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.

Comments

Re:not fucking close

[FatdogHaiku]

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.

So... Space Biosphere Ventures, part deux?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2

Ecosystems are *Really* *Hard*

[billstewart]

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.