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Interviews: Ask Shaun Moss About Mars and Colonizing Space
samzenpus writes: Shaun Moss is a computer scientist with a 15-year passion for Mars. While reading Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson in 1999 Shaun realized that people would go to Mars in his lifetime, and he decided he wanted to be part of that. Since then he has been an active member of a variety of space enthusiast groups, including the Mars Society and Mars Society Australia. Shaun is also the founder of the Mars Settlement Research Organization. His research has included how to make air and steel on Mars, Martian timekeeping systems, terraforming and more, and he has given numerous presentations at conferences in Australia and the United States. For the past 1.5 years he has been developing a robust and affordable humans-to-Mars mission architecture and a plan to establish an International Mars Research Station, which is now available as a book. Shaun has agreed to answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
What's your opinion on Mars One?
I'm extremely sceptical that they can achieve their roadmap or anything close to it, do you share this scepticism? If so do you think they're mostly finished at this point (ie the project will fade into obscurity) or do you think the Mars One group will achieve something significant in the future?
I stole this Sig
Primary galactic cosmic radiation bombards the surface of Mars because its magnetic field is too feeble to turn high-energy charged particles aside, but most colonization plans envision human-constructed habitations on the surface. How much work is being directed toward finding subsurface features (lava tubes, sinkholes) which can provide radiation-hardened locations for long-term habitations? (and perhaps a word about popularizing both the risk and subsurface habitation to address it).
Do you think it might be easier to colonize the upper atmosphere of Venus first? It seems there are several advantages to this approach (easier access to solar power, an existing magnetic field, close to earth-normal gravity). If Venus is an easier target, why not start there first?