Slashdot Mirror
Mars One CEO Insists, Our Mars Colonization Plan Is Feasible
szotz writes: Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp has a bizarre definition of the word "plan". Last week he debated two MIT aerospace engineers who were co-authors on a report that said that astronauts would suffocate on Mars if they tried to grow their own food with existing tech. The question on the table: Is the Mars One plan feasible? And the answer seemed to be "it depends on what your definition of a plan is". The stated plan is to send the first humans to Mars for $6 billion by 2027 (twice delayed already). Lansdorp admits they probably won't stick to that schedule or that budget, but that has nothing to do with whether they're going or not. IEEE Spectrum has a write-up of the debate and a link to the MIT team's presentation. It seems the company's looking for $15 million now to fund--you guessed it--more studies.
15 million could be way too much or barely enough. Are these studies solely focused on theoretical and simulations, or are they actually building and testing in the real world?
(The plan to bilk the public for even more money, that is.)
We're gonna get the Martians to pay for it!
15 million could be way too much or barely enough. Are these studies solely focused on theoretical and simulations, or are they actually building and testing in the real world?
My guess would be: "Not even fucking close to enough".
They need a fully manned mockup, for the ship showing that self contained environment would even work for the duration of the trip.
Then they need to facilities to demonstrate that after that trip they can set up facilities that will allow them to even survive.
If you want to reference the scale of the operation for the simulation, just look at the some analysis of what it would have taken to fake the moon landing back in the 60s, then scale that up to several years duration.
Can someone please remind me why going back to the Moon and putting up some kind of base there isn't the next step?
I'm all for Humans expanding out into our solar system, but shouldn't we go for extended camping trips in our own backyard before we take the kids on the long haul trip to Wally World?
It is not even feasible to go to the moon. The radiation outside the protection of the Van allen belts will kill unless you have a thck layer of lead surrounding humans
Then we could fuck up TWO planets!
For some reason this reminds me of the movie Brazil. The line...
"There's been a little complication with my complication"
They have a very basic plan, that goes something like this:
Step 1: Raise Lots of Money.
Step 2: ???????
Step 3: Profit!
"Why not? But let’s fix the roads and bridges first, yes?” -Donald J Trump for President
...and absolutely pointless. Mars cannot sustain humans because it cannot sustain an atmosphere -- it's a dead rock. Explore it with bots, coolness: Send humans, pointless waste of resources. Venus is much closer and far more practical in terms of potential scientific returns on expenditure. Forget Mars for now.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
There shall be no such faggotry here. Enjoy your downvote, wanker.
The faggot art thou.
Nor will his children, his grand children, his great grand children nor his 14th or even his 282nd removed relative walk on Mars.
Just a Bernie Mad-off Ponzi scheme.
Ha ha
The atmosphere also helps with aerobraking. No need to import carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen is more readily available. Yes, there is a radiation problem. You can build an Earth-Mars cycler as Buzz Aldrin proposes. There is also biology, which will have benefits on earth.
Sorry, but a one-way TELEVISED trip to Mars isn't "feasible".
It's a goddamn extended snuff film. Nothing more, nothing less.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Emergency situation!! The bad people are making fun of our religion!! Everyone trot out the same old tired arguments!
"Computers got better therefore everything else got better at the same rate!"
"The species! This rock! The Death Asteroid!"
My plan for flapping my arms and attaining supersonic speed is totally feasible. I just need more money for studies.
But seriously though, this whole thing has been an exercise in watching someone (Bas Lansdorp) gradually become educated about space technology and why going to Mars is hard, except his self-education has been happening publicly and somewhat humiliatingly and against his own will. And this is if we're being charitable and assuming it's not a scam.
Elon Musk has an infinitely better plan for going to Mars, and best of all, he has the smarts and the resources to do it. http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/...
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
bias to me?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Rockets are hard, but they're just physics and chemistry, which are the easy parts.
We don't have a clue how to build an ecosystem that's capable of supporting human life for extended periods of time without frequent restocking from outside. Biosphere I/II cheated, and even then couldn't sustain themselves. The ISS gets its food and spare oxygen from down home, and only recently even started recycling urine to contribute to its water supply. We don't know how to make real dirt on mars, or grow enough plants long-term without it, we don't even really know all the micronutrients humans need, much less how to produce them in some compact yeast-reactor since we probably won't do a great job growing them.
Until we've got a Mars colony clone running sustainably in a sealed can at the South Pole, it's not worth building a full-scale one in a space station or on the Moon, which are reasonably easy to resupply from Earth if something's going wrong. Yes, it's easier to do on Mars, where there's at least a bit of carbon dioxide and some minerals and maybe some water, but there's essentially no margin for error.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Comment removed based on user account deletion
(The plan to bilk the public for even more money, that is.)
At least they're not wasting government money, like NASA.
I'm all in favor of space exploration (including NASA), but if this can be funded by commercial money, through advertising or sponsoring, then that's all the better.
Maybe this plan is too ambitious, and probably it will fail. But hopefully, a few valuable lessons will be learned, and it will help us all to get a little closer to spreading ourselves a little through the galaxy.
Not, that this makes the MarsONE Project any more feasible in this timeframe but the Study is not worth the paper it is printed on!
:(
1. They claim, there is no easy ay to separate Nitrogen from Oxygen (clearly false, there are several ways, easiest and cheapest is with membrane filters)
2. they have not understood, how plants produce O2 (out of CO2, so oxygen levels could only rise if there was a large amount of additional CO2 supplied to the pants in addition to the one produced by humands and microorganisms inside the habitat)
3. They claim (rightly) that low partial pressure of CO2 would make the people suffocate. But they claim, that at the same time there would be fire hazard because of high oxygen levels. But fire hazard is tied to partial pressure as well an not to relative oxigen content of the atmosphere.
Sad, that his paper made so much waves
the likely scenario is that the people chosen by this project and "plan" won't be going because they'll be too old by the time it happens... the ones that do end up going to mars have not yet been born, and they will be part of some other organization or government entity - not 'mars one' (which will go belly-up by 2020 if they aren't completely shredded by media and scientists and disappear before then).
Perchlorate.
That's only five times the cost of a twenty eight mile tram line in my neighbourhood.
Lemme do the math...
5 x 28 = 140.
Six billion gets you one two millionth the way there in today's money.
Something doesn't add up. How the fuck are they doing this with six billion?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
You know what? Maybe we shouldn't go anywhere until as an entire race we fix our fuck-ups here on Earth or die trying. This includes how we treat each other as well. Otherwise we're likely to just repeat the same stupid mistakes and perpetuate the same shitty behavior somewhere else.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
To make this happen, they really need to build a biosphere 3 and get it to work. If they have to add some O2, fine. But they need to know what the facts are.
Ideally, they would build this in the Antarctica's amundsen scott south pole station. For energy, it would be great if they were allowed to put a SMALLL nuclear reactor there. Likewise, use some of the Bigelow Units for living in. This would be by far the closest to Mars that we could see on Earth.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Mars One isn't a hoax, it's a lie. The guy is doing it for money and fame, not for giggles.
People need to get over this idea of fixed deadlines. This is research. Research is filled with unknowns. That's the whole point. If it was easy then everyone would be doing it and all the problems would already be known and solved. The reality is you don't even know what you're talking about. You don't know what the problems will be. You can't know what the solutions will be. It will require years, perhaps decades, and a lot of money to figure out what are the problems and what are the solutions. People will die. Time will pass. That's research.
Eventually it will turn into production mode and you'll be able to buy a ticket with a predictable schedule to get to Mars and back. Just like flying to Washington, DC. Oh, wait, even that isn't predictable!
We dont have the tech for a return trip. period