of Earth trading partners, not fall into enslaving, shooting, and raping each other --- yet, of the billions remaining on Earth, spread all over the globe, there wouldn't manage to be any enclaves of civility? Earlier, you accused me of being unrealistic about the nature of humankind. Yet here, you are assuming that becoming isolated Mars colonists will transform such people into high-minded peaceful hippies in a utopian garden of cooperation. Against many historical examples of isolated struggling colonies (in far more favorable conditions than Mars) degrading into self-destructive dysfunctional authoritarianism, slavery, cannibalism, and every type of brutality?

In worst case collapse (perhaps not as inevitable as you suggest --- since you're so interested in adventurous fighting of odds for Mars colonization, why so defeatist about Earth's climate?), the death and misery and destruction will be terrible --- but, at least when humans have killed each other off enough to equilibrate with drastically reduced resources, humankind will still be surviving on the planet; and with a whole lot more survivors (with access to far more material for re-building society) than we can move to Mars in the next two centuries. Even "armed robbers demanding food" eventually have to rebuild society once they kill off all the poor defenseless food-providers (or, more likely, be killed off the second their bullets run out and they are on equal footing with angry stick-wielding peasant families).

If humans, faced by adversity in acquiring resources, are so certainly doomed to resorting to short-sighted violence instead of pulling together to struggle to survive, then any Mars colony project is doomed from the start. If not, then Mars colonies are unnecessary to assure the continuance of humanity in the face of extreme adverse environmental conditions.

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

If you are going to demand the kitty cat, you must also demand the swivveling chair, and the doomsday deathray aimed at the earth!

A miniatureized clone of yourself wouldn't hurt either!

Re:Okay

[Burz]

Because that would mean that a martian colony is clearly more favored than an earth fallout bunker, and has a higher chance of being built, and that would totally ruin your argument!

THIS demonstrates how femtobyte elegantly and economically punctured your Mars concept: Hey, but lots of people signed up for this fantasy and will even pay!

I was actually starting to think you were arguing from a well educated and reasoned perspective, which alas turned out to be more a curtain of rhetorical talking points with a 15 year old brat behind it.

Here is a tip: Don't pitch a Mars *colony*. Go for an outpost instead. The idea of a colony is too far-fetched at our level of development, and setting ourselves up to fail at huge expense is not the way to nurture that development. Colonies exist to raise new generations of inhabitants, and attempts to raise children in that environment and with 1/3 Earth gravity would turn into an unspeakably cruel sadist's spectacle. You need a round trip proposal or else you are cutting deep against the grain of humanity.

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

They wouldn't have 9 billion people outside, unable to care for themselves, looking for what they have, and willing to burn their colony down to the ground to get it, for starters.

Additionally, a self-sustaining colony would not be dependent upon the earth for resources, and as such, would nto be resource dependent upon the earth, so a breakdown of earth's economic and production infrastructures would simply not affect them in any way. The basic requirement for your reprisal is that the martian colony is completely at the mercy of supply shuttles. That is financially unfeasible even without a global crisis, of any magnitude. If you insist on holding that position, no wonder a martian colony looks retarded!

Providing the martian colonists with everything they need to provide for themselves (since despite what you may think, there most certainly *IS* atmosphere on mars, and it would be imminently useful for martian colonists as-is, just not for human breathing, and as such, the colony habitat will not be a closed resource economy! Just sintering the regolith will release oxygen gas because of the perchlorates present, for instance. The curiosity rover's drill sample shows high nitrogen content in the stones sampled, so that is an obtainable resource as well. All the vital materials are availale on site on mars.)

When you aren't having to worry about if the people living "just over there" are going to come kill you for the cabbages you grew, you can spend much more of your time making life better for yourself and others.

The costs of sending people to mars will be outrageous, but that is being privately funded by private enterprise, and is already budgeted. This means that if there is going to be theft and raping and murdering, it will be inside the *ONLY* habitat structure on the entire planet, and would occur regardless of earth conditions. Mars One is performing psych evaluations prior to sending people, and is unlikely to send batshit people.

You don't get that luxury in a post apochalypse.

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

All 7 (or 9, with continued population growth) billion people in the world aren't "unable to care for themselves." Catastrophic environmental change would be a humanitarian disaster because so many billions are indeed already living precariously, and would be pushed "over the edge" by widespread crop failures (leading to war, looting, fights over remaining resources). I'm by no means trying to indicate that everything will be hunky-dory with civilization should our present path towards environmental catastrophe continue.

However, despite all the billions who will die from disruptive changes, there are also billions of people living close enough to current (or future, as habitable zones shifts) sources for food, water, shelter --- all the necessities for the continuance of life. All the technologies that you consider feasible *right now* for sustaining advanced civilization on Mars --- plus all the things that are already trivial to do on Earth --- are also available to humans here. Not everyone will be wiped out by roving marauders --- in every case, either the marauders will die off (unable to succeed against better-fed and better-equipped residents defending successful post-apocalyptic colonies), or the marauders will win --- and settle down to create societies of their own around new centers of available resources. Humankind will carry on. Resource wars are terrible, and to be avoided at any cost --- but they do not erase all of humankind from the face of continents, because eventually populations reach equilibrium with available resources and farming is more attractive than fighting. A few extra colonists on Mars --- even tens of millions --- will still be a drop in the bucket of human civilization; they will not be responsible for saving humankind from extinction.

The costs of sending people to mars will be outrageous, but that is being privately funded by private enterprise, and is already budgeted.

One reason I am not so hot on Mars colonization. That "funding from private enterprise" is taking advantage of the immense wealth disparities that drive the worst of human self-destructiveness in the first place: rich fuckers burning vast amounts of resources (that properly belong to humankind) to stroke their own egos, while polluting this planet into oblivion. When rich fuckers know they have a ticket off this planet, they'll care even less about sowing the seeds of environmental catastrophe and killing billions in wars. Rooting for "private enterprise" (a.k.a. the tiny fraction of people who own the overwhelming majority of wealth) to save itself while the rest of the planet burns is, in my opinion, outrageously immoral. If you want to "save humanity," building gallows to summarily hang every billionaire would be a much more direct path than building rocketships. If humankind's "private enterprise" (the bastards driving destruction of this planet in the first place) are the ideological leaders of our leap to space, then I definitely *do not want* humanity spreading that horror beyond this planet.

Re:Okay

[wierd_w]

Most of that sum (people) however, would be completely incapable of sustaining themselves.

Take New York, for instance. Millions of people, living in a very dense urban environment, totally dependent upon complex social heirarchies for labor, water, transport, and food distribution from outside localities. Those people would most certainly perish. (The few that have the luxury of rooftop gardens would be under continual threat of brutal crackdowns by just the other tennants in their buildings, and those small gardens would never be able to sustain the city. Throw into that, the destruction of those few production centers via fires, and the deaths of the few who know how to actually grow food instead of buying it at the store, and you quickly have a very serious problem. For a recent eye-opener, look at the LA riots. That was over the brutal beating of a man by local police officers due to something as innane as skin color. Imagine the riots over food distribution, and percieved injustices and subsequent mob reprisals! New York would be burning in days.)

Then you have the continued ecologica uphevals from everyone and adam trying to beat down the doors to the few remaining agreas that are still halfassedly habitable, (like, building houses!) And the situation spirals even more radically out of control.

I don't think you really comprehend the real gravity of what a GLOBAL ecological catastrophe really represents, with a global population as large as ours is.

Humanity *barely* survived the iceage, when we numbered well under 1 billion globally. (Closer to a few million.) This time we would have 7bn, on top of the adverse conditions, all competing to be the survivors. The unburied dead would promote serious issues with plagues, the basic resource shortages would ensure that healthcare would be a far lower priority, and on top of that, you would have batshit people rallying the troops and destroying what's left in mad dash efforts to control it.

I would rather be trapped with "that guy" in a tiny metal box than endure *that* hell.

As for who is going? It's anyone who can pay the admission fee, which is adjusted to all world currencies. It's the 97%, not the 1%. Just that a member of the 1% believes they can get richer by fascilitating the effort.

I agree that it is reprehensible to wrote off the earth and fly away. But high ideals often have bad consequences too. I am a utilitarian. I see utility in having a self sustaining martian colony. I don't really care how it gets funded. Anyone who goes to live in that colony will have nothing but endless hard work and suffering. Going to mars won't be a golden parachute. It will just be a hedged bet against extinction, however slim the margin. In all reality, a 1%er wouldn't be able to HANDLE living on mars anyway.

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

Take New York, for instance. Millions of people, living in a very dense urban environment

Yes, dense urban areas would likely be goners. Fortunately, the whole world isn't in dense urban areas. A lot of it is (compounding the tragedy of breakdowns in resource supply chains). However, there's still a lot (not a majority, but still a heck of a lot) of people living in areas that *supply* the urban centers with food/water/industrial goods --- in calamitous collapse, they'll no longer be able to feed themselves and everyone else living in cities; but they'll have the know-how and the resources, diminished but still enough to sustain themselves.

Humanity *barely* survived the iceage, when we numbered well under 1 billion globally. (Closer to a few million.) This time we would have 7bn, on top of the adverse conditions, all competing to be the survivors.

Survival during the ice age was typically less a case of "competition against other humans" as "competition against forces of nature" --- do you have any evidence that human-on-human violence was the primary cause of population decline, rather than *everyone* in large areas being starving (in which case, fighting your neighbors isn't a helpful move; cooperating with them for locating resources is). In overpopulated areas (concentrated urban centers), inter-human competition will be more destructive with growing population. However, at some point you switch to *increased* species survival probability the more people you have, sparsely populated, competing "against nature" more than "against each other".

The unburied dead would promote serious issues with plagues, the basic resource shortages would ensure that healthcare would be a far lower priority

"Knowledge is power" --- since the past ice age, humankind has advanced tremendously in knowledge of basic sanitary and medical procedures that tremendously increase human survival rates. Horrendous casualty rates in past historical plagues and wars (before humans figured out the basic functioning of infectious disease) were, in retrospect, in large part *preventable* by very simple, low-tech processes that we understand now. Even without fancy pharmaceuticals, judicious use of penicillin (bread mold), boiling water, soap (saponified oils using lye from wood fire ashes), appropriate burial and human waste management procedures, etc., makes the majority of things that were once a near certain community death sentence into manageable annoyances.

I am a utilitarian.

Ha ha ha ha ha! Your idea of "greatest good for the greatest number of people" is "let nine billion on this planet plunge into species-ending starvation warfare; so long as a handful of colonists have their happy hippie gardens"? You viewpoints seem the *opposite* of utilitarian: centered on high-minded ideology of "species survival somewhere" regardless of untold suffering for the overwhelming majority of humanity. Not even aiming for last-ditch global climate engineering like blasting massive dust clouds into the air to reduce solar input?

In all reality, a 1%er wouldn't be able to HANDLE living on mars anyway.

Really? You don't think the people setting up the show would just set up the same social arrangements that benefit them on Earth --- they'd get a nice comfy desk job as a "wealth creator visionary" while others do all the "endless hard work and suffering"? You were talking about all the advanced psychological profiling they're doing for Mars crew --- you don't think they'd be able to select nice, obedient, productive peons willing to happily defend unequal social orders as absolutely necessary for society? Screen out anyone likely to question authority? I think you're pretty naive if you think the ultra-rich backers of for-profit space exploitation are planning on setting up some egalitarian Marxist commune rather than a high-wealth-disparity exploitative oligarchy (like every designed-by-the-rich, staffed-by-the-poor venture on Earth).

Re:Okay

[Sardaukar86]

If we have the technology to survive on the surface of Mars --- no water, air, or food except what you bring and raise in your sealed habitats; open a window and you die --- then we can survive the very worst planetary extinction events right here on Earth.

That's a damn good point and I'm a little ashamed that the idea hadn't occurred to me as well.

I'm a little different in that I like the idea of Mars exploration by both meat *and* machine and I think we really can achieve it in our lifetimes. I also think we *should*, because IMHO Human ingenuity is at its best when faced with serious (even existential) challenges.

Your argument makes a lot of sense to me. I feel we shouldn't be seriously looking at colonising Mars until setting up self-sustaining habitats becomes 'de rigour' in places like the Sahara, the bottom of the ocean, the Gobi and Auckland, New Zealand (I kid, I kid). Until then, we're just asking for a lesson and a lot of unnecessary loss of some very good people.

Re:Okay

[Sardaukar86]

Ugh, Mars 'exploration' should have been Mars 'exploration and colonisation', sorry.

Re:Okay

[Sardaukar86]

Wow. I'm bookmarking this as proof of the mental illness of Space Nuttery. It's a rock. Who cares? Is it the ego trip? What is it?

Wow. This whole 'nerd' thing? Looks like you Just Don't Get It. Sorry about that.

Re:Okay

[Anonymous Coward]

You got some sensible ideas there, but it is actually even easier. All you need to do on Mars is find a deep hole/gorge/fissure and build your station down at the bottom. If the open sky is a thin sliver, then you need not worry much about shielding from above. If the fissure is miles deep, then the outside air pressure will also be higher, further reducing the risks of leaks in the station since people can survive outside for a few minutes.

Re:Okay

[strikethree]

Except for the one that entirely destroys the planet. Or when eventually, the Sun expands. Or when, Andromeda and Milky Way collide.

Sure, some of those are billions of years in the future but I seriously doubt that life will EVER stop fighting with other forms of life. Even a trillion years later, life will be fighting with life. Let's get some form of human life off of this planet before it all comes crashing down.

Re:Okay

[strikethree]

Hm. I suspect that after the novelty wears off, you will start saying something like, "What now?", and then you may just regret deciding that the only thing that matters is touching another planet. Kind of like sex when you are a virgin. "God just let me have sex even once and then nothing else matters". Yeah, 20 years of herpes later... Hm?

Re:Okay

[MrMickS]

I'm interested why you think that this is a zero sum game? That's its a choice between sending people to Mars or improving the situation on Earth. Why not do both?

Look at it this way. It's unlikely that you would get funding to develop technologies that would assist survival of an Earth bound planetary extinction event. Politically there are more pressing uses for the money. You would get them by default from the drive to establish a colony, or outpost, on Mars. Anything that assists living in a resource poor environment would have the potential to help the situation here on Earth.

Re:Okay

[Stuarticus]

I think you might be having another schizoid embolism.

Re:Okay

[Stuarticus]

Those people don't seem to want any more at the moment than to be relieved of $40 and to be on TV.

Re:Okay

[JWSmythe]

    Nah, no one would ever make a movie on that. It's a stupid premise. :)

Re:Okay

[CayceeDee]

Terraforming: over many decades, the Earth will pretty much automatically recover ecosystems, and terraform itself back into a hospitable planet.

This reflects a serious misunderstanding of the mechanics of recovery from E.L.E.'s. The ecosystem doesn't recover in decades even with the possibility of terraforming. It would be a centuries to millennium process. Way too many people think of the geosphere, atmosphere and biosphere as devices we can just adjust if we just turn the nobs. Its the same kind of reasoning which says geoengineering will solve the global warming problem. Throw some dust in the air and drop the temp a few degrees. Too cold, stop putting dust in the air and raise the temp a few degrees. The environment doesn't work that way.

a better solution to the types of problems it's supposed to fix ("eggs in one basket")

No, it isn't. There are somethings the universe can do that which make being off planet essential for survival. A large scale CME that wipes the van Allen belt away and strips the atmosphere from the planet. A gamma ray burst which completely sterilizes the entire planet. An asteroid collision that destroys a large section of the globe. The details are extremely well explained in Phil Plait's Death from the Skies and would clearly be beyond the capability of the humans in domes survival strategy.

Re:Okay

[CayceeDee]

I can't understand why you insist on the solution being one or the other. I see this all the time, but I can never figure out why. Humans tend to be so one-dimensional in their planning and thinking.
Do you honestly think that the great masses of homo sapiens are even interested in the kind of evolution you are talking about? I see absolutely no evidence of the kinds of changes you are talking about on a large enough scale to be relevant.

Re:Okay

[Anonymous Coward]

So the round trip is impossible? One more reason to plan a one-way trip. I volunteer.

Re:Okay

[Shadowmist]

The lack of magnetic field and lower gravity means you don't get to keep that Earth type atmosphere or anything remotely close even if you could dump one there instantly by magic. That means doing something completely different that delivers the same goal. For example, you only need enough volume inhabitable as required by whoever ends up there and if they can do everything outside with robots or environment suits it gets the job done, or if edible organisms are developed that can handle Martian conditions then there's less need to pressurise large volumes.

Actually yes you can "keep" it... but it takes regular maintenance. which means you don't get to stop adding atmosphere once the process is done but have to keep up a certain level of activity to keep up with the steady losses. Thing is if you're going to settle on Mars, then you need to be able to go outside and do the work. There's going to be a lot of work that needs to be done that can't be handled by remote or robot. Or your colony and activities need to remain essentially underground. At that point however, it does kill much of the appeal of going in the first place.

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

You're quite an optimist to consider this a "zero sum" game --- I'm opposed because it comes out "large negative sum" in balance. Issues:
- Resource use: the one thing that makes all space work *incredibly expensive* is that launching into space is *extremely resource intensive*: specifically, a gigantic portion of the budget for projects like these is used to *burn a shitload of fossil fuels*. The per-person-lifted energy/pollution costs are enormous.
- Science: the "colonization" push is being used as a "privatization" push; in other words, the base focus is *profit* rather than *science*. Such projects are very "light on science" relative to the resources spent: NASA's Mars rovers / orbiters do a whole lot of scientifically-valuable work for a tiny fraction of the cost of sending people. Privatization means science takes a back seat to whoever buys the most lobbyists and flashiest propaganda for making profitable reality TV shows or luxury space tourism.
- Political/philosophical: knowing we can "get off this rock" (even if "we" means a tiny tiny fraction of the population, with the vast majority living under the deluded hope that they'll be part of the lucky few) removes incentives for fixing fixable problems *here on Earth*.

So, what's the *benefit* that we trade for these losses? For the overwhelming majority of humankind, the only *benefit* is a warm, fuzzy feeling that in some vague sense the species is safe in the heavens. It's a lot like the "benefits" offered by various religions to justify all sorts of terrible allocations of humankind's resources (to the benefit of a few wealthy high priests on top).

Re:Okay

[femtobyte]

Do you honestly think that the great masses of homo sapiens are even interested in the kind of evolution you are talking about?

What, interested in living in a world where they and their children aren't starving to death, dying of preventable diseases, being killed by drone strikes, living in slums, sewing garments in miserable factories likely to collapse on their heads, seeing opportunities for education and advancement fly beyond their reach? Yes, I do think a very large portion of humanity is highly interested in "evolving" (societally, rather than genetically) to a better future world.

I see absolutely no evidence of the kinds of changes you are talking about on a large enough scale to be relevant.

Well, then, we need to strive harder to make them come about --- they certainly won't happen if we start absolutely defeatist. Yes, it's easy to become cynical and see civilization in an irreversible slide towards a super-unequal dystopian corporatist oligarchy. But, if that's the case, then there is no good reason to support the survival of humanity: do you really want Plutocrats In Space, spreading enslavement and exploitation and misery to the galaxy? Unless/until humankind can work out how to responsibly use *one* planet, I don't want us getting our filthy claws on any more.

Re:Okay

[Anonymous Coward]

The "avoid mass extinction event" reasoning is basically rubbish. If we have the technology to survive on the surface of Mars --- no water, air, or food except what you bring and raise in your sealed habitats; open a window and you die --- then we can survive the very worst planetary extinction events right here on Earth. Giant meteor smashes into the planet; toxic dust cloud blocks out 50% of sunlight; ecosystems thrown into havoc; flaming ashy death raining down from the skies for decades? *Still* easier to survive than Mars. The engineering know-how to create sustainable human habitats on Mars could do much more on Earth, even in such a worst-case scenario.

Well, in that case Mars would be a good testbed to develop, debug and perfect our extinction-event surviving skills! Besides, we know for certain that there'll come time when our Sun will enter the Red Giant phase, expand in diameter and swallow the Earth (truth be told, probably Mars too). We need to practice moving around and camping far away out there, and we don't know what we will need for that. After we establish a foothold on Mars, next we'll need to find way to make living on Jupiter's moons and eventually, to seed our dormant spores and our memories to some other solar systems with favorable chemistry for our form of life.

Re:Okay

[Anonymous Coward]

because the resources from uninhabited planets and asteroids could help us become "something else".

we aren't causing a holocaust, we are merely surviving as any other dominant species on a planet would. the problem is, by being trapped on a single planet, in order to live and function as a species, must divvy up a limited amount of resources.. short of actually killing off people to solve overpopulation there is only one alternative: new tech to preserve resources and new acquisitions OF the resources we need.

it is a noble prerogative because we are the only fully sentient species we know of. why shouldn't we survive?

Re:Okay

[Anonymous Coward]

let me add this final caveat... the only way we can truly save our beautiful planet now, is to leave it.

Dig a hole

[Orp]

Piece of cake, right?

Re:Dig a hole

[Dan East]

Dig a hole in space?

The results, based on Curiosity's 253-day, 348-million-mile cruise to Mars

Re:Dig a hole

[Orp]

What, you expect me to RTFA?

Yes digging a hole in space is a dumb idea.

I have noting further of value to add to this conversation.

Re:Dig a hole

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Yes digging a hole in space is a dumb idea.

. . . not if it's a wormhole. It would help you get there faster, and skip the long space radiation part of the trip.

Assuming that wormholes are radiation free . . .

Re:Dig a hole

[sirsnork]

...... and real

Re:Dig a hole

[JWSmythe]

Lets not get into semantics of fact versus fiction.. Just because we've never seen a wormhole, and have no evidence one could even exist, doesn't mean that there isn't one..

You can replace wormhole with all kinds of things. It's a lot of fun. :)

Re:Dig a hole

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like most religions.

Re:Dig a hole

[GNious]

I have noting further of value to add to this conversation.

What you mean "further"?

Re:Dig a hole

[Anonymous Coward]

    With all the holes it must be swiss cheesecake flavored space.

Re:Dig a hole

[JWSmythe]

May the FSM embraces you with his noodly appendages

Mutants.

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't this just turn people into mutants like in Total Recall?

Re:Mutants.

[rwise2112]

Won't this just turn people into mutants like in Total Recall?

That's once they get their asses to Mars! Before that, they'll be in space, and they'll be more like the Fantastic 4.

Evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then, if we send enough people to colonise the planet, some of them will be more likely to not die from radiation poisoning. Those ones get to reproduce and, over time, you select for radiation resistance.

Then after a few hundred generations we can ship them back to work inside our reactors without suffering any side effects!

Re:Evolution

[syntheticmemory]

In the SNL skit "Pepsi Syndrome" the manager sent in the black cleaning lady to mop up the reactor spill. President Carter came to inspect the damage. Both of them grew to 50' in height and ran off together.

Re:Evolution

[Tablizer]

Sounds like the writers themselves were exposed.

Re:Evolution

[VortexCortex]

Well then, if we send enough people to colonise the planet, some of them will be more likely to not die from radiation poisoning. Those ones get to reproduce and, over time, you select for radiation resistance.

Then after a few hundred generations we can ship them back to work inside our reactors without suffering any side effects!

Nope. It can be done in a single generation. Simply send the cyborg and organic astronauts both to Mars, the latter as more of a symbolic gesture really... There will no doubt be volunteers. The humans, heavily dosed with radiation and now sterile, can help establish the cyborg procreation instead. After the organics are dead, the cyborgs can continue to live on and establish a human colony on mars, for the good of mankind.

P.S. Your definition of "human" is probably out of date.

human - /'(h)yoo-maen/ :
Adjective
Of, relating to, or characteristic of people or human beings.
Noun
A human being, esp. a person as distinguished from an animal or (in science fiction) an alien.

We simply need sturdier bodies. Cybernetics isn't rocket science....

Re:Evolution

[syntheticmemory]

It was in response to the movie "China Syndrome"

Re:Evolution

[SonnyDog09]

yep. That and Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman. Turn in your geek card, if you don't remember this movie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_50_Foot_Woman

To Boldly Go...

[CMYKjunkie]

It's a shame so much of NASA's human exploration has been cut back. It's awesome scientific challenges like protecting astronauts on such a mission that would create untold breakthroughs in shielding tech and other fields. We need these challenges to advance our society! We need to reap the benefits. We need 21st Century TANG!!!!

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO, we as a species have already started our decline in being confined to this planet, and this solar system at best. I subscribe to the same belief summarized here: http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/11/13/191217/study-claims-human-intelligence-peaked-two-to-six-millennia-ago

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Orp]

I'd personally be happy with some 21st century 'tang.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

We need 21st Century TANG!!!!

Who needs Tang? If astronauts could somehow feed off radiation, we'd be all set, and solve the food problem, too!

"Hello, Houston? This is Mars Sprinter 3. We're all feeling hungry, so we're going to plop ourselves into the nuclear warp drive pool for a snack. Be back in a few minutes."

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

We need shielding tech? If it's one roundtrip = one lifetime radiation dose, well... how many round trips to Mars have you made lately? One's good enough to start.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Molochi]

Hi, I'm Chris Hansen.

Why don't you have a seat right over there.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

We need these challenges to advance our society!

This is more escapism than desire to advance our society. Nobody needs to go to Mars to look for ways to advance society on Earth. There are already plenty of opportunities to be challenged.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[ebno-10db]

It's a shame so much of NASA's human exploration has been cut back.

I wish I could agree, but I can't. I hate to say it because I grew up on the manned space program. As a kid I saw Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the moon (yes, that means I'm over 21) and thought what an historic moment it was. One of the things that we learned in those early days though is that people are fragile and manned space flight is horribly expensive. For a fraction of the price (10%?) you can send an unmanned mission. Frankly a lot of the support for manned space flight is that people want to see Buck Rogers, but almost all important scientific and practical work has been done by unmanned spacecraft. Please don't respond with examples of the work done in manned space flight. I know there's been some stuff, but it's tiny compared to the cost and what's been done unmanned. Also our ability to create robots (or whatever you want to call them) has increased dramatically since the early days.

Sure we could develop some cool tech for manned missions, but there are cheaper ways to do it. We could also create some cool robotic tech for unmanned missions. Before we send anybody to Mars, let's at least do an unmanned round trip.

Never send a man to do a robot's job.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap gas trumps space exploration any time.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Kreigaffe]

The things you say are true, but I still want to go to Mars. Even if being the first man on Mars means being the first man to die on Mars, that's totally fine.

We've gotta get off this rock eventually, let's go now.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

almost all important scientific and practical work has been done by unmanned spacecraft. Please don't respond with examples of the work done in manned space flight. I know there's been some stuff, but it's tiny compared to the cost and what's been done unmanned. Also our ability to create robots (or whatever you want to call them) has increased dramatically since the early days.

Entirely true, and yet 100% of the 'manned' work has been done by humans. You will never exceed the benefits of having a tool wielding human in-situ with robotics.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[KeensMustard]

One can also mourn the end of steam engine tech, which died for exactly the same reasons - something better, if less "romantic", took it's place. Some people love human space travel - or at least the concept of it, given it has never really happened - for exactly the reason your title alludes to. TV taught them to think of it as the future.

It isn't the future, of course, which is why this focus shift to what is theoretically achievable - Mars. Mars (and possibly Venus) really represent the limit of practical human travel + settlement from earth. Neither really represents an attractive proposition for long term settlement, except for those who are welded, ideologically, to the idea of human settlement. The idea that mysterious "tech" will make Mars interesting for people to live on, whilst the same "tech" magically does not apply to Earth, with all it's culture, natural beauty, diversity and frankly, convenience (survivable gravity, lack of killer radiation, breathable air) and thus life on Earth becomes suddenly boring - this is really a magical premise, like Irons Mans suit or Batman tech.

Meanwhile robots and probes plunge through the atmosphere of jupiter, land on Titan, and escape the solar system itself. They went to Mars already - 40 years ago.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[ebno-10db]

I still want to go to Mars

Understandable, but who is going to pay for it?

Re:To Boldly Go...

[ebno-10db]

You will never exceed the benefits of having a tool wielding human in-situ with robotics.

If it took the same amount of time to develop the equipment for the missions, and they cost the same, you'd be absolutely right. But how many robots could you send to Mars for the price of sending one person?

Re:To Boldly Go...

[ebno-10db]

We've gotta get off this rock eventually

Why?

Re:To Boldly Go...

[ebno-10db]

and possibly Venus

Venus has a surface temperature of 462C.

Earth, with all it's culture, natural beauty, diversity and frankly, convenience

Ever been to New Jersey?

Otherwise I, reluctantly, have to agree.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Kreigaffe]

Well, long term, the sun's gonna turn into a bigger badder ball of red and eat the Earth, and if we haven't found somewhere outside the asteroid belt to live by then.. well, then all of human history will be forever gone (except voyager probes and whatnot!).

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd personally be happy with some 21st century 'tang.

Been that long, huh?

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no human race a million years ago, and there won't be one a million years from now, never mind a billion. Evolution is still happening, you know. And if you're so concerned about "human history being forever gone" (how much history have you read personally?), it will also be gone when you are dead. Why not worry about life extension first?

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

We've gotta get off this rock eventually

Why?

Same reason our distant ancestors said "We've gotta come down from these trees eventually"

Re:To Boldly Go...

[ebno-10db]

Same reason our distant ancestors said "We've gotta come down from these trees eventually"

We came down from the trees because the trees were disappearing and we wanted something to eat. What is there to eat on Mars? What could we grow on Mars that we couldn't grow more easily than on Earth?

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding me? Everyone. You'd gain public support for about a million times the funding for NASA if they were doing manned missions. The reason no one cares about NASA anymore is that all they do is send robots up and previously, the shuttle which from the layman's point of view was the same mission over and over again. Like it or not - manned missions are sexy!

Not to mention - it might make a healthier contest with China than who can spend the most on killing machines. Imagine all that war energy being pushed into research for manned missions (this is what drove the mission to the moon afterall....)

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Trogre]

After Earth becomes too hot to support habitation modules: everything.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unmanned flight serve no purpose unless it is to gather data or develop technology for future manned missions. The science being done by probes is not at issue. The point of a space program and ultimate goal for our civilization must be to leave the earth and establish permanent self sustaining colonies in space.

The seas were a hostile place when all we had was wooden or even skin boats, no compasses, and little to no understanding of proper rigging. If we acted as timidly in the past we would never have gone beyond the bronze age (which require extensive sea going trade in tin) and half the earth would be uninhabited.

Manned missions would not be so expensive if NASA was less risk averse. Rather than spending a billion dollars on a launch with a 1% chance of failure it would be better to have 5 missions for the same price with a 20% chance of failure. There would be absolutely no shortage of volunteers knowing those odds and we would start making progress. The sad truth is that the price in blood would be easier to come by than the price in dollars.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

TANG was developped by a private company before NASA was NASA. It had nothing to do with space. You wanna know what caused untold breakthroughs in the 20th century? WWII. Your space theory is a cargo cult. Sorry.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. We need TANG. MOON TANG! That will get us to Mars.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

Never send a man to do a robot's job.

Space exploration is not a end in itself.
If there is no place for man in space then there is no place for a space program on earth.
It may be more expensive, but it is necessary to validate the space program.
Otherwise we can save even more money by cutting the program entirely.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can argue that it is cheaper but you can save even more money by not having the program at all. We can build a lot of telescopes back on earth for the cost of a robotic space mission.

Somewhere there has to be a vision to motivate it all, otherwise it is all just a waste of money.
A robotic space mission is no substitute for a manned one when the vision is to move humanity to other planets.
If the idea only is to observe space then we can do that with telescopes and if we don't intend to use the data gathered then we can just make something up and perhaps settle for a simulated model.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[KeensMustard]

and possibly Venus

Venus has a surface temperature of 462C.

And yet, it's more friendly for humans than Mars. Why? Becuase the gravity is close to earths. A year or so on Mars, and travelling back to Earth will probably kill you. Spend any time in low g's and your bones degrade, and heart muscle too. Step up the gravity and they don't return to fitness, you just die.

Earth, with all it's culture, natural beauty, diversity and frankly, convenience

Ever been to New Jersey?

Nope. Is that near New Zealand?

Re:To Boldly Go...

[CMYKjunkie]

I fully agree that it makes fiscal sense to send robots and such. Manned exploration, to me, isn't about fiscal sense. I think it's innate to the human experience to go there ourselves. To see with our own eyes what the robots tell us. Example: I found James Cameron's dive in the ocean trench last year far more interesting than what submersibles have already told us. To hear the excitement in an explorer's voice and get that feeling of what it was like... you can't get that from a probe.

It doesn't make financial sense, but to have "boots on the ground" puts the awe of it in perspective for all of humanity, IMHO.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd look at space and gear. It takes a LOT more space/room and support gear food/water for a human than a robot. Also, you don't have to worry about life sustaining (e.g. O). I think it would be easier and less expensive to send a robot.

BUT... no robot can be as adaptable as a human. Remember when the rover was stuck? A person could have pushed it out.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[cellocgw]

We need 21st Century TANG!!!!

Being a fan of Mr. Mojo Rising, I'd prefer a nice 21st-Century Fox.

Just don't tell my wife.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[Anonymous Coward]

we are either going to get people off of this planet, or we are going to extinct ourselves.

we need breakthru tech. we need terraforming and colonization of the worlds in our solar system and we need interstellar travel, even if it means having generational ships.

otherwise it seems to me that we will overpopulate, use up our resources, and cease to exist as a species eventually. sooner rather than later possibly.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[KeensMustard]

we are either going to get people off of this planet, or we are going to extinct ourselves.

We are going extinct anyway.

we need breakthru tech. we need terraforming and colonization of the worlds in our solar system and we need interstellar travel, even if it means having generational ships.

No we don't.

otherwise it seems to me that we will overpopulate, use up our resources, and cease to exist as a species eventually. sooner rather than later possibly.

If we are unable to manage our behaviours here, we will be unable to manage them somewhere else.

Re:To Boldly Go...

[KeensMustard]

You can argue that it is cheaper but you can save even more money by not having the program at all. We can build a lot of telescopes back on earth for the cost of a robotic space mission.

I could argue for that but I tend to avoid the use of strawmen. There's lot's of things that robots can discover that telescopes can't - and there's lot's of things robots can discover that humans can't by virtue of (a) The relative simplicity of robotic missions allowing mission goals to be bolder (b) The expendability of mission assets - e.g. we CAN drop a probe onto Titan and leave it there if we wish, which makes the design order of magnitude simpler (c) Robots don't need air and aren't overly concerned with weightlessness or radiation, and even extreme gravity is simply an engineering problem. This makes them suitable for places where these conditions are in play (i.e. all of space), where as humans are vulnerable to all these conditions, and will expire relatively quickly, thus leading to mission failure.

Somewhere there has to be a vision to motivate it all, otherwise it is all just a waste of money.

And would the Mars colony plan suddenly provide this motivation? When are you expecting people to get excited about it? Because, frankly, nobody seems very excited now. I imagine that any future effort in this direction will soon get very unexciting, once the initial fervour dies off. It took 3 days for Apollo 11 to reach the moon. There was certainly excitement whilst in transit and whilst they were there. But by the time Apollo 13 launched, that excitement was largely gone. That is less time than a single mission to Mars.

A robotic space mission is no substitute for a manned one when the vision is to move humanity to other planets.

Is that the vision? Who decided that this was our vision?

wait...

[Charliemopps]

Didn't we just have a slashdot article about how US radiation limits are ridiculously low and need to be re-assessed?

Re:wait...

[wagnerrp]

No. We read an article about how US limits on radioactivity at Superfund sites are ridiculously low compared to the allowable exposure limits.

Re:wait...

[Scutter]

My personal limit is none. None radiation.

Re:wait...

[Charliemopps]

Well, you're already over your limit then.

Re:wait...

[wagnerrp]

Uh oh. You're breathing in radioactive Carbon-14 right now. You better hold your breath...

Re:wait...

[goodmanj]

Astronauts play by different rules, because they're comparing the odds of cancer from radiation exposure against the odds of dying in a fiery rocket explosion. Their lifetime limit (1 Sv) is 1000 times the yearly limit for the general public.

Re:wait...

[cdrudge]

Well if he's breathing in radioactive Carbon-14 right now, shouldn't exhale and then not breath in?

Re:wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

14C is not the problem - 40K in food is. You have a few thousand radioactive decay events in your body per second from 40K alone.

Re:wait...

[dkleinsc]

To get that, you'd need to be surrounded by a substance that was so black that you'd think to yourself "How much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black."

Re:wait...

[oodaloop]

I hope that was just an attempt at being funny. You are surrounded by sources of radiation, from your TV, to bananas, to granite, to other people, to glow-in-the-dark stuff, and on and on.

Re:wait...

[NatasRevol]

PUT DOWN THAT BANANA! -The Nuclear Regulatory Agency.

Re:wait...

[TWX]

Maybe NASA should take the lead on future Mars missions when it comes to developing safety for our Astronauts...

Re:wait...

[JWSmythe]

I'd prefer my odds on a rocket. If all goes well, I'll be visiting another freakin' planet. If it doesn't go well ... well ... it'll be a pretty quick ending.

Re:wait...

[Zordak]

Zero-balanced dwarf star alloy. It's the perfect prison.

Hitch a ride:

[Tablizer]

Just find a small periodic asteroid going approx. the same way, or make one go the same way using the slingshot affect, bore a hole into it via robots and explosives, and then the "roidnauts" and their ship could hop in the hole when it passes by Earth.

Re:Hitch a ride:

[Anonymous Coward]

Just find a small periodic asteroid going approx. the same way, or make one go the same way using the slingshot affect, bore a hole into it via robots and explosives, and then the "roidnauts" and their ship could hop in the hole when it passes by Earth.

Yes, NASA has plans like that for entering a hole. It's called 'Preparation H'.

The "Alan Parsons Project" is still in the works, though.

Re:Hitch a ride:

[tom17]

Given that attaining suitable velocity to get there in a reasonable timeframe with manageable fuel loads is probably one of the big issues of Mars travel, how does hitching a ride become advantageous? The differential velocity between you and the space rock would be way too high to dock, and even if you could 'grapple' it, you would likely slow it down too much.

To match its speed to board it would require just as much energy as accelerating yourself to the required travelling velocity in the first place.

Maybe a grapple with a winch could be a solution so that you can grab it while the velocity difference is high and apply a braking force to the winch mechanism until your speed matches. Then you could slowly wind yourself in. Would have to be a very long winch though. We'd probably have space elevator tech as a prerequisite to this.

Re:Hitch a ride:

[Tablizer]

In this case it's Preparation A

Re:Hitch a ride:

[Anonymous Coward]

Like this?

http://www.space.com/3041-harnessing-asteroids-comets-travel-solar-system.html

Re:Hitch a ride:

[wagnerrp]

It's a similar problem, but at a significantly different scale. You're probably looking at a few hundred miles worth of cable at a couple Gs, as compared to 25k miles averaging half a G. Still, if you can manage to put several hundred miles worth of high tensile cable into orbit to pull off this maneuver, surely you could just as easily use that payload for dense lead shielding on your spacecraft instead. What ever happened to the concept of lining your spacecraft with your water and waste stores to use as shielding?

Re:Hitch a ride:

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what he was going for, was to find shielding that has conveniently already been accelerated to the appropriate velocity for injection into Mars orbit. That would be a workaround for the fact that the better the shielding, the more mass it has. When you're close enough to Mars to land in a short amount of time, you separate yourself from the asteroid, land, do science until the asteroid comes around again, and get back in. It's feasible that you could spend very little fuel actually changing the asteroid's velocity at all.

Re:Hitch a ride:

[Tablizer]

Most of the equipment and even the landing capsule could be pre-shipped to Mars separately via unmanned vehicles on a leisure path. The lander(s) and perhaps some of the deceleration fuel packs/suppliers could be pre-parked in orbit around Mars. The deceleration fuel units would launch back out of orbit to help the incoming roidnauts.

Thus, the asteroid capsule would only have to carry the crew and trip sustenance supplies, not destination-related equipment, reducing the load that has to match the asteroid's trajectory.

Yes, it would all be a lot of fuel, but nobody said going to Mars was easy or cheap.

Re:Hitch a ride:

[TangoMargarine]

I took the point of his post to be that sitting inside a rocky/iron asteroid, you'd be significantly more shielded from ambient radiation.

Re:Hitch a ride:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention you'd be shielded from other small bits of rock and space dust that might cause problems on a ship. Also, you'd get a chance to study the asteroid and perhaps even mine it while en route. Either that, or you could gradually carve out rooms until you had a pretty nice station. It's a long trip. You might as well do something productive.

Re:Hitch a ride:

[cjameshuff]

You're missing the point. You have to make basically the same velocity change (somewhat more to actually rendezvous), but *you don't have to carry your radiation shielding while doing so*. A "cycler" carrying equipment and shielding only needed for the long duration port of the trip would only have to make minor maneuvers to maintain its orbit, the craft traveling to and from it could be much lighter because they only need to support their passengers for a relatively short trip.

Re:Hitch a ride:

[dbIII]

Funny thing is your third paragraph about a velocity difference and grappling with almost unbreakable materials is illustrated by the first couple of minutes of the recent Evangelion movie. At least some of the movie physics in it matches reality (while a lot of the rest is just blatant magic that looks cool).

Re:Hitch a ride:

[Anonymous Coward]

You would need several meters worth of shielding to protect against cosmic rays. That would be a significant amount of mass.

Re: 21st Century TANG

[optikos]

If 1960s TANG was orange-flavored, what flavor will 2020s TANG be?

And once you get there...

[Spillman]

... it's not going to be much better. Mars does not have a spinning core so no radiation belts to deflect evil radiation on the surface either. Surface exposure would have to be limited.

http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en/19-faq-health/185-will-the-astronauts-suffer-from-radiation

However, I would still go. I mean, if we can actually get people to Mars, we shoudl have no problem getting around the radiation problem.

Re:And once you get there...

[Spillman]

Also, how is this news?

Re:And once you get there...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's going to be at least half as much radiation because mars will be between you and the sun at night.

Re:And once you get there...

[wagnerrp]

What about all that cosmic radiation? Watch out for those pesky oh-my-god particles....

Re:And once you get there...

[Anonymous Coward]

This article does not quantify the radiation on the surface, only along the trip.

Re:And once you get there...

[Anonymous Coward]

... it's not going to be much better. Mars does not have a spinning core so no radiation belts to deflect evil radiation on the surface either. Surface exposure would have to be limited.

Having an atmosphere does almost all of the heavy lifting. Here on earth if I remember right it provides about the same shielding as 30 ft of water.

Magnetic fields are important if you want to keep the atmosphere you already have but do realitivly little to provide direct protection.

As planet scale geo-engineering projects go giving mars a magnetic field would not be out of the question... you would need a few GW of power and a half dozen superconducting rings at various latitudes. Going to need more robots!!

Re:And once you get there...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mars has a fairly thin atmosphere, so it allows quite a bit of radiation through. I've heard estimates of it being around the same amount as being low earth orbit.

underground alternative?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or a cave perhaps? I was thinking about once they get to Mars; shelter could be found in the environment? Sorry for ignorant idea. I just remember 2001 Space Odyssey had lunar base underground. It's really a smart idea. It might protect you from micro meteroids as well? A.B

Oases of magnetism

[art6217]

http://www.universetoday.com/30538/was-mars-magnetic-field-blasted-away/

What is the protection at 180E60S, if compared to Earth?

risk low compared to mission as a whole

[arobatino]

From the article:

Current U.S. standards limit an astronaut’s lifetime radiation exposure to 1 Sievert, or 1,000 milliSieverts, which equates to about a five percent chance increase in developing a fatal cancer.

A new study shows that with currently available propulsion technologies and similar shielding to Curiosity’s, astronauts on even the shortest roundtrips to Mars would get radiation doses of about 662 millisieverts and that doesn’t include radiation dosages for any time spent on the Martian surface.

Sounds like a rather low risk compared to that of the mission as a whole.

Re:risk low compared to mission as a whole

[dgatwood]

Wasn't the magnetic shielding problem basically solved, at least in lab simulations, many years ago, using materials that are well understood and well within our ability to carry into orbit? So how is this still a "huge problem"?

Re:risk low compared to mission as a whole

[Anonymous Coward]

So how is this still a "huge problem"?

Because your shield only works against the solar wind. From the article

It's more difficult to shield against the galactic cosmic rays. The only mission design strategy for that is just to get there as fast as you can.

From your article

For one thing, it could not shield astronauts against very high energy intergalactic cosmic rays.

Re:risk low compared to mission as a whole

[Anonymous Coward]

Check your reading comprehension buddy.

Bamford told physicsworld.com that more work needs to be done in scaling the technique up before it can be tested aboard a satellite, but reckons that it could be perfected in time for a return to the Moon in around 2020. She does point out, however, that even if the technology works it will not provide complete protection. For one thing, it could not shield astronauts against very high energy intergalactic cosmic rays. “Getting in a tin can with a rocket on your back and flying to Mars is never going to be a safe thing to do,” she says.dgatwood's magnetic shielding article

Looks like they didn't solve the problem of cosmic rays which if you had read the article, I know blasphemy, you would know is the real problem.

Now it would be really interesting to know what kind of magnetic field would be required to shield a space ship from cosmic rays and if it could be build, transported, and used in space.

Re:risk low compared to mission as a whole

[CrimsonAvenger]

similar shielding to Curiosityâ(TM)s

Whyever would we limit ourselves to Curiosity's shielding? It's not like Curiosity was alive or anything?

Re:risk low compared to mission as a whole

[dgatwood]

First, cosmic rays aren't "the real problem". They're a tiny part of the problem. AFAIK, there's a general consensus that high-speed particles are of lower concern than the low-speed particles that this magnetic shielding blocks, for precisely the same reason that the high-energy particles that pass through us every day even on Earth's surface aren't a big deal. Yes, the energy threshold below which particles are deflected is likely lower in the design described by this article, but the biological importance of that difference is not actually known.

Second, this recent article is giving numbers based on using the same sort of shielding Curiosity uses, which AFAIK means no shielding at all other than the materials that the craft is made of. Sure, that's one possible design, but it's far from the best case scenario, unlike what the article implies. And that was the point I was trying to make. In the labs, they've made huge headway, but this still appears to be making assumptions based on sending a glorified Apollo capsule to Mars. That just doesn't seem like a realistic scenario to me.

Re: 21st Century TANG

[Nadaka]

purple

Re: 21st Century TANG

[Anonymous Coward]

If 1960s TANG was orange-flavored, what flavor will 2020s TANG be?

He was talking about poonTANG.

Re: 21st Century TANG

[dgatwood]

Green. Soylent, specifically.

You don't say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Space is an empty radiation-blasted hell and our technology isn't as grandiose as we think?

The Build the Enterprise Discussion on the Topic

[SenatorPerry]

There is a healthy discussion here: Build the Enterprise Discussion

Essentially the crew would spend a majority of their time in a smaller shielded section of the craft including sleeping pods that are heavily shielded.

Seriously? They went from one-way trip to this?

[Anonymous Coward]

No risk, no fun.

Re:Seriously? They went from one-way trip to this?

[canadiannomad]

Yeah, NASA needs to get with the pop-culture... Mars One, one-way trips and reality TV.....
They should do their best to support such a project.

Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Like, feed babies a diet of magnetized iron, so that they develop their own radiation shield in their blood. Or something like that. Let science fiction be your guide.

Cockroaches can withstand radiation . . . maybe modern gene therapy could help humans to replicate that process in themselves . . . ?

Hopefully, without turning them into cockroaches . . .

Re:Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[Tablizer]

"Here the kids stick to the fridge, not just their drawings."

Re:Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[Anonymous Coward]

Magnetized iron + stomach acid = nonmagnetic dissolved ferric ions... probably.

Re:Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[Registered Coward v2]

Cockroaches can withstand radiation . . . maybe modern gene therapy could help humans to replicate that process in themselves . . . ?

Hopefully, without turning them into cockroaches . . .

Too late. We call them lawyers

Re:Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[steelfood]

We could just send the cockroaches instead and hope that in a thousand years, they'll turn into humans. Or something like that.

Re:Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[thomasw_lrd]

I for one welcome our human-cockroach hybrid overlords.

For crying out loud, we have people marching against GMO foods, I can only imagine the outrage if we did that on people.

Re:Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[ebno-10db]

We could just send the cockroaches instead and hope that in a thousand years, they'll turn into humans.

It can be done overnight.

Re:Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[Anonymous Coward]

So wait, we can send people to Mars safely - and rid Earth of Lawyers at the same time? Sounds like a win/win! Send them all!

Re:Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2006/02/23/1567313.htm?site=science/greatmomentsinscience#.UafpUmR4Zvw

Re:Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[Anonymous Coward]

Cockroaches can withstand radiation . . . maybe modern gene therapy could help humans to replicate that process in themselves . . . ?

Hopefully, without turning them into cockroaches . . .

Too late. We call them lawyers

Jettison all the lawyers? Is that what you said? Sounds good to me!

Let's see them ambulance chase from there.

Re:Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[Xyrus]

Stop insulting cockroaches. They have feelings too.

Re:Just start breeding radiation resistant humans

[laejoh]

You got it backwards!

Lead Lining?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, lead lining doesn't fix this?

What about all the other issues? Air, food, water, exercise, BOREDOM(!), claustrophobia/cabin fever, return capability/fuel, hostile inhabitants or 'hood rats,...

Re:Lead Lining?

[Spy Handler]

Of course lead lining fixes this, as will any number of materials (water is also a great radiation shield)... if you have enough of it, that is. The issue has always been:

"Our rockets suck, we cannot put large payloads into orbit, so our Mars capsule is going to have to be less than X kilograms and our radiation shielding can weigh no more than Y kilograms".

Re:Lead Lining?

[ledow]

The heaviest material? Really compatible with space travel fuelled by some of the world's most expensive fuel at great expense. Part of the problem of space is not that "we can't do that", it's that "it's so FECKING expensive to do it the way we would on Earth".

There's nothing stopping us shipping an entire biodome up to Mars, with enough food for a million people. It's just a question of weight (and, thus, cost). The point of the very first manned Mars mission is going to be to get there, not to prove we can start industry there. As such, things like huge amounts of lead are a luxury we can ill afford.

That, and most of the radiation that's damaging can actually be stopped by a bit of aluminium foil. The problem isn't that we *couldn't* shield from it, it's that we can't afford to. And pioneers often have to suffer for the title of being "first", I'm afraid (e.g. Madame Curie).

The bigger problem is the legality over what is basically a health and safety issue that, if we'd worried about it in the past, we'd never have let anyone go up Everest, fly to the Moon, etc. etc. etc.

These people are going to get irradiated. There's nothing practical that we can do to stop that. Many of the Apollo astronauts had eye problems related to radiation exposure in later life, it's just a simple fact of going outside the Van Allen belts (and, hell, flight attendants probably get more radiation in a year than ANYONE who works in a radiology department).

We just have to make sure they understand the risk. But I'm sure that Scott understood the risk of the Antarctic, that Hillary understood the risk of Everest, and so on. There will be people more than willing to do it. And in 100 years time, in any luck, space travel could be commonplace to the point where we finally do "solve" most of those problems through finally getting the money / incentive to actually prevent them. But at the moment, it's just a legal issue to make sure these people understand just how much simple things (like invisible radiation) can scupper their lives on a remote planet.

Re:Lead Lining?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're talking a million-person biodome, you've really stepped beyond the bounds of "expensive." Expensive means it's an economic decision. We'd rather eat or watch TV or whatever than spend the money shipping off the biodome. The amount of energy required to get a megaperson biodome safely to Mars is so huge that there are real practical problems that dwarf the economic ones. We may not be capable of harvesting enough fuel (nuclear or conventional) for the liftoff and trip, period. There might simply not be enough accessible fuel on the planet, and waiting for the Sun to power us up would take way too long. That's assuming a well-engineered biodome was otherwise all ready to go (I assume we'd launch it in many many pieces, not as one giant chunk from the surface, which is completely impossible). If you had the whole of humanity behind your effort, it might take all of our combined productivity for a period of a century or more just to construct the damn thing. Nevermind that we'd still be lacking some basic science research just to know *how* to solve some of the engineering problems posed...

Total lack of risk-reward perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

More stupid NASA risk-aversion....this is why they don't go anywhere any more.

Breach the limits, double, triple the long-term cancer risk, who cares? You'll still have plenty of volunteers for the mission. Good grief; European explorers used to take 50% fatalities and come back counting it a success....

Shielded enclosure

[joe_frisch]

I don't think this is new - surely we have enough data to know the interplanetary radiation levels. In some of the old Mars mission designs there was a shielded "shelter" on the spacecraft that could be used during times of high radiation from solar activity. This of course adds weight - but if its located in the center of the spacecraft, or maybe shielded by fuel it might not be too bad.

On the martian surface it would seem fairly straightforward to make a covered trench. Most of the work could be done by robotic equipment before the manned mission arrived.

Putting people on mars isn't easy - if it were, much of the point would be lost.

Re:Shielded enclosure

[strikethree]

Hm. Why not use magnetism to protect the people inside the spacecraft? No real need for huge masses. Magnetism is what protects us on Earth right?

Re:Shielded enclosure

[joe_frisch]

That should work for modest energy charged particles and is probably a good idea. I don't know how much of the radiation is neutral or too high energy to reasonably deflect with a magnetic field. Depending on the mix of energies and particle types using magnetic shielding might or might not be a significant help.

On earth we are shielded by both a magnetic field (weak but very large volume), and by the equivalent of about 10 meters of shielding from the atmosphere.

round-trip?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can imagine sitting in a tin can for a few month to get to Mars, but doing the same thing to get to Earth? I think I would stay.

spf 2000

[locopuyo]

Nothing some sunblock can't handle.

asymmetric electrostatic radiation shielding

[houbou]

I wonder how it goes on the theory that asymmetric electrostatic radiation shielding could be useful for space flights.

Easy solution...

[Dcnjoe60]

"Even for the shortest of missions we are perilously close to the radiation career and health limits that we've established for our astronauts,

Easy solution -- just raise the limits.

Obligatory XKCD

[Hobadee]

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

I guess he has to update that chart now to account for trips to Mars...

use water

[wierd_w]

Seriously, they already know how to deal with this, and discovered that hydrogen neuclei are ideal for absorbing high energy cosmic rays, since they produce a minumum of secondary high energy particles from the interaction. This means a substance with lots of hydrogen in a small volume makes the best shielding.

This leads us to the most abundant, hydrogen dense material available, which would also be necessary for the trip, and colony operations: water.

Basically, put the crew capsule inside the water storage tank. Radiation problem solved. You have to send the water anyway. Make the most of it.

Re:use water

[onkelonkel]

Fill the water with oysters. Yes, Oysters. So the Scanners Live in Vain.

Re:use water

[Anonymous Coward]

brb... cranching

Re:use water

[Dzimas]

The halving-thickness of lead is approximately 1 cm. That is, it will block 50% of gamma radiation. A nice 10 cm lead plate will reduce your exposure to 1/1024th the original. Now let's try that with water, which has a halving-thickness of 18 cm. You'd need 180 cm of water to afford the same protection. I'll leave it to you to calculate the volume required to shield your craft. Once you've figured out how many thousands of liters are required, calculate the cost of lofting it into geosynchronous transfer orbit -- say $18,000 per kg. Once you've spent the equivalent of Denmark's GDP to launch your swimming pool, you'll have a few technical difficulties to resolve because space is really, really cold and water has a nasty habit of expanding when frozen. By about 9%, in fact. So either you have to keep your liquid shield from freezing and bursting the ship's hull, or you have to come up with extremely clever expansion tanks that ensure an even layer of ice around your vessel.

Re:use water

[wierd_w]

Certainly.

Now, calculate that your average human requires approximately 2 liters of water daily for proper renal function (though they often do drink less, and it is unhealthy.) Also factor in the scarcity of the material on mars, and the feasibility of sustainable agricultural activities without that large quantity of water.

Now, let's also think about the secondary particles generated when heavy and complex lead neuclei are exposed to iron neculei traveling at near C, and the subsequently exponential impact that this secondary radiation will have as the shielding becomes more and more radiological from constant exposure.

In other words, yes, water has serious issues. You still have to bring it with you if you are really serious about a martian colony. There is no discussion there. You HAVE to take it. It isn't optional. Since you already have to tae it with you, using the absurd cost to orbit it as a canard is moot. Adding the water AND the lead will always cost more than launching just the water.

The water does not have the same problem with producing dangerous secondary radiation, and does not become radioactive itself at near the same rate as will the lead rad shield. The water is already required, and is not optional.

Why not just use the water, then?

You can resolve the "water expands, dumbass!" Problem by freezing it already prior to launch. This also makes it much safer to transport in the event of a micrometeorite puncturing the containment vessel, and believe it or not, ice can be quite insulating, and can serve other functions for regulating the capsule's environment.

Re:use water

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the density of lead is roughly 11 times that of water. so 10cm of lead weighs less than 180 cm of water.

And you might not want to use lead, anyway. Tantalum and Titanium are popular materials for shielding: the former for "spot shields" on ICs, the latter for the 1meter cubic "vault" on Juno.

Shielding also isn't as simple as "how many mm", because you have scattering and secondary emission to worry about. There's a story that the shielding on Apollo actually probably made things worse by turning "few" high energy particles into "many" low energy particles, the latter having higher RBE (relative biological effectiveness).

Re:use water

[Anonymous Coward]

True, lead is more effective shielding material than water, but not by factor of 18. Lead obviously is much denser than water, as a result the difference by mass is more like 12 vs 18. The difference between lead and water is that water is actually useful for other purposes and you need to carry it anyway, lead only serves one purpose.
Contrary to popular belief low temperature of space is not actually that much of a problem, as long as you are close enough to sun and its definitely not a problem if you have astronauts on board. In fact its the other way around, getting rid of heat is the main issue, you can only radiate it away. Vacuum is the poorest possible medium for heat transfer you see.
Now the real win between water and lead comes when you wouldn't have to lift it up from earth. Moon has plenty of ice, if you could go and get some of that... then water as shielding material starts to make a lot of sense. Its not quite as easy to find metallic lead in space.

Re:use water

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, no. Your brain just went into an argument-feedback loop. When you're setting up agriculture on Mars, you'll be using local water for it and just bring seeds and fertilizer. You pick your location with this in mind - there are areas where the soil has a high water ice content just inches below the surface. During transit from Earth to Mars, you will recycle water used by the crew and optimally not waste any of it - this is already done at ISS to a large extent (from humid cabin air to bath water to urine, everything goes back in the tank). Water is heinously expensive to launch into space, but fortunately not needed in the amounts you think. Metal radiation shielding is much more cost-effective plus you're not likely to find refined metals on Mars. The nano-antenna idea someone floated is an intriguing concept though.

Can't see the forest through the trees...

[Anachragnome]

...said a million Slashdotters sporting Tinfoil hats.

Re:Can't see the forest through the trees...

[ebno-10db]

Can't see the trees for the forest.

Re:The Build the Enterprise Discussion on the Topi

[Anonymous Coward]

Healthy? It's a bunch of mentally ill children trading fairy tales as if they're engineering.

Huge Radiation

[Ultra64]

Do normal size radiation protection methods not work against Huge Radiation?

that doesn't sound too bad

[stenvar]

If it's close to lifetime exposure limits, that means it's still fairly safe, since our limits are very conservative. Astronauts might have a slightly elevated risk of cancer and probably shouldn't have kids, but they are still much more likely to die during takeoff and landing.

Re: 21st Century TANG

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Asian?

In other words: Forget Mars

[gweihir]

Not a surprise. This is not the only hard show-stopper. Fantasy alone is not enough to make something difficult a reality, it must at least me feasible in some real sense as well.

Re:In other words: Forget Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

That kind of talk is treason around here, punishable by being called a Luddite, or being told the same "Columbus/Wright Brothers" talking points over and over.

Re:In other words: Forget Mars

[iggymanz]

solar radiation is not a hard show stopper, we know how to shield against radiation

Re:In other words: Forget Mars

[joe_frisch]

You are right that space is hard. Flight was hard, many of the early pioneers of flight died in the attempt. Crossing oceans was hard, climbing mountains was hard, exploring the poles was hard. It is in the nature of exploration that it is difficult, otherwise it would have already been done.

In the end though you are right - going into space doesn't get us anything. Unless you see it as a goal, rather than a means, there is no point. There are plenty of resources here on earth for hundreds of millions of humans to live until some global scale natural disaster kills us, which might be very long time.

Re:In other words: Forget Mars

[gweihir]

No, we do not in the context we are talking about here. Stop spouting nonsense.

Re:In other words: Forget Mars

[gweihir]

Yea, always the same stupidity. Too many Slashdotters have no clue about science and technology.

The Problem

[TangoMargarine]

with TFS is that they assume a round trip right off the bat. How bad is it if we send people one-way?

Re:The Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

How bad is it if we send people one-way?

Half as bad ??

What about a magnetic field generator?

[Odonian]

If the spacecraft and habitat had some abundant source of energy (fission or fusion reactor for instance) could the power be used to generate a magnetic field to provide shielding the way it does on earth? Or is the amount of radiation / power required an insurmountable problem with our near-future technology?

All I'm hearing is

[Anonymous Coward]

"We'd better develop mature gene therapy soon". Cancers, aging, congenital defects, HIV, Lupus, psoriatic eczema... the list goes on and on.

Effective medicine will open the cosmos to post-humans. It's just silly to pretend we have to leave our little egg before we've developed enough to survive in the outside world.

So...

[Hartree]

You're telling me that you got 660mSieverts behind shielding designed to protect a nonliving robot with at least somewhat rad hardened electronics? (And was traveling in a fairly quiet solar period.)

And (though I don't see the specifics to back up the shielding info for the deep space capsule in TFA) that a capsule that's largely a follow on from Orion that was mostly designed for a few day trip for a return to the moon provides inadequate shielding for deep space or Mars missions? Especially when they're limited in speed because they're only powered by chemical rockets?

Who'da thunk it.

This is why I'd rather go back to the moon to learn how to run space bases only a couple days away from home where there's lots of nice lunar soil to hide from the radiation under.

Then, design much larger more heavily shielded Mars and deep space craft once we have the easier challenges of lunar operations understood.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to design multiple vessels here.

Start with a moon construction base. Go to the moon, set up shop. Use either local (robotic) mining, or asteroid mining out of our moonbase to construct a space-dock.

Use the space dock to construct interplanetary vessels. Since the interplanetary ships don't need to fly out of orbit, we can build them nice and tough - without weight-saving by building them out of foam and ceramic plating: build them out of moon-concrete and asteroid-steel.

Gather fancier metals by harvesting orbital debris from Earth's atmosphere - both cleaning up our atmosphere, giving us a valuable way to decommission satellites - and giving us rare earth metals for electronics (not to mention any still-worth-salvaging electronics and equipment on the satellites).

Once we aren't dependent on our constructions having to actually exit our atmosphere, we make the challenge of building radiation-proof spaceships a joke. Just build them like nuclear silos out of 3 meters of concrete and steel on each external wall. Space won't mind, it's got plenty of...space.. and it's not like we have displacement to worry about like with a sea-ship.

Planet Earth's To Do List:
- Moonbase
- Spacedock
- Interplanetary Spaceships
- Space Elevator (or Teleporter, but eventually we need a better way to exit/enter gravity wells)
- Mars Colony
- FTL
- Imperium of Man

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo.
We need some "dry runs" up on the Moon first. We need to get our non-rocket tech moving, right now it's not suited for short trips. Need to get our fucking space suit technology stepped up, big time. There will be fuckups, best to solve the problems close to home.
Then we'll have a much more realistic idea on what it will cost to go to Mars and make it really count for something.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree wholeheartedly, back to the moon!!! We need to walk before we can run. It baffles my mind this obsession with Mars and people overlooking the moon.

can't be that bad

[dnorman]

John Boone did it 3 times, and lived to tell about it.

use the same shields as the moon mission?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why dont we use the same tin foil radiation shields that we used to get to the moon and past the Van Allen radiation belts? Worked for the Apollo guys...

Re:use the same shields as the moon mission?

[Shadowmist]

Why dont we use the same tin foil radiation shields that we used to get to the moon and past the Van Allen radiation belts? Worked for the Apollo guys...

No it didn't. The Apollo program basically worked on being lucky enough not to be caught outside the belts in a major solar storm. In James Michner's novel "Space" the Apollo 18 astronauts were unlucky enough to be on the moon during a major solar flare. It did not end well. The command module pilot survived by being on the right side of the moon during the duration of the flare. and by rotatng the greater part of the mass of his ship against the flare.

Cybernetics isn't rocket science...

[MondoGordo]

True ... rocket science is easier.

Absolute Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

The Martian atmosphere is blue with occasional clouds and rain-fall.
There are trees present and shorelines with small lakes.
Radiation is a lie to keep the privateers away.

Hopefully Richard Branson will open up the travel-way to space.

Reminder: no amount of ionizing radiation is safe

[SuperBanana]

No form, and no amount, of ionizing radiation is safe.

Why Not a Faraday Cage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could somebody who knows what they're talking about explain this to me: Why can't they just use a faraday cage? Isn't this electromagnetic radiation we're talking about here? Why wouldn't sticking the humans inside a faraday cage prevent that radiation from reaching said humans?

Re:Why Not a Faraday Cage?

[Shadowmist]

Faraday cages do not block cosmic radiation, only a relatively narrow band of EMF. Faraday cages won't protect you against atomic fallout either.

Re:Why Not a Faraday Cage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Faraday cages do not block cosmic radiation, only a relatively narrow band of EMF.

And what I want to know is...why? Is cosmic radiation not electromagnetic radiation? If it's not, then what is it? If it is, then why won't a faraday cage block it? If it's because a faraday cage only blocks a narrow band, does that mean cosmic radiation is EM, but higher frequency than a faraday cage can block?

Faraday cages won't protect you against atomic fallout either.

That much I do know, because atomic fallout is not electromagnetic radiation.

Re:Why Not a Faraday Cage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and no. It's a type of particle radiation with such high energy and low mass that it can pass through many layers of shielding before having a reasonable chance of being stopped, and can even then generate secondary particle radiation, the effects of which can compound to be even worse than direct cosmic radiation.

Re:Why Not a Faraday Cage?

[Shadowmist]

Cosmic rays are powerful. In fact they're so powerful that they show that there's no reason to worry about any of the atom smashers we build on Earth. Right now, the most powerful accelerators we got, their beams cranked up to eleven, are just wet firecrackers compared what incoming cosmic rays are. We have yet to do anything with our tech that nature doesn't do first, and fairly often on a much more grander scale.

Mars the vacation spot

[jklovanc]

I can just see the brochures.
Go to Mars on a one way trip.
Live in close proximity with the same few people for the rest of your life.
Never again feel real sun or wind on your skin or swim on a natural body of water.
Spend most of your life underground.
Continually hope that funding does not get cut and the supplies keep coming from earth.
Hope that there are no problems with the shipments or you may starve.
Never be able to touch most of the people you love.
Probably die of cancer due to radiation.
Realize that thousands of lives could have been saved on Earth for the cost of putting you on and keeping you alive on Mars.

Re:Mars the vacation spot

[swilver]

Realize that thousands of lives could have been saved on Earth for the cost of putting you on and keeping you alive on Mars.

Eventually there will come the realization that, with 7 billion of us, human live is not something precious, but more a liability as you have more of it.

The whole reason for going to Mars is partially because there are too many of us. Something that will quickly become much much worse once we develop technologies that will significantly increase the average live span.

I'd be happy to realize I did my part to reduce the amount of lives on Earth.

Radiation exposures not "huge"

[cjameshuff]

"astronauts on even the shortest roundtrips to Mars would get radiation doses of about 662 millisieverts"

That is simply *not* the "huge amount of radiation" the article claims. It won't even cause any effects that can be tied to the radiation...it'll increase the long-term risk of fatal cancer by a few percent (for the 1000 mSv, 5% increase in cancer risk limit, that means you're still 20 times more likely to die of cancer from something else), provided the models are even accurate for such low exposures. Radiation exposure is something we'll obviously want to minimize, but this article is just radiophobic fearmongering.

Re:Radiation exposures not "huge"

[Shimbo]

"astronauts on even the shortest roundtrips to Mars would get radiation doses of about 662 millisieverts"

That is simply *not* the "huge amount of radiation" the article claims. It won't even cause any effects that can be tied to the radiation...it'll increase the long-term risk of fatal cancer by a few percent (for the 1000 mSv, 5% increase in cancer risk limit, that means you're still 20 times more likely to die of cancer from something else), provided the models are even accurate for such low exposures.

The problem is that the radiation levels can vary by several orders of magnitude depending on what the sun is up to. If you're unlucky, you get 10 or 100 times that; if you're really unlucky, lethal levels. It's a significant problem even if most of the time you aren't getting much of a dose.

Re:Radiation exposures not "huge"

[swilver]

But you get this lifetime dose in the span of a few months. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure radiation exposure is much more dangerous when the body has not had sufficient time to regenerate and deal with cells that possibly could become cancerous.

Re:Radiation exposures not "huge"

[ifdef]

Okay, could somebody check my math here?

From the NRC's web site, The LD50 is "The dose of radiation expected to cause death to 50 percent of an exposed population within 30 days (LD 50/30). Typically, the LD 50/30 is in the range from 400 to 450 rem (4 to 5 sieverts) received over a very short period." If I understand correctly, this shouldn't depend on TYPE of radiation, because the Sv or REM is a measure of BIOLOGICAL effect, i.e. it has built-in correction factors for how much biological effect a given amount of absorbed energy has.

So, somebody absorbing 662 millisieverts "over a very short period" would be worried about eventual cancer risk, but would also be dealing with acute radiation sickness, which would start to be a problem at any dose over about 500 millisieverts (50 REM).

So, my reaction was actually the opposite of cjameshuff's. Rather than dismissing this dose as not causing any effects, I was wondering why they are only concerned about long-term effects and not acute effects.

Or is it that spreading the dose over a period of months gives the body enough time to recover, so that there is no immediate radiation illness?

It's called a Magnetic Radiation Shield

[fast turtle]

If they don't include one, then I wouldn't even consider accepting the mission. Easy enough to assemble and doesn't need much power except in the radiation shelter.

Re:Reminder: no amount of ionizing radiation is sa

[Anonymous Coward]

Might as well say "life is not safe". You are getting ionizing radiation just going outside, eating food, or sleeping in the same bed as a human being. You sir, put out ionizing radiation in low doses.

Nietzsche Corollary

[rmdingler]

An army bud of mine became enamored with a dojo teacher who used strikes with sticks on his students shins and forearms to thicken the bones for defensive purposes. Not only was this fellow difficult to strike, when you did hit him, it hurt you an order of magnitude more than it hurt him.

Re:Nietzsche Corollary

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like the "iron hand" technique where you train by striking a bag filled with rocks over and over until the rocks are completely crushed. The micro-fractures and subsequent healing of the bones in your hands make them stronger.

Re:Nietzsche Corollary

[nobodie]

rice first, then pebbles, then steel pellets, then ball bearings. Done right it takes a few years and you can hit cinderblock full strength without damage to your fist and destruction to the cinderblock. I quit the practice years ago, and my fist is not as impervious as it once was. This is an example of "wai dan Qigong," actually what I call peasant style wai dan. It uses physical stimuli for the effect. I also used a variety of other physical practices including bean bags, sticks and steel rods to strengthen my bones as part of a "peasant style nei dan qigong" which translates as "bone-marrow qigong."
In truth, my final teacher has made it abundantly clear that these practices were created during the Qing Dynasty, when Chinese culture was deteriorating. They took the results of the earlier Taoist hermetic practices that achieved a "steel body" through meditation and control of the physical body by virtue, power and control. The Buddhist monks tried to work backwards from the results and created the Shaolin practices of muscle-tendon changing and bone marrow washing by "thinking" about how to get the physical result. It led them far away from the reality.

Anyway, that was years ago for me, but I still have many friends from those years, or people I call friends but who get nervous when I reject their explanations of qigong and point them back to virtue as the key. Most people want power and control of others, not virtue and control over the self for inner power that radiates equally to the good and the bad.

Silly humans...

So it's decided then...

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's decided then, no human space travel, give up that foolishness and focus on curing the human condition before daring to every consider anything so risky again.... Of course, given human nature, might want to order up a replacement sun or two to tide us over while we're working on that.... Preferably non-radioactive....

Strange to live in this cradle-to-grave nanny state time in the U.S. where only timid safe exploration is sanctioned by our enlightened/entitled betters.

That's not how nature and human history operates... but I guess we can delude ourselves a little longer.... till someone else leaves us in the dust.

Hear, hear!

[rmdingler]

We are but one global calamity from denying the universe it's most cerebral witness. If you are afforded the luxury, diversify your bets/investments/hopes/dreams as widely as possible

Re: 21st Century TANG

[Anonymous Coward]

Soylent green is made from people!... people poop.

ISS

[manu0601]

We have people staying in space at the ISS for months. How is it different from being in a spaceship moving to mars?

Re: 21st Century TANG

[tarpitcod]

It'll be Orange flavored, but it'll have a little badge that says 'Now Boron Enriched!'.

1 Sv = 100 Rem.... BFD?

[echusarcana]

This is silly. 100 Rem over a year mission is no big deal. The health risks of the radiation are pretty trivial compared to the greater risks of SMASHING INTO THE PLANET AT A FEW THOUSAND MILES AN HOUR. A little perspective might be useful.

Re:1 Sv = 100 Rem.... BFD?

[ifdef]

I agree that there are much bigger risks in this mission than radiation, but, from what I remember from working in the nuclear industry:
- the annual limit of how much a nuclear plant is allowed to add to the exposure of a member of the general public is 100 mREM (1 mSv)
- the annual occupational dose limit for an Atomic Radiation Worker is 5 REM (50 mSv)
- acute effects start showing up at 50 REM (500 mSv) exposure "over a short period of time"
- the LD50/30 (the dose at which 50% of those exposed will die within 30 days, even with treatment) is 500 REM (5 Sv)

On that sort of scale, 100 REM *IS* a big deal.

Now, the fact that the exposure takes place over months may make all the difference, but it's still a large dose, isn't it?

One way missions

[WindBourne]

Seriously, so many of those that scream that we need 2 way missions are kidding themselves. Until we can get nuke engines running, so that you have less than 1 month trip, then it should remain a one-way mission.
In addition, this idea of living on the surface the way that Mars-one wants to, is a joke. I have said multiple times that they will never happen. The reason is that they constantly overlook radiation, possibility of microbes, etc. Poorly thought out.

Instead, for the moon and mars, habitation needs to be underground. Between radiation and micro-meteorites, anybody living on the surface of both will have a short lifespan.

A number of you have this wrong.

[WindBourne]

The .6 mSV is for a fast trip there and back. It does not cover any time on there. Nearly all of the round trips have spoken of 1-2 years on the surface. Of course, you will get nearly the same amount as in space unless you are underground.
As such, you will get at least 1.5 Svs, and more likely 2-3 Sv.

use water and lead

[globaljustin]

nice figuring...

a lead-encased water chamber makes sense given your numbers....maybe 30-40cm of a water tank/wall and make up the rest with lead...

also, isn't gold foil good for this? throw a layer of it in there if so...

lofting it into geosynchronous transfer orbit

I've always viewed the 'next step' in space as a 'next step' across the board of space tech...what I mean is, we will have to go back to the moon (with bots or humans) and on to asteroids and learn to harvest water and get it to our Mars stuff...

Now, going to the moon to harvest water **just to go to Mars** is too costly probably...but the idea is we expand in *all* directions in space or it doesn't work...so in that context, we'd be able to supply it from a moon base or asteroid.

I reject any notion that keeps humans earthbound...we *belong* out there and we have the technology to make it possible...we've just gotten a generation of complacent dorks happy to look at computer screens and think they're Neil Armstrong...

It's time to put humans up there...we can solve the problems with ingenuity and willpower

Cliffnotes: It's possible to go to Mars...

[AcquaCow]

...Radiation-wise...

That's one of the important pieces to take away from this... we can get to Mars and survive the trip... and can likely do a return trip.

Just send Slashdotters

[BeCre8iv]

The majority of us seem to be immune to radiation at any level thanks to the obligatory XKCD shielding.

Also as a demographic, /.ers are least likely to need uncorrupted genetic material to pass on to the next generation.

If space is so cold, why is the beach so hot?

[cbhacking]

Space is not, in fact, "extremely cold" within the regions of the solar system which a trip to Mars would be concerned with. In fact, the biggest heat-related problem in space engineering is dissipating it fast enough. The sun emits loads of infrared radiation, some of which strikes your spacecraft and raises its temperature (think about the warmth of lying on a tropical beach at noon under a cloudless sky; in or near Earth's orbit, it's *always* that hot). Radiative cooling (the only kind that works in space, unless you carry ejectable mass to use as an expendable heat-sink) depends on the temperature and the area of the radiating object.

In real-world terms, this means that unless you can run the temperature up to very high levels (think "glowing visibly" levels, where blackbody radiation creeps into the visible range), you'll need a lot of radiative surface to dissipate the heat generated by the life support, the electronics, the engines (when applicable), and of course the energy absorbed from the sun (what did you thing happens to the energy in that radiation when the water absorbs it?).

Freezing is definitely not the biggest threat (although it's worth noting that, if somebody were to go wrong with the heat dissipation, water's extremely high specific heat and relatively low thermal expansion make it an excellent heatsink material until the problem can be solved).

BTW, my grandfather builds antennas for NASA space probes. He says the cooling (not something else, like the direction-finding or signal strength, and definitely not the heating) was the biggest challenge for antennas on probes heading out-system from Earth; the antennas are always on the sun-ward side (that also being the Earth-ward side) of the spacecraft.

Space Travel is crap

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a NASA prime on the STS (Space RV). We are much closer to the Stone Age than we are to realistic space travel.

See:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/giles/giles31.html
http://lewrockwell.com/giles/giles41.1.html

Magnetic Shield

[Anonymous Coward]

The earth uses a magnetic shield, based on a north and south pole. We need to make space craft shielding based on that design. It's worked for the history of the earth for us!

Use electromagnetic shielding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could a massive, nuclear powered electromagnetic field protect the ship's crew while in transit at least? I'm not sure how practical the approach would be, or of its impact on the ship's various electrical systems...but has it at least been considered/debated?

Re:Use electromagnetic shielding?

[RockDoctor]

Could a massive, nuclear powered electromagnetic field protect the ship's crew while in transit at least? [...] but has it at least been considered/debated?

(1) Neutral particles Particles interact with electromagnetic fields if they have a net charge. Neutral cosmic rays (including photons - gamma rays) don't. Other shielding (massive) would be needed for this purpose. This is decades-to-centuries-old news. Charged particles. If you set up a dipole ("North-South") field around the ship .... this would reduce the energy of most such impinging particles. Along one axis. From other directions, they may be accelerated towards the crew-areas. Which would require more shielding. Interaction with other EM fields In many orientations of such a (dipole) field, you'd experience drag, or the spacecraft would, against the magnetic field of the planetary or solar system you're inhabiting. Which is likely to cost energy (I think that I can prove that ; but I will hang my head in seat-of-the-pants-estimation shame if you can prove me wrong.

It's an attractive idea. But even the Good Doctor seems to have had to struggle to convince people of the idea. And as "Dr Asimov" (he was a research biochemist in his day job ; something to do with thiotimolene), he still failed to convince himself or his readers.

The most effective, moveable (if slowly) radiation shield consists of some tonnes of mass. Unsurprisingly, the necessary mass is about equivalent to the mass of the atmosphere above almost all slashdotters on any day of the week : 10m of water-equivalent. You might be able to trim it a little (paraffin wax with it's abundance of hydrogen nucleii might have a larger interaction cross-section than (say) 10m of solid steel. Since 8m thickness of paraffin wax would weigh considerably less than 10m of steel, it's worthwhile trying to optimise this.

On the other hand, once you've got your bare structure, you can add volume to your protected at a cylindrical rate (1/r^2, rather than a cubic rate, 1/r^3). And then you ride it, and hope that your cells (and your putative descendant's cells) survive.

Go back and read your classic "hard SF" ; the concept of "banking" your sex cells has been independently invented, and used. Not just in the game world of SF, but as "IVF" and lots of related techniques.