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The Case For Going To Phobos Before Going To Mars
MarkWhittington writes: The current NASA thinking concerning the Journey to Mars program envisions a visit to the Martian moon Phobos in the early 2030s before attempting a landing on the Martian surface in the late 2030s, as Popular Mechanics noted. The idea of a practice run that takes astronauts almost but not quite to Mars is similar to what the space agency did during the 1960s Apollo program. Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 each orbited the moon but did not land on it before the Apollo 11 mission went all the way to the lunar surface, fulfilling President John. F. Kennedy's challenge.
We really cannot build a "sustainable habitat" anywhere, "biosphere 2" has the longest record of about 2 years, the experiment ended when they ran out of oxygen, food, and patience with each other.
We can build a base that is resupplied, and it would be a much cheaper to experiment with base building technology on the moon than it would be on Mars. The Moon is a couple of days away in a space capsule, Mars is two years away at best. Keeping humans alive is the hardest and most expensive part of space exploration and Earth is by far the most livable planet in the solar system, so why bother sending people? Why not spend that money understanding and repairing the incredibly sophisticated life support systems of the space ship we are all riding on now? We won't be making any interstellar trips until we do understand it enough to replicate it on a small scale.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Can't or won't? I would have thought that it would be possible to create a habitat in either that would require nothing incoming.
So far we cannot. We've tried several times and haven't cracked the problem yet.
We can and we did. It was euphemistically called "The U.S. Government Relocation Facility", but it's code name was "Project Greek Island", and it was capable of sustaining a fairly large population and support staff for 30 years, in the event of a nuclear war.
"The Raven Rock Mountain Complex" was built as a similar "relocation facility" intended for the Pentagon.
"The Cheyenne Mountain Complex" was another facility, for SAC/NORAD.
"The Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center" was intended for use by FEMA; it's sometimes called "The High Point Special Facility".
There are a bunch of U.S. COG facilities (Continuation Of Government) besides that, and most major countries have their own equivalents.
Generally most of them have nuclear power plants, of the type used on U.S. nuclear submarines. Several of the facilities have more than one of them.
We can and we did. It was euphemistically called "The U.S. Government Relocation Facility", but it's code name was "Project Greek Island", and it was capable of sustaining a fairly large population and support staff for 30 years, in the event of a nuclear war.
Project Greek Island was a fallout bunker at the Greenbriar Hotel. It was NOT a biosphere or even close to one. It was a fallout shelter, nothing more. I have personally been in that particular bunker myself now that it is open to the public. I stayed at the hotel a few years back. It certainly wasn't designed or equipped to operate for 30 years. The facility EXISTED for 30 years of operation but it was only designed to be occupied for a relatively short time. It had enough space to have congress and the senate plus a few of the white house staff and not much more. A few hundred people maximum.