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.

Comments

Gonna go out on a limb here

[redmid17]

It's probably going to be an exceedingly intelligent, physically fit, mentally well-adjusted white man

You know like 90%+ of the astronauts they've ever picked. Optional: Actually having been in space, spent time on the ISS, or experienced crushing loneliness for months/years at a time

If loneliness were a pre-req, us slashdotters would cut to the front of the line!

Re:Gonna go out on a limb here

[TWX]

I'm betting that those that are good for the Navy's Submarine Service would also have a good chance. Being locked in one metal tube for months on-end versus being locked in another metal tube for months on-end, plus having an elevated amount of responsibility and the ever-present risk that an otherwise-small problem having drastic consequences.

Re:Gonna go out on a limb here

[PinkyGigglebrain]

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"

Re:Gonna go out on a limb here

[swb]

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.

Isn't it obvious?

[mykepredko]

Somebody who loves potatoes!

let me save you some time.

[nimbius]

1. Donald Trump: BRING HIM HOME.
2. Martin Schkreli: are we entirely sure martial air is toxic? this is for science damn you.
3. Justin Bieber: yes...but...can we sing in martian atmosphere...thats the real question.

Make sure to ask the important questions!

[scunc]

Question 1: Are you physically fit?
Question 2: Are you an expert in your field?
Question 3: Do you like potatoes?

---
That's one small potato for (a) man ...

Re:The profile

[tnk1]

In all likelihood, you are responding to a joke. If you are experiencing some odd airflow over your head, that is the likely cause.

Definitely a job for a southern redneck

[Anon-Admin]

Dont mine long hours alone.
They love things that go fast.
Could use a simulated Deer hunt for entertainment.
Can fix anything with duck tape and some wire.
Will eat just about anything.
There real good at growing stuff.

What more could you ask for?

Just need to outfit the ship to look like a pickup and the habitat to look like a Winnebago. Maybe Offer a million $ to the first one to shoot a deer on mars. :p

Rockets

[slashping]

NASA should focus on rockets, not people. Let's first see a rocket that can make it to Mars surface, pick up a ton of rocks, and fly back to Earth. When you've shown you can do that, then you can start looking for people and doing silly tests.

The shortlist

[wonkey_monkey]

Matt Damon
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Taylor Kitsch

"...who can cope with stress and boredum"

[PJ6]

Please stop linking to sites that can't even use correct spelling in their titles.

Re:It's pretty simple. really

[Kjella]

The people that are best suited to go to mars are those who either explicitly have a death wish or else those who are simply too naive to realize that going there at the technology that we have right now is suicide. Heck, do you know how many people died just trying to sail halfway around the world to the Americas from Europe only a few centuries ago? And that was on a planet with a hospitable atmosphere!

We fairly reliably sent people to the moon with 1960s tech 6/7 times and saved Apollo 13, some 133/135 Shuttle missions were a success, we've operated a space station for 18 years, we got rovers on Mars operating over a decade... okay so space is not exactly like flying from London to New York yet, but we've certainly tamed it quite a bit. Sure, the mission is longer but most things that are critical happen during the launch/landing phase, we have a decade of on-site weather data and the Martian was a movie. And we're likely to have robots making a dry run testing the landing and establishing the habitat first, still considering the complexity I'd give it maybe 90-95% chance of success.

Certainly nothing to sneeze at but nine of out ten times you get an experience only one in a billion will have and the tenth time, well you'd likely be really dead really quick. To be honest, the risk of being in a parachuting or mountain climbing accident and ending up as a cripple is scarier than becoming a fireball, besides I'm not an adrenaline junkie. Going to Mars though, I'd sign up for that. Of course it helps that I don't have any commitments, I wouldn't do it if I had a wife and kids but there's plenty of us around. And shit, 70-75 years ago tens of millions were dying for war. Even if the mission is a wipe, that's like ten deaths for exploration and science? The horror.