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First SpaceX Missions To Mars: 'Dangerous and Probably People Will Die' (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the willing-to-take-risks dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As we get close to the end of September, when Elon Musk has promised to lay bare his plans for colonizing Mars at an international space conference, it seems like the ambitious founder of SpaceX can hardly contain his excitement. In an interview with The Washington Post, Musk gushed, "I'm so tempted to talk more about the details of it. But I have to restrain myself." SpaceX fandom has speculated for years about details of Musk's ideas, which include the Mars Colonial Transporter concept. The Transporter likely consists of a large first stage rocket and an upper stage spacecraft meant to deliver hundreds of people to the surface of Mars during the late 2020s and 2030s. Unlike NASA, which relies on public money and is therefore risk averse when it comes to "loss of crew" requirements for human missions into space, SpaceX appears to be willing to take some risks with the unprecedented exploration to Mars. Those first explorers would understand the perils, just as the pioneers who explored the New World or the poles of Earth did. "Hopefully there's enough people who are like that who are willing to go build the foundation, at great risk, for a Martian city," Musk told Washington Post. "It's dangerous and probably people will die -- and they'll know that." Eventually it will be safe to go to Mars, Musk said, and living there will be comfortable. But this is many years into the future, he acknowledged.

19 of 412 comments (clear)

  1. I would ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Go.
    At the very least, death or not, it would be interesting. Earth is getting boring.

    1. Re:I would ... by pellik · · Score: 5, Funny

      You could be the first to post there, too.

    2. Re:I would ... by Rei · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I guess the one for Mars for today would read:

      Seeking candidates for hazardous journey. No pay, dangerous radiation, real possibility of death by rapid decompression. Safe return depends on several hundred thousand parts working as designed. Honour and recognition in the event of success. Tons of Youtube hits in event of failure.

      --
      Monkeywrench Ex Machina.
    3. Re:I would ... by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This may come as a bit of a shock to you, but I have worked (and now, am actively working) in aerospace manufacturing.

      Smelting is energy intensive, that I will give you. The cold as a witch's tit surface conditions will present additional obstacles. On the flipside, the lack of free oxygen in the atmosphere will be very beneficial to producing quality metal stock materials.

      To me, the ovious road to success looks like this:

      Big reusable heavy transport ship is constructed in Lunar orbit, uses water gel as rad sheilding. It has limited permanent crew, and is on a permanent transfer orbit itinerary. It carries material mined on the moon, and later, humans sourced from earth, to martian orbit.

      Prefab command and control centers are established on either phobos of demos. Limited human crews are stationed there, and resupplied regularly by the heavy transport. These stations make use of the asteroid bodies as radiation sheilding for their limited crews, and make use of the short turnaround time for communication with the martian surface. They control remote drone construction robots on the martian surface, dropped there by the heavy transport.

      This is how the martian habitats are constructed and covered in dirt. No humans with shovels. That's absurd.

      Once the initial habitat construction is completed, limited human crews are established, and supplied by the heavy transport. Minimal light fabrication (nothing more complicated than a small manual milling machine, or a shopclass size smelter) equipment gets dropped for fault tolerance. Construction of heavier facilities for heavy industrial applications occurs.

      Once the raw structures are in place, heavy industry payloads are dropped and installed.

      THEN heavy industry and permanent self-sufficiency can be discussed.

      And no, idiot. The likening to Indian call centers is an analogy. It would have more in common with a Foxconn factory city, except the product is sent into space cheaply, not sent to earth.

      But feel free to criticize things you dont understand, bask in your own delusions of gandure, plug your ears, and pretend that people wanting to accomplish such a goal are "space nutters", and other just idiocy. You have already demonstrated that you cant even be bothered to read other people's posts before replying with idiocy to them. The proof is in the pudding on that one.

  2. "Probably"? by mark-t · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nice understatement there fella.

    This isn't like the moon... which is at least theoretically close enough that it is at least technologically feasible to orchestrate a rescue mission to bring people home if things go awry, if such provisions are at least planned for... certainly getting people back to earth safely (or sending more supples up) before they starve to death if food supplies were suddenly lost, for example. Mars is, to put it quite bluntly, a fucking ONE WAY TRIP.

    Until we have the technology to get to mars in a matter of only a few days or less, I predict that every manned mission to mars that we attempt will have a 100% fatality rate. It is suicide to go there... plain and simple.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    1. Re:"Probably"? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Funny

      I want to live long enough to see us do fly-bys over the surface of mars, scaring the locals and then having a radio show written about us.

      once that happens, I can die a happy man.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  3. Radiation by Bohnanza · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Has Musk yet explained how he plans to keep them all from dying of radiation overdose?

    --

    -----

    Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.

    1. Re:Radiation by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There are many solutions proposed for dealing with the radiation. That isn't a useful question (by itself.)

      You should be asking instead: Has Musk announced how he will provide sufficient sheilding while maintaining a workable delta-v, and mission cost projection?

      For example, Musk could decide on an inner and outer hull design with a nice empty space between, into which polyvinylacrylate (those crystals inside diapers) powder and liquid water is introduced. The powder absorbs all the water, turns it into a thick gel that cannot flow well, and thus will mostly stay put if the tank depressurizes. That means micrometeorites and the like are not a problem, and the high hydrogen density of the gel and low dispersion means that harmful cosmic rays cant penetrate deeply, and irradiated water wont migrate throug h the gel all that quickly.

      That means that once put into service, the sheilding can continue to used basically forever as long as the ship is in service and good quarantine is in effect.

      The downside? water is heavy as fuck. The fuel to move it around is heavy as fuck. The ship will take for fucking ever to reach mars, and will cost a fortune to fuel and launch.

      The issue isnt stopping the radiation. It's doing so efficiently without killing yourself financially that is the kicker.

    2. Re:Radiation by Robotbeat · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's almost impossible to die of space radiation overdose. The galactic cosmic rays can't kill you via a radiation overdose, they're dose rate is much, MUCH too low.

      The only thing with a high enough dose rate is solar particle event. And, in fact, there are very few that are strong enough to kill you (but note, there are winter or thunderstorms that can easily kill you if you're unprotected on Earth). One has occurred, however, in August of 1972, with a dose of about 1 Sievert, but it'd only be that high if your only shielding was a thin space suit ( here's a source for that). If you were inside a capsule or on the surface of Mars (shielded by the yes-still-significant Martian atmosphere), you'd be totally fine. Even 1 Sv not really enough to kill you. You need about 2 Sv to really be in danger of immediate radiation overdose and death. But you could vomit in your spacesuit and suffocate. However, these events are not instantaneous, you'd have a warning and the events occur over a period of an hour or several hours, so you have enough time to get inside or behind a rock or something.

      No, it's nearly impossible to die from acute natural radiation overdose in space.

      You'll survive the trip. The worry is about an increase in occurrence of cancer when you get back. However, in any case, the risk of cancer from living in space is less than being a smoker. Although, given the huge deal we make about the space radiation issue, you wouldn't know it. You'd think you'd die instantly or something, which just isn't true.

      As far as how to deal with it, well Mars' surface has a much lower radiation dose from GCRs and especially solar flares. You're half shielded by the planet itself and secondarily by an average of around 40 grams per square centimeter of CO2 mass, maybe more at lower altitudes. Additionally, just massive amounts of rock or dirt work great. And water is more effective per unit mass.

      On the way to Mars, your best bet is to shorten the trip to 90-100 days as Musk suggests, and perhaps use your supplies (water, food, maybe propellant) to shield you from solar particle events. That'd reduce your transit dose to a manageable amount. And you can also use drugs like Amifostine to avoid some of the radiation effects, especially the effects of acute radiation (we're unsure if Amifostine helps for chronic radiation). But once on the surface of Mars, it's possible to reduce the dosage to arbitrarily low levels.

      But again, these are long-term health effects, perhaps like you'd see in any kind of hazardous environment. But you'll be able to perform the mission just fine.

  4. NASA is risk averse? by darthsilun · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And Musk/SpaceX is not? Just wait until the relatives of those who die – en route or on Mars – lawyer up?

    1. Re:NASA is risk averse? by SJ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't think that those people selected to go will have to sign a few documents and undergo a few mental evaluations to make sure they really understand that they will most likely die on the mission?

      I would imagine that the direct relatives of the crew will have to sign something similar for the member to be eligible.

  5. Re:Not ready... by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think of tens maybe hundreds of countries offering up their best and their brightest for a global national collaboration on a project that may span several generations but promises a lot.

    Hundreds of countries? There are only ~180 countries total and the lion's share of them are third world shitholes that can barely clothe, water, and feed their people. When dysentery is still a day to day concern in your country I doubt space exploration is a huge priority. There are only a few dozen countries that can make a meaningful contribution to space exploration. If you consider the EU to be a single country then the number shrinks considerably and we're probably talking about counting them all on two hands. Even in the best of times such international projects tend to be top heavy and inefficient; the ISS has managed to cost many times more than Apollo did, despite relying on existing technology and reaching the same LEO frontier we've been exploring since the 1950s.

    Depressed yet? I haven't even touched on geopolitics. The Western World and countries with similar value systems (EU, USA, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and a few others) can probably be counted on to work together, but if you toss China and Russia (or even India) into the mix the relationship status quickly changes to "It's complicated."

    it sucks that this is the case but such is life. So, what do we do? Do we wait for the utopian Star Trek future, where all the problems here on Earth have been figured out, or do we accept that we live in the real world and push forward as best we can? My vote is for the second option.

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  6. perfect candidates by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can we please send the members of congress on the first flight?! I mean come on, what's the worse that could happen?... and please include details. ;)

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  7. Being rich must be good by zedaroca · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Then you can send people to probable death so they can build the foundation for realizing your safe and comfortable dreams.

  8. Re:First SpaceX Missions To Mars: 'Dangerous and P by swb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I was just reading a book on the Vikings this afternoon and happened to read the chapters on the settlement of Iceland and Greenland and thinking about space exploration.

    Compared to even Norway, Iceland was a lot like Mars. Totally hostile climate, vast stretches of it totally unsuitable for human habitation. Extremely long voyage to get there in an environment -- the North Sea -- that's sure death if anything goes wrong.

    Many died trying anyway, and not just all at once. It took several attempts by people who knew that previous ones had failed, fatally, to establish permanent settlements. And the ones that did fail failed for the same reasons Mars is risky -- we bring the wrong stuff and not enough of the right stuff, the climate is hostile, it's far away so you can't easily go back, and sometimes your fellow colonists turn on you and you slaughter each other *and then* die of starvation.

    In many ways, at least as far as we know, the one thing we don't have to worry about on Mars is having to fight our way through hostile natives. Not only did previous migrants face long voyages to uncertain destinations, there was also the likelihood they would have to go to war with whoever they ran into -- hey, let's embark on a trip that's likely fatal simply in the conveyance we have available, to a place we might not have the knowledge or stuff to survive in, and let's do it to steal stuff from people who will fight us to the death to stop us.

    Yet humans have been doing it for millennia, despite the risks and the repeated failures. It's part of what makes us human. If that wasn't part of our humanity, we'd still be eating mangoes and dipping sticks into anthills on the edge of the forest and the savanna.

  9. I'd be more impressed Mr Musk by argStyopa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ....if you started with something like Biosphere 2.

    We can't manage a self-sustaining environment that doesn't require CONSTANT maintenance on Earth. To suggest that we'll somehow 'muddle through' doing it 100 million miles away is folly.

    "Some people will die" sure, that hasn't caused humans to flinch from trying hard things. And yes, doing hard things costs lives in many cases.

    But it's truly a shitty, sociopathic narcissist that is willing to throw away lives to no good end.

    --
    -Styopa
  10. Good.... by beheaderaswp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Finally someone is going to push us off this rock.

    We stopped space exploration in the 1970s and never really returned. It's about time to start doing amazing things again.

    Yes- people are going to die. And those who take the risk will understand the possible sacrifice for pushing our species forward.

    Thank you in advance.

    --
    Another consultant who stuck it out.

    "We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
  11. Robert Heinlein story by Bruce66423 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In one of his stories - and I can't remember which - Heinlein discussed an engineer project whose budget was complete with an estimate of the number of people who would be killed in its achievement. His project manager comments that this item isn't included in the public budget, for political reasons! This realistic assessment of the tendency for death to occur was very thought provoking; we SHOULD be honest about risk - instead terrorism is treated as disproportionately terrible, whilst antibiotic resistance, which is vastly more seriously, is labelled as potentially dangerous as terrorism to get people's attention.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/heal...

    Sometimes the fact that 'if voting could change things, it wouldn't be allowed', should be taken as a comfort.

  12. Re:The price of greed and ambition by ytene · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Um, "to send people"?

    Would that require some form of conscription or force-against-wishes type of arrangement? I ask because I wonder if you would be happy or happier if everyone attempting a trip to Mars was completely and undeniably a volunteer? Would that make a difference given your concern?

    Or do you believe that even volunteers would be attempting the trip due to some kind of false hope or duplicitous misdirection? Just trying to better understand your underlying concern...