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NASA Is Already Studying What Sort of Person Is Best Suited For Mars (blastingnews.com)
MarkWhittington writes: The first crew to set forth to Mars are likely in Middle School or High School, but NASA is already delving into what criteria it should use to select the interplanetary explorers. That they should be physically fit and experts in their fields are a given. But the space agency is keen that the people who will set forth to Mars in 20 years or so should be of a particular psychological type. NASA has granted Johns Hopkins money to conduct a study into the problem.
while you have an excellent point about a submariner there is one very important thing that you, and a lot of other people overlook. The simple fact that someone in a sub, or even an isolation chamber, knows that fresh air and home are only a short distance away, a few hundred feet up or a hundred miles thataway. If something goes wrong in a simulation you can always just open the door.
The people who go to Mars are going to have to face a completely new condition, that of being totally alone in an environment so hostile it will kill you in seconds. I don't think we yet know how to test for a personality type that can handle that, we can make educated guesses but until someone actually goes to Mars we won't know for sure if the people we send have "the Right Stuff"
You have to get out of the submarine first before you get all that fresh air. You can't just open the door a few hundred feet below the surface.
And even if you get to the surface without suffering from the bends or drowning, you're now facing water temperatures of what -- 70F if you're lucky, and if you're not, much less than that. The same hypothermia that will kill you in space will kill you nearly as fast in the water.
It's probably going to be an exceedingly intelligent, physically fit, mentally well-adjusted white man
I've been suggesting climbing Sherpas for a while, but people don't seem to realize I'm serious.
- They're preselected for requiring less oxygen than your average European, reducing the mass of the required life support systems
- They tend to be smaller than Americans of European descent, reducing the amount of supplies required
- Used to dealing with cold, hostile environments
- Probably plenty of smart ones available (assuming they're crazy enough to go to Mars).
If you start with people who think living at 18,000 feet is normal, you get an immediate savings on mission resources or large margin of safety for the same resources.