Let's Not Go To Mars

HughPickens.com writes: Ed Regis write in the NYT that today we an witnessing an outburst of enthusiasm over the literally outlandish notion that in the relatively near future, some of us are going to be living, working, thriving and dying on Mars. But unfortunately Mars mania reflects an excessively optimistic view of what it actually takes to travel to and live on Mars, papering over many of the harsh realities and bitter truths that underlie the dream. "First, there is the tedious business of getting there. Using current technology and conventional chemical rockets, a trip to Mars would be a grueling, eight- to nine-month-long nightmare for the crew," writes Regis. "Tears, sweat, urine and perhaps even solid waste will be recycled, your personal space is reduced to the size of an SUV., and you and your crewmates are floating around sideways, upside down and at other nauseating angles." According to Regis every source of interpersonal conflict, and emotional and psychological stress that we experience in ordinary, day-to-day life on Earth will be magnified exponentially by restriction to a tiny, hermetically sealed, pressure-cooker capsule hurtling through deep space and to top it off, despite these constraints, the crew must operate within an exceptionally slim margin of error with continuous threats of equipment failures, computer malfunctions, power interruptions and software glitches.

But getting there is the easy part says Regis. "Mars is a dead, cold, barren planet on which no living thing is known to have evolved, and which harbors no breathable air or oxygen, no liquid water and no sources of food, nor conditions favorable for producing any. For these and other reasons it would be accurate to call Mars a veritable hell for living things, were it not for the fact that the planet's average surface temperature is minus 81 degrees Fahrenheit." These are only a few of the many serious challenges that must be overcome before anyone can put human beings on Mars and expect them to live for more than five minutes says Regis. "The notion that we can start colonizing Mars within the next 10 years or so is an overoptimistic, delusory idea that falls just short of being a joke."

Comments

Re:Hmm

[Somebody Is Using My]

Even that is wrong. Given enough resources and a reduced concern for the health and safety of the astronauts, we could probably reach Mars about as fast as we could build the ship and launch it towards the red planet. We've had the technology to launch - and land - men there since the '70s. But both the cost and risk were considered too extravagant, especially considering the lack of significant reward for all that effort. While a ten-year deadline might be a bit tight considering the US would have to build up the industry to support such an effort, if it really wanted to it could very likely get a man to Mars and back within that schedule. It would just cost A LOT more money than is prudent and we'd probably see a number of astronauts either splattered across the Martian surface or stranded down their until their life-support systems gave out (landings and lift-offs are hard).

Otherwise, most of Regis' other arguments are bunk. It would be a long, cramped, unpleasant journey? People have suffered far worse; the early antarctic explorers, or sailors from the Age of Sail. Hell, we have refugees cramming themselves for weeks at a time into tiny boxes that would seem luxuriously expansive to any astronaut in hopes of reaching a better life. And the lack of gravity only HELPS here; yes, it is initially disorienting to see people hanging at "nauseating angles" but it opens up a lot of wasted space, making what appears to be a very cramped habitat much more spacious because all that wasted space on the walls and ceilings can be put to use.

Nonetheless, I do ultimately agree with Regis' premise that Mars should not be the goal simply because Mars is a dead-end. I mean, what are you going to do once you get there that can't be done here on Earth? Dreams of terraforming aside, in the short term (read: next few centuries at least) man will only be able to live on Mars if encapsulated in climate-controlled metal-tubes. And if people are going to be stuck in metal tubes anyway, it might as well be tubes that can MOVE places instead of being anchored to rock at the bottom of a steep gravity well. L5 colonies, asteroid mining, and ultimately island-hopping our way through the Solar System, the Oort cloud and beyond are far more entertaining and profitable enterprises than being tethered to another planet just because its there. Forget Mars; it's a luxury that we can look into after we get the basics down. In the mean time, if you really want to explore off-world colonization options, use the Moon; it's closer.

Re:It's not just about going to Mars

[bobbied]

It's about going everywhere else. The tech developed going to Mars will undoubtedly be useful when going other places. You crawl before you walk, you walk before you run.

Then go to the moon first.... Colonize it where the technology can be perfected in a place where help is perhaps a week away and not at least a year away like Mars would be a lot of the time. IMHO we will kill less people this way and still get much of the same technologies developed we will need to keep expanding our reach. Take smaller steps. It's not as glamorous because we've been there before, but it gets us into technology development.