Could We Abort a Manned Mission To Mars?

StartsWithABang writes: The next great leap in human spaceflight is a manned mission to a world within our Solar System: most likely Mars. But if something went wrong along the journey — at launch, close to Earth, or en route — whether biological or mechanical, would there be any way to return to Earth? This article is a fun (and sobering) look at what the limits of physics and technology allow at present. If you're interested in a hard sci-fi, near-future look at how a catastrophic Mars mission might go, you should read an excellent novel called The Martian by Andy Weir.

Comments

Second the recommendation

[jenningsthecat]

"The Martian" by Andy Weir is one of the best SF books I've read, and I highly recommend it. Even if you're not into SF, if you're a member here, there's a good chance you'll like it.

Re:Second the recommendation

[jenningsthecat]

...the main character is depicted almost as lacking emotions...

That may be why I liked it. I've read and enjoyed a lot of books with more fully realized characters and more nuanced plots; it was refreshing to read a stripped-down actioner that had a lot of geeky ingenuity and kept me reading waaay past bedtime. Plus, as far as I could tell it got the science and tech mostly right.

Re:Second the recommendation

[CohibaVancouver]

It's OK as proper SF, but the main character is depicted almost as lacking emotions.

He's not lacking emotions. It's just that when something bad happens he curses and then sits about working the problem.

At one point Venkat comments on it by explaining that he's a NASA Mars Astronaut - One of the best in the world at coping with difficult situations.

"He's stuck out there. He thinks he's totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man's psychology?" He turned back to Venkat. "I wonder what he's thinking right now?"

LOG ENTRY: SOL 61 How come Aquaman can control whales? They're mammals! Makes no sense."

Should we?

[spiritplumber]

Full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes!

Yes, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria could've gone back home - so could the Mayflower (yeah, yeah, I know, I'm pasty white, etc.)

It's a lot harder to do that with a spacecraft if you know you need the Oberth effect of your destination to make it home.

So? A poll was done a while ago indicating that a lot of qualified people would go if they had 1 chance in 2 of surviving.

The only safe ship is the one that never leaves harbor...

Re:Should we?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those ships were going to places that were naturally habitable and didn't need to bring every molecule of air, water and food along with them. The ocean provided natural propulsion and food too. Space has none of these things, and Mars is an utterly dead rusty ball of rock.
I will never understand the quasi-religious fervor some people have about space.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the...

Re:Should we?

[Sarten-X]

I will never understand the quasi-religious fervor some people have about space.

It's not about space. It's about not-Earth.

For most practical purposes, Earth has no more undiscovered continents, no more unexplored territory, and no more absolute wilderness. Sure, there's some areas that are generally undisturbed, but we know just about all there is to know about them. There are no more mysteries lying just beyond the horizon. There is only human civilization. There are cell phones, satellites, and rescue teams standing ready. Human exploration is at a standstill.

There are some places left to go to fill in the gaps in our knowledge. We can cut deeper into the jungles, and dive deeper into the oceans, but we still know what we don't know.

The next horizon for humanity's exploration is space. That's where we'll next spread our human empire, and for those who care about such things, the enthusiasm for space is natural.

Re:Should we?

[CRCulver]

The Earth is thoroughly mapped, explored, photographed, populated, and exploited. There are no frontiers or mystery here any more.

I disagree. Powerful computing may lead to finding plenty of things of interest here on Earth. This theme has been explored by science-fiction writers in recent decades.

For example, Poul Anderson in his series starting with Harvest of Stars depicted humanity splitting into two groups, one exploring the stars, and the other content to remain on Earth and (as post-human machine intelligences) explore mathematics and other pursuits unimaginable to the human race as it is today. Of course, as an ardent Libertarian and advocate for space exploration, Anderson made the Earthbound "navel-gazers" the villains, but he was still aware that human expansion into space isn't a given.

In his novel Marooned in Realtime Vernor Vinge proposed that space might be empty because advanced civilizations don't expand outwards into the stars, but instead move into a virtual reality once they have sufficiently powerful computing power.

Re:Should we?

[Sperbels]

An interesting twist on that is that post-human machine intelligences are actually the best suited for space exploration. The need power and raw materials to renew their bodies. They don't need an ecosystem and a gravity well to maintain their health. As long as there's a sending and receiving station, they can travel at the speed of light. Long voyages to other stars would not be an issue for them. In fact, I'd image they'd be far more prosperous off of the planet.

Re:Should we?

[Sperbels]

Perhaps. But this urge has driven the human race out of Africa and brought us to the edge of space. We're only going to stagnate here as we fill up the planet with people and fight each for the remaining resources. We're even better at killing each other than we are at exploring. Why not direct that energy to kill each other toward expanding our territory into space.

Re:Should we?

[Sarten-X]

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.

-Randall Munroe

Re:Should we?

[Zontar The Mindless]

The US became the space leader because the N-1 failed. Had the Russian moonshot rocket worked, they would have beaten us to the moon by a week or so.

None of the N1 launches were manned, and the US had already done a manned flyby of the Moon (the Apollo 8 mission, to be exact) exactly 2 months before the first N1 test shot was made in February 1969. The US landed 2 men on the Moon 5 months after that.

So, no, there was absolutely no chance at all of that happening.

No, who cares?

[SuperKendall]

The first mission or two is probably no return anyway so who cares if you can't abort?

I'd still sign on in a heartbeat.

We need to be WAY less cautious about manned space travel again, we aren't going to do much of import at this pace.

Re:Second recommendation

[TheRealHocusLocus]

If you're interested in a hard sci-fi near-future look at how a non-catastrophic, well planned mission with unforgettable personalities and epic adventures, I recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy: Red, Blue, Green Mars. There's catastrophe in there too but it occurs only occasionally.

There's more "things go wrong... in spaaace!" novels and movies than you can shake a stick at. During these boring space creature features I wind up doing a freeze frame on the movie.

I then mentally leave the room and walk around down the space station's corridors, look out the windows, maybe browse the tech manuals for the station. Then I key up some popular music these people of the future listen to, go to the space john (not much has changed) and visit the hydroponics bays. Have some lunch. If it's a lunar colony I don a suit and go play some golf, take a buggy ride. Then I strap on wings and climb the giant trees that fill the dome and jump off and fly.

Eventually I mentally return to the room that is frozen in time on the screen, take a deep breath and un-pause the movie. And the gallant characters resume their battle with the Space Menace and mostly become eaten or horribly killed and all the precious equipment becomes ruined in the process and everything blows up.

Life can be lonely sometimes when you're not into the things that other people enjoy.

Re:Bring your kids to Mars?!

[FlyHelicopters]

Your opinion of what a good parent is, isn't the end all, be all, of parenting...

Parents brought their kids to America on ships a long time ago, ever heard of the Mayflower?

Many died...

Those who didn't, experienced something well beyond the "comfort and safety" of Europe...

Citation Needed

[KeensMustard]

The next great leap in human spaceflight is a manned mission to a world within our Solar System: most likely Mars.

[citation needed]

I think we will never achieve a great leap forward until we come to terms with the fact that what is holding us back from leaping forward is the irrational notion that we need to send flesh for a mission to be legitimate. Sending human flesh to another planet is about as useful long term as sending frozen steak or a banana. We don't insist on using only our hand when building a house: we use tools and machinery. In fact, it is said that the thing that separates us from other species is our tool making. We make tools to achieve the things we want to do, and to advance and make our lives better. The tools for exploring outer space are unmanned probes, robots, machines. Machines that don't require flesh in situ to make them work. 10000 years ago, flesh was needed to dig a hole. Now, we use a back hoe. We don't think of a hole dug by a back hoe as somehow suspect because we didn't dig it by hand. Why is space travel subject to these artificial constraints? Sure: Before the age of computers we didn't imagine machines could be sufficiently autonomous to enable them to be effective, long term in space. But now, we know better. In the 1960s, it was thought the future lay with sending humans into space to move levers. Now, we know better. The humans are just inert luggage. Let's go luggage free.

Rushing to mars is crap science

[LostMyBeaver]

We still don't have a station orbiting the moon. We don't have a station on the moon. We don't have a sustainable system within our own lunar orbit.

The only reason a Mars mission is one way is because we insist on building the vehicles and launching from Earth.

The cost of launching from earth is much higher than from space because we have to break Earth's gravity and pass through the atmosphere.

We picked on India for making it to Mars by basically cutting corners and just slingshotting a chunk of cheap crap at Mars and then said "ours costs more because we're more conservative". What's our response? Throw a huge expensive chunk of metal at Mars to prove we do it better.

Build the next space station already. Build it big and ship it people and supplies and do it there. If we cat accomplish that, we don belong in space.