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Space Science

Utah, the New Red Planet 174

Posted by michael from the just-need-a-killer-robot dept.
tsornin writes "The Philadelphia Inquirer reports in this article that Mars Society crews have chosen Wayne County, Utah as an effective simulant for the Red Planet. Although Mars exploration is hardly a high priority on any government's list at the moment, Robert Zubrin and other Mars Society members hope that through their research in Wayne County and in the even more remote northern Canadian location, they can show world governments that a mission to Mars is viable."
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Utah, the New Red Planet More

Utah, the New Red Planet

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  • The goal, he said, is to simulate as closely as possible the working conditions that future Martians would have to endure.

    So when we go to mars we become Martians???
    • So when we go to mars we become Martians???

      No.

      When you go to England, you do not suddenly become British. If you are born in Britain, or live there for some time and obtain resident status - then you are British.

      Presumably, the same would apply for Mars. However, this would suggest some form of Martian Government/Organisation. Presumably, this would be a form of colloboration or partnership between all interested parties.

      Therefore, if you were born on Mars, you could call yourself an "American Martian" or "Chinese Martian", depending on your originating country in the Martian Union. In much the same way that a German could call themselves a German European.
      • Therefore, if you were born on Mars, you could call yourself an "American Martian" or "Chinese Martian", depending on your originating country in the Martian Union. In much the same way that a German could call themselves a German European.
        A German would call himself a German. A gentleman of Chinese extraction born on Mars would probably call himself a Martian.
        It's only americans that are obsessed with this ridiculous labelling.
        Only an American (or, to use the latest appalling neologism, "USian") would say something along the lines of "I'm one quarter Chinese, one quarter Navajo and half Scottish" and do so with a straight face.

        Sorry for sneering, but I've never known whether I should be irritated or amused by this ludicrous tendency. So I just sneer.
        • I like to label myself Human first and foremost -- my tribe is 6.2 billion strong. :)

          As soon as your start proudly identifying yourself with some smaller 'special' group -- be it national, religious, sexual, whatever -- the stage for conflict is set, especially when you make the group-think the focal point of your life.

          --

    • Re:Martians??? (Score:3, Funny)

      by odaiwai ( 31983 )
      >> The goal, he said, is to simulate as closely as
      >> possible the working conditions that future
      >> Martians would have to endure.

      > So when we go to mars we become Martians???

      Far worse that that, there's a chance of meeting Donny Osmond!

      Aieee!
    • No - John Carter didn't become a Martian; however his daughter did.
      .

  • This just in (Score:2, Funny)

    by rde ( 17364 )
    Latest news:
    The Utah Global Surveyor has detected alcohol in the state. However, it's locked up below the surface in ice and little umbrellas. It does bode well for future explorers, though.

    But seriously, folks... if you haven't read Zubrin's The Case For Mars, do so. You'll be on the streets demanding Mars missions within minutes of finishing it.

    • Re:This just in (Score:2, Insightful)

      by seanellis ( 302682 )

      if you haven't read Zubrin's The Case For Mars, do so. You'll be on the streets demanding Mars missions within minutes of finishing it.

      The current Mars Rush has all the potential to become another Apollo program - siphon off all the money from everything else, in return for 2 weeks of TV coverage, some flag-waving, and then everyone goes back to watching reruns of Star Trek Voyager. Bye bye funding, bye bye Mars, direct or not. And bye bye the rest of the space program.

      Here's a radical thought - long term space projects should be self-funding.

      Mars is at the bottom of an inconveniently large gravity well, so its export potential is severely limited. Exports are essential for an economic entity which is not self-sufficient.

      So, how about a real, useful goal for the space program? I propose that, rather than land a man on Mars (what for?) we resolve, by 2020, to deploy an automated factory on a near-Earth asteroid.

      The factory should make something that would be useful in low Earth orbit (fuel, oxidiser, solar cells, whatever), and be capable of delivering those somethings back to Earth orbit for use. It should produce enough useful stuff to pay back its development and deployment costs well within its design lifetime.

      The ideal "useful something" for our factory to make should really be other factories, but that's a little further down the line. An oxygen/water/methane refinery would be a good start.

      Of course, this won't happen. Good ol' George wants a nice pretty picture of an American astronaut saluting a flag on Mars, not a working space infrastructure.

      Oh well, now I duck and wait for the flames...

      • First of all, 2020 is, I think, an hopelessly optimistic date. The factory you're talking about would never be manned, and never be repaired. Seeing as you're doing this for the cash, you've got to design a system that won't need repair in a long time; the cost of a repair mission - automated or manned - would offset pretty much any chance of profit for a long time.

        Then, of course, there's the problem with getting there, finding a suitable asteroid, avoiding collisions while parking, finding the right stuff to process, getting the processed materials back to Earth... the list goes ever on.

        It's a good idea. But a lot of work needs to be done before; not just in terms of technology, but having that technology work for proctracted periods in hostile environments. What's needed is somewhere remote, but still within monkeywrenching distance if things do go wrong. And things will go wrong; what you're suggesting would be innovative in almost every respect.

        So: where could we have a base that's remote, manned by the sort of people who'd need to work at maintaining these things, who would as part of their work be testing technology and processes that would be vital to a further understanding of what's necessary for an asteroid mining factory?

        Final point: a Mars mission as outlined by Zubrin (and, increasingly, favoured by NASA) is to send a crew there for six months. That's no two-week propaganda mission.

        • you've got to design a system that won't need repair in a long time

          Or, you design cheap enough that you don't care if some of them fail, and send more. I'm not advocating one mission, but a cluster. Perhaps to the same asteroid to save on launch costs.

          a Mars mission as outlined by Zubrin (and, increasingly, favoured by NASA) is to send a crew there for six months. That's no two-week propaganda mission

          Yes, but John Q Public is not going to be interested after a couple of weeks. And then the politicians lose interest. And then the budgets get cut. See what happened to Apollo 18, 19, 20. See what happened to Space Station Freedom, er.. Fred, er... Ed. See what happened to the Pluto mission in order to keep the Space Station running in order to save face.

          The only way to ensure funding is to move it out of the control of the politicians, who don't care about space as anything other than a gosh-wow morale booster and flag-waving excercise.

  • I guess that title makes sense...

    I mean, the moon is actually a soundstage in Nevada right?

  • Tourism? (Score:4, Funny)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) on Sunday March 24, 2002 @09:51AM (#3215858) Homepage Journal
    This should do wonders for Wayne County tourism, who can now adopt the slogan:


    Wayne County, only slightly more hospitable than the surface of Mars

    • How about, Wayne County, like no place on Earth.
      • How about Come to Wayne County, and see the Martians*

        * Martians means people pretending to be Martians and by no means means real Martians
    • Actually, there is quite a bit to see in Wayne county including Capitol Reef National Park and Canyonlands which has some of the most beautiful rock formations and hiking in the west. Additionally, star gazing down there away from the lights of big cities can be truly impressive. Why this should be a good area to simulate Mars, I don't know. I can think of more remote places in Utah and Nevada to simulate living on the surface of Mars. After all, while beer can be pretty hard to find in Wayne county, there are a couple of bars in Loa and Hanksville. :-) (not everyone in Utah is a Mormon)

      Seriously though, some of the remote desert locations in Utah and Nevada I used to go to as an undergraduate to look at stars and planets (in addition to strange airplanes) are much more remote requiring more planning and resources than excursions to anywhere in Wayne county.

  • I found a book in my local library's used book sale room from 1988 titled The Race to Mars (I don't remember the authoring organization and sadly, the book is downstairs and I am far too lazy to get it at this point in the morning).


    It talks about the progresss made, mostly Soviet, up to the date of publication, with lots of cool diagrams and photos.


    What bugs me the most is the introduction, with phrases to the effect of "the Soviets intend to land a man on Mars by the end of the century" and "during the nineties, the Soviets will map and survey mars extensively in preparation for a manned mission."


    And still nobody's there. But I guess it's okay, cause we have Utah....

    • well, they did run out of money as their society collapsed.. when you have to grow potatoes to live on your lab hours it tends to affect the results. if the cold war hadn't stopped and they would have had more resources to avoid the collapsing of society there might be enough pressure on both sides of the (ex)iron curtain to smash dollars on mars mission.. it's not the kinda thing goverments would put huge dollars on just for the research, but to show off to the other side, sure, put gazillion dollars on it(race to space..).

  • ROTFLMAO (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Ozan ( 176854 )
    The Martian atmosphere, Zubrin says, is 95 percent carbon dioxide. By combining that with a relatively small amount of hydrogen brought from Earth, the plant would be churning out an ample supply of methane, CH4, and water, H20. The methane would serve as a propellant to get the ERV and the astronauts back home.

    Methane as propellant, uh hu. I'd like to know where the hell Zubrin wants to get the oxygen to burn the methane.

    • Re:ROTFLMAO (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Ozan ( 176854 )
      Not to mention that methane has a higher level of energy than carbon dioxide, making it neccessary for the plant to have large - and by large I mean huge - solar cells to get any useable form of energy to process the CO2 to methane. This is just ridiculous.

      • Re:ROTFLMAO (Score:2, Informative)

        by Dinosaur Neil ( 86204 )
        Actually, in his book (A Case for Mars) Dr. Zubrin plans on taking along a small nuclear plant (100 kWe) to provide the power needed, and the stoichiometry of producing methane from water and carbon dioxide yields two moles of O2 for every mole of methane produced...

    • Re:ROTFLMAO (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Razor Sex ( 561796 )
      Well, if the atmosphere is 95% C02, that means oxygen is the most abundant element in the Martian atmosphere.
    • And you are prevented from checking the website or even (gasp!) reading the book by what, exactly?
      • And you are prevented from checking the website or even (gasp!) reading the book by what, exactly?

        I searched the website for about 5 minutes without finding a page where the mechanism is explained in detail. The one-and-only issue that prevents an affordable mars-mission is taking enough fuel with to bring the crew back.
        Maybe my laughing was too impulsive, but the article did not explain the method without leaving out the main source of energy Zubrin wants to use to produce the methane making it physicaly impossible. I'm not familiar with the masses, but assuming that you need a quarter of the energy to leave mars gravity field than to leave the one of earth, by taking account of that the energy density of methane is lower than the of hydrogen used by the Saturn V Rocket, you still need a huge amount of fuel to be produced by a fully-automated-and-never-tested-under-mars-condit ions nuclear power plant.
        The key question is if NASA is willing to build this equipment and bring it to mars when there is the high risk that it may not function beacuse of one tiny stupid error.
  • Why not Utah == Mars? Hasn't the desert been used to simulate the Moon? I found this interesting reference (emphasis added):

    http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4203/ ch14-3.htm [nasa.gov]

    Stafford and Cernan did agree to include a test on Gemini IX to compare optics and radar by performing a rendezvous from above the target vehicle. In this exercise, the Agena would be over the Sahara Desert, which would simulate the lunar surface, and the crew would try to fly down to it, using both radar and optics

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

    • Better than that, some training/testing grounds have had craters blown into them to create a surface as nearly identical as possible to potential lunar landing sites:

      The volcanic fields around Flagstaff have proven particularly useful in testing equipment and training astronauts. Cameras planned for use in the Surveyor project were tested on the Bonito Flow in Sunset Crater National Park because the lava flow appeared to be similar to flows on the lunar surface. A field of artificial impact craters were created in the Cinder Lakes volcanic field near Flagstaff to create a surface similar to the proposed first manned American landing site on the Moon.

      Testing sites have been chosen for climate, surface cover, surface type, etc., depending on exactly what they're testing or training for.

  • different gravity conditions? - that's always intrigued me more than what patch of desert they use to simulate Mars.

    • Actually, the Mars Society [marssociety.org] is also sponsoring a seperate study called Translife [marssociety.org] that will involve putting mice in orbit, then spinning up their craft to simulate a 1/3 g environment and see what (if any) effects prolonged low-gravity exposure will have on small furry mammals. A later step will involve a larger orbit and more direct exposure to the sort of radiation levels that Mars-bound astronauts will encounter. The research stations (the first up in the Canadian Arctic, the second in Utah, with Europe and Australia in the works) are just intended to simulate the actual operational side of Mars exploration...

    • hmm. Maybe GRACE [utexas.edu] found a hole in earth's gravity field in Utah. Think it may have something to do with the high density of Mormon's?

  • I find this offensive (Score:3, Funny)

    by wackybrit ( 321117 ) on Sunday March 24, 2002 @10:02AM (#3215880) Homepage Journal
    Frankly, as an honorary Martian I find this offensive.

    Is NASA trying to say that Mars can be compared to a dust bowl inhabited by stray dogs, unintelligent rednecks, Mormons and inbreeders?

    I request that NASA moves this experiment to a place devoid of culture, such as Australia or Germany.
  • I hope he understands that his simulation is BS; real astronauts on mars would never be able to survive without alcohol.

  • Mars like place on Earth (Score:3, Insightful)

    by quark2universe ( 38132 ) on Sunday March 24, 2002 @10:12AM (#3215897) Homepage
    There would be areas of Antarctica that would be more like Mars than Utah with a constant hostile environment due to the extreme cold. You would only need a place not constantly covered in ice. Of course the abundantly rich oxygen and no radiation are other problems in simulating Mars here on Earth. Perhaps the best way to simulate Mars with be through some bio dome like structure with virtual reality.

    The other big question of course is "Why". Why do this at all? Do people really think simulating and then visiting Mars is a possible step in permanent habitation? Our only chance of survival in THIS solar system is here on earth. And any planets revolving around other stars are too far away for us, right now. It's a disservice to get everyones hopes up for living on Mars.

    • "There would be areas of Antarctica that would be more like Mars than Utah with a constant hostile environment due to the extreme cold."

      Close.... more like the Arctic..

      The Mars society has been using Devon island in Canada's north for a couple of years.

      more info at the Mars society homepage [marssociety.org]

    • Parts of Hawaii are a damn lot like Mars....

      bkr

    • There would be areas of Antarctica that would be more like Mars than Utah with a constant hostile environment due to the extreme cold.

      True, Antarctica would probably have more appropriate mean temperatures, but inappropriate daylight patterns: in summer, near 24-hour days and in winter, 24-hour nights. Any Mars landing would presumably be reasonably close to the equator.

      The other big question of course is "Why". Why do this at all? Do people really think simulating and then visiting Mars is a possible step in permanent habitation? Our only chance of survival in THIS solar system is here on earth. And any planets revolving around other stars are too far away for us, right now. It's a disservice to get everyones hopes up for living on Mars.

      Even if we don't colonize Mars permanently, there are several reasons to go. Most compelling is to go search for life, or past life, and if we find it examine its structure. If we find it and discover it and Earth life evolved from the same source, that tells us that life can make interplanetary (at least) journeys. However, if we find it evolved independently it would suggest life has a pretty good chance of evolving wherever conditions were right. I think it would be worth going just for that purpose.

      Secondly, you assert that it's impossible to colonise Mars. I would argue that we don't really know one way or the other at this point, and a manned mission (or two) is the only way to collect enough data to find out.

      • ...that tells us that life can make interplanetary (at least) journeys.

        Ignoring for a moment the irony of making an interplanetary journey to determine if life can make an interplanetary journey, it would be an an expensive fact to determine at considerable risk to life and limb.

        Is this fact worth the risk and expense? Given the finite amount of money for basic research, a trip to Mars would mean delaying research into other areas that are arguably more interesting.

        ...a manned mission (or two) is the only way to collect enough data to find out.

        Considering the difficulty of keeping a tiny research station in operation in Antarctica, which is many times more hospitable than Mars, one can say with reasonable certainty that the cost of colonizing Mars is prohibitive. Generally, in science something must be at least theoretically possible before you attempt to prove it.

  • *NO* manned missions to Mars (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Use the money to raise our politicians' salaries by 2000%. Maybe then they won't sell us out so often.

  • Planetary Chauvinism (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Saeger ( 456549 ) <farrellj@nosPAM.gmail.com> on Sunday March 24, 2002 @10:13AM (#3215899) Homepage
    Trading one gravity well for another is a stupid thing to do (even assuming we had efficient space elevators built on both planets).

    The best 'Case for Mars', IMO, is that it's a (hardly effective) motivator to get us off cradle Earth to secure our survival - people are just USED to living on planets and don't bother thinking outside the gravity well (box).

    What we should be striving for is using the raw material in the asteroid belt to build large (rotating) space habitats which are much much much more efficient than the waste of space/material below your feet on Mars.

    And hey, one day we'll probably disassemble Mars for its matter too -- we'll save Earth for last. :)

    --

    • Re:Planetary Chauvinism (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      baby steps. the moon is closer source of materials for anything we would want to build, including the first plants needed to smelt the ore into something usable. Mining is not easy.
    • I may be mistaken here, but as far as I remember, one of the great advantages of these gravity wells is that you can forget about the lead underwear in the morning...
      If I remember correctly, you need about a foot of lead between you and outer space to insulate yourself from the radiation... or a gravity well...
      Of course, the efficiency of travel from one planet to another is... well... let's say that there is no really efficient way... only more or less efficient variants, in that I concur.
      So, space stations are a good idea... and new insulation against radiation will be found... eventually... but until then, I'd be very happy if people started developing technologies for more efficient space travel... I'm still waiting for someone to actually get to the asteroid belt...efficient habitats, which are able to deal with micro-asteroids in an adequate manner (i.e. not: "Ok guys, get some insulation and glue and start searching") and a host of other things that, eventially, will lead to usable space stations...

      One more comment... I do remember something about the effects of even a short space flight on the ability to procreate...
      It's been at least 10 years since I heard that, so please correct me, but I think I remember that the damage is significant after only a few hours in space...
      In that case, I'll stick to that gravity well for a while longer...

      • A gravity well alone doth not a shield make. For a planet to possess sufficient shielding against radiation, it must have an adequately strong magnetosphere. Mars and the Moon, though both gravity wells, do not have magnetospheres.
      • Yeah, shielding against radiation is a problem, but by the time these habitats are able to be built cheaply I suspect the technology will also be able to solve this problem in one of two ways (that are better than simple mass shielding):

        1) Magnetic shielding [islandone.org]

        2) No shielding; any damage to plants, animals, and structure could be repaired by virtue of the fact that everything is infested with "smart nanobots" - basically a artificial immune system for everything (which is also necessary to counter the threat of "terrorist nanobots" since good will outnumber evil :-).

        --

        • a third possibility is being researched as we speak.
          Dinococcus radiodurans is a bacteria than can take a REALLY big pounding to the genome, we're talking IMPRESSIVE DNA repair mechanisms. After a bombardment sufficient to kill a human about a hundred (or thousand i forget the figs) times over, it's DNA is left in shambles, but quickly, it stitches the whole thing back into order, working order.
          how does it do this?
          does it do this because it came from space originally and this is just vestigial biochemical event?

          why even bother going to Mars before we know these "simple" things about our own planet?

  • I always knew those Utiahns are green! They're just hiding in a human skin! Hmmz, and I thought Roswell was the place to be.
    • Roswell is what happens when men from Utah refuse to stop and ask the way!
    • Green Jello is now the official state food, so perhaps that says something. Mormons have long prided themselves on being different, and I am sure that some of them would love to be considered Martians as it (honestly) might explain some of the theology, but most recently with the Olympics here is SLC, they have gone on a major PR campaign to try and illustrate that they are not at all different from the rest of us.

      All that aside, I for one would like to think that if there were any true Martians, they would have a more sophisticated, intellectually inquisitive and less main-stream white bread culture than we currently have in Utah.

  • The Human Problem (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Sunday March 24, 2002 @11:10AM (#3215972) Journal
    The major problems space travel consist of two elements, the thechnology, and the people.

    Spending six months to a year or more in isloation, especially in a very small room no bigger than, and maybe smaller that a college dorm room, with only the food and entertainment you brought with you, can be very stressful.

    Heck, for the nearest current equivalent look at antarctica [antarcticconnection.com], where they get snowed in for the winter, and thay have much larger facilities. While now they have email, etc, they are still pretty isolated, and start to get a little wacky after just the few months of social isolation. The culture starts to evolve and drift based on the unique events on the base.

    It is sort of like a bunch of geeks working at a big company. The geeks form their own culture, and are somwhat isolatedfrom the main body of people, even when bumbing into a ton of people in the hall way. Who are the aliens there? the geeks or the working stiffs?

    heck, you even see this in religion [radiofreenation.net], those isolated communities off in the desert, etc.

    • Spending six months to a year or more in isloation, especially in a very small room no bigger than, and maybe smaller that a college dorm room, with only the food and entertainment you brought with you, can be very stressful.

      While I'm sure that it *can* be stressful, it's not as if this level of exploration is without historical prescident. Throughout history, exploration ships have spent months at sea with small crews.

      Early caravels had crews of 6-8 people. Columbus' flag ship had a crew of 20. These aren't exactly the hundreds of friends you seem to want to bring along with you.

      Plus, our modern-day explorers would be incredibly plugged-in compared with sailors on those old wooden ships. Sure, the scientists in Antarctica had email, but what makes you think the crew of a Mars expedition wouldn't?

  • A thousand years from now... (Score:3, Funny)

    by roman_mir ( 125474 ) on Sunday March 24, 2002 @11:16AM (#3215979) Homepage Journal
    Fry: Very impressive. Back in the 20th Century we had no idea there was a university on Mars.

    Prof.: Well, in those days Mars was just a dreary, uninhabitable wasteland, much like Utah. But unlike Utah it was eventually made livable when the University was founded in 2636.

    Leela: They planted traditional college foliage. Ivy ... trees ... hemp ... soon the whole planet was terra-formed!

    Fry: Does that mean it's safe to breathe the air?

    Prof.: Of course!

  • Maybe they wanted to simulate polygamy [lds-mormon.com] ... best way to establish a remote colony.
  • For more information about The Mars Society's [marssociety.org] Mars Desert Research Station, I suggest you have a look at the MDRS Website [marssociety.org].
  • We're all well aware that NASA very secretly faked the moon landing [moonhoax.com]. I, for one, am very pleased to see that they're being so open about where they're going to film the Mars landing.

  • Not sure what to make of them (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Sunday March 24, 2002 @12:07PM (#3216071) Homepage

    I was watching a 2 hour Discovery special on the Mars Society Canadian habitat project last night, and I couldn't decide if these guys are visionaries or crackpots.

    One some levels, the organisation was impressive, with tons of construction material being airdropped onto an island. The last drop shed it's 'chute and wrecked the construction crane and some other material. Brought up on a diet of space opera (and Junkyard Wars), I expected them to swing into action with a "can do!" plan. What actually happened was that the project manager and society head had a falling out over safety, the construction team walked off, a new architect had to be flown in, and a long debate over what to do next ensued. OK, they did get it all sorted eventually, but the attitude of some of the team really surprised me. After all, this was an "opportunity" rather than a problem (to use management parlance), but some of them seemed to think that it was better to play it safe, call the whole thing off, and try again the next year. Uh, guys, a manned Mars mission wouldn't have that luxury.

    And then there were the mock EVA suits that they were using, that were - to be brutally frank - kiddie playtime stuff, being mostly trash can lids and plastic tubing. They were quite honest about this, saying that the idea was merely to try out a lot of activities in the suits to try and predict the problems we'll encounter on Mars. Problem was, they failed to apply lessons that we already know, and started with circa 1950's technology. The big problems were that the helmets fogged up (duh), that it's hard to get items out of your own pockets (so you need mirrors on your wrists, which they knew that NASA suits already have but didn't put on their own suits) and that it's hard to read dim LCD screens through a fogged up helmet.

    I really do want to be enthusiastic about the Mars Society, but I can't help but feel that it's a big talking shop and mutual support society for very frustrated people who really wish that some serious money would get put into a Mars mission. It's hard to criticize them for doing something, but it's also hard to take Mars Society seriously when they seem to be more like a Disney Space Camp group having a fun vacation rather than doing bona fide boundary pushing experimentation.

    • But it gives us all something to laugh at while we wait for the real manned mission to Mars! As to the Mars Society I think they're more interested in publicity than actually doing proper experiments as to whether living on Mars would be feasible.
    • I've had similar reservations. That's why my money goes to The Planetary Society (www.planetary.org). They attempt to push the envelope by building real spacecraft.

      Devon

    • I was watching a 2 hour Discovery special on the Mars Society Canadian habitat project last night, and I couldn't decide if these guys are visionaries or crackpots.


      A little of both. I am both a MS member (not active in the current technical program, though) and an independent engineer and space mission designer, and your criticisms are fairly well aimed here.


      One some levels, the organisation was impressive, with tons of construction material being airdropped onto an island. The last drop shed it's
      'chute and wrecked the construction crane and some other material. Brought up on a diet of space opera (and Junkyard Wars), I expected them to
      swing into action with a "can do!" plan. What actually happened was that the project manager and society head had a falling out over safety, the
      construction team walked off, a new architect had to be flown in, and a long debate over what to do next ensued. OK, they did get it all sorted eventually, but the attitude of some of the team really surprised me. After all, this was an "opportunity" rather than a problem (to use management parlance), but some of them seemed to think that it was better to play it safe, call the whole thing off, and try again the next year. Uh, guys, a manned Mars mission wouldn't have that luxury.


      Accurate assessment, but really just points out what the Mars Society is and isn't.

      It's a volounteer organization, fundraising focus, and PR organization trying to do some real field and technical work (on a shoestring) to advance the cause of manned Mars missions. It's not a professional engineering or space mission operations team. The lack of experience shows a lot. The lack of trained personel shows a lot. The lack of ability to select workers for the absolute best in their field shows a lot... a lot of people forget how selective NASA has been able to be in the past. Volounteer organizations have to make do with whoever shows up.

      The plus side... they can deploy a base on a remote island in the Canadian arctic and operate it for a summer for about what it takes to keep two of the fifty seats in Mission Control in Houston staffed 24x7 year round, or deploy one to Utah for about the same amount. Useful things to do.


      And then there were the mock EVA suits that they were using, that were - to be brutally frank - kiddie playtime stuff, being mostly trash can lids
      and plastic tubing. They were quite honest about this, saying that the idea was merely to try out a lot of activities in the suits to try and predict the problems we'll encounter on Mars. Problem was, they failed to apply lessons that we already know, and started with circa 1950's technology. The big problems were that the helmets fogged up (duh), that it's hard to get items out of your own pockets (so you need mirrors on your wrists, which they knew that NASA suits already have but didn't put on their own suits) and that it's hard to read dim LCD screens through a fogged up helmet.


      Fair assessment of the first pass suits.

      There have been some pretty lively flame wars
      over the suits on Usenet and other discussion areas. You're not alone in pointing out the problems with the alpha version suits. The suits basically were mostly impaired by ongoing lack of time and budget to engineer them. They were a rush job done by three harried volounteers in Boulder with almost no budget.

      That said, they did discover some useful things about mobility and operations with them. Some of those discoveries were rediscoveries of things that NASA learned already, but there wasn't time to avoid. Some of them were new. One thing NASA really didn't record well was the planning and support cycle for planetary EVA operations; one of the things the Mars Society *has* done well was to videotape and study all of that. Right now, there's only one group with any current, active experience planning and supporting planetary EVA operations, and it's not NASA. The operational lessons are being properly recorded by real psychologists and operations engineers and should be retained by the aerospace community this time around, we all hope.

      It's important to note finally on this topic that
      the suits are an alpha test version. The two stations are going to be operated on an ongoing basis, and it's intended that the fidelity of the simulation increase over time: better suits, better gear, more realistic remote support, etc. There are some lessons that these early suits won't learn, but there are many that they can. As long as we eventually get to all of them, it's a reasonable program.


      I really do want to be enthusiastic about the Mars Society, but I can't help but feel that it's a big talking shop and mutual support society for very frustrated people who really wish that some serious money would get put into a Mars mission. It's hard to criticize them for doing something, but it's also hard to take Mars Society seriously when they seem to be more like a Disney Space Camp group having a fun vacation rather than doing bona fide boundary pushing experimentation.


      If these were people hanging around on vacation, that might be a fair criticism. But it takes an enormous amount of volounteer labor to make these things happen: tens of thousands of volounteer hours a year have gone into the Arctic and now Desert stations, for several years now. People aren't goofing off or lying around being lazy, they're doing the real work that building these things and operating them takes.

      There are lots of things wrong with the Mars Society at one level or another, but it's not a summer camp. This was demonstrated when the parachute failed to open at Devon Island (for which I am eternally embarrassed... I believe I was the first person to suggest to Bob that they use paradrops for the equipment, though I had nothing to do with the actual operation to do it or build the base). That was demonstrated a couple of days ago when two members survived a plane crash on their way to the Desert station... we nearly lost Devo's guitarist there, damnit.

      Get better soon, Frank and Matt!

  • Comparison (Score:2, Funny)

    by justharv ( 144729 )
    Mars:
    Has no strip clubs.
    Has no alcohol.
    Has no dirty mags.

    Utah:
    Has no strip clubs.
    Has no alcohol.
    Has no dirty mags.

    Logical.
    • As a resident of Salt Lake City (and non-LDS) you get used to the insipid jokes and stereotypical views from most out of state people. Yes there are no strip clubs, no alcohol, and no dirty mags anywhere to be found here. But did you also know that you need a temple recommend to enter past state lines, and an interview with the bishop to maintain residency? Har har har.
  • Hasn't this already been done?

    Didn't they just pick some desert in the US for the manned missions to the moon too?
  • see...and all this time i thought they were saying Utah was 75% mormom...i guess they really meant 75% martian...

    makes sense now...ever seen Shawn Bradley anyway...
  • I got news for ya... The space race will begin in earnest again very soon. Once the Chinese start their manned missions the US better get its act together and get something established on the moon. China will be there in ten years if we don't. Mars will only be a hop skip and a jump beyond that.

    Quite honestly, as great as the ISS is, I wish NASA put its money and research into some sort of moon base. Some congressmen had pushed for this as an alternative plan of action. We would have kept ourselves a few generations ahead of nations developing their own space program while at the same time advancing science.. Now we'll have to play catch-up once another communist power begins its reach for the stars.

    • Amen. Gotta wonder if the Mars Society reads these threads on the Dot. They must not, because they'd find a whole mess of us "Moon First Folks" here.

      The chain should go Earth, ISS, Moon, Mars. Since the ISS is operational, it should be used now as a jump-off point to the moon. We didn't have the ISS in '69 and we still made it OK, twice actually.

      Here's an idea: let's petition the Mars Society to change its tune and get with the Lunar Plan...

    • The space race will begin in earnest again very soon. Once the Chinese start their manned missions....

      The Cold War is over and there's no propaganda victory to be had by space travel. The U.S. should base its spending on basic research on something more substantial than international public relations.

      The net effect of the U.S. being first to the Moon is that it is not getting criticized for abandoning its lunar landing program. Whoever goes to Mars first is going to wonder how they'll pay for the next trip and what they'll get out of it.

  • *insert obligitory cliche about Wayne County, Utah being devoid of intelligent life*

    *return to your regularly scheduled thread*

    *sigh*

    I'm glad that's over with ;)
  • This Mars society has obviously never seen the Australian outback. Eg this site [ozramp.net.au]. Sorry for slashdotting.
  • So, if we land a few miles off the intended landing site on Mars, are gonna land on a bunch of Mormons?

    /*sorry, could't resist*/

    • That wouldn't be bad, really, seeing as how Mormons have a history of Poligamy (?Spelling?). I wouldn't mind landing a few miles off and ending up with three wives...

      I gotta say sorry too. Being agnostic, religion leaves itself open to that sort of humor, IMHO. Mormons are cool with me, I know some, and they're all good ^-^
  • For the 2378250542437th time: Why the heck do we give such a hoot about Mars? We need to start small, folks. Have we all forgotten that we have our own little "alien" rock to populate first? The Moon should be our current goal, screw Mars. If we get all excited and gung-ho about the Red Planet and forget about the Moon, we're doomed to the "biting off more than we can chew" philosophy.

    Don't babies have to crawl before they can walk? Or walk before they can run? If we skip the moon, we're going to go from crawl straight to a dead sprint, resulting in us falling flat on our faces.

    The Mars Society needs to change its name to the Lunar Society and change its focus from Red to Gray. That, and they need to get over the fact that the X-Files is coming to an end...

    • I highly doubt we are overlooking the moon. Most mission plans for Mars involves the moon from one degree to another. One is establishing a permanent lunar colony on the surface all the way to sending fuel generators to the surfaces to use the moon as a 'gas station' of sorts.

      I don't think we are running before we are crawling, we need to begin this sort of planning to prove what technologies are viable and which ones need to be further developed. I agree that there needs to be more of a focus on the moon, but abandoning the red planet is not an option. It has far more resources than the moon does and it has the ability to be teraformed so we could live on it with out specialized life support systems, biospheres,etc.

      r00tdenied

      • Yes, it has more resources and the ability to be terraformed. But terraforming takes a heck of a long time. Even though we can develop these nifty terraforming technologies to try and speed up the process, the course of nature must also be factored in.

        How many millions of years did it take to get Earth to where it has been since life appeared? The first organisms couldn't come out of the water or they'd be fried by UV or other radiation. Once they could resist that, they came out. Then they started affecting the world beyond surface tension.

        How long did it take for those first landlubbing lifeforms to affect their environment, creating gasses released into the atmosphere, developing ways of converting energy (photosynthesis, anyone?)? While we can do all that relatively quickly and without a terribly insane amount of thought, how long will it take to affect Mars on a global scale? And how long before that global change will support life as we know it?

        Or who's to say life as we know it will be around by the time we hit Mars? There are just too many questions that need answers before we can take a stab at it.

        With all the press Mars gets, the common man has seemed to forget about the moon and replaced it with images of Batman/Jim Morrison giving Mars the finger, or Lieutenant Dan standing in a nifty CG model of the Solar System. They're all Mars-Crazy. When is there ever talk of the moon unless it's an eclipse?

        The common man doesn't read Slashdot, they go to the movies and watch Captain Dan the Newsman on CBS. That's where they get their info. The media shapes their outlook on our policy towards Space, and has since Armstrong and Aldrin landed. Back then, it was all Moon Fever. But now, we've got Mars Syndrome. Since the media never talks much about getting a jump-off point on the Moon, common folk aren't in Moon Mode. The ISS gets more press, but that's just the first leg of the trip...
        • But terraforming takes a heck of a long time.

          Unless the Mormons do it; after what they did for the Salt Lake Valley, there's no doubt that they could terraform a parking structure in a decade! Maybe with the right kind of religious persecution we could have another habitable planet in no time! :D

  • It's because of all the crazy Mormans in Utah. The Mormans are so strange, they closely resemble beings from another planet such as Mars. Or did the Mormans come from space [freeworldalliance.com] in the first place? If the Mars astronauts can deal with the Mormans they encounter on their ground mission, then they can handle any being they may find in space.

    Are Mormans allowed to use the Internet? If any Morman reads this, can you tell me why we haven't been getting the Church of Latter Day Saints TV commercicals in Canada anymore? What happened? I always loved those ads when I was young.

    • Re:There's a good reason why they chose Utah (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Are Mormans allowed to use the Internet?

      Ummm. www.mormon.org [mormon.org] and www.lds.org [lds.org]. Utah is perenially in the top five most wired states, and has scored #1 for number of PCs per capita for the last 2 or three years.

      If any Morman reads this, can you tell me why we haven't been getting the Church of Latter Day Saints TV commercicals in Canada anymore? What happened? I always loved those ads when I was young.

      Take it up with your local TV station. They run just about everywhere else. I have heard that some TV stations won't run them, I guess because the insiduous message of Mormonism might "get you"?

    • It's always good to laugh at ourselves. :) But seriously, yes, I am a Mormon. Yes, I grew up in Utah. Yes, I even spent a good deal of my summers in Wayne County (great fishing!). We should have fun with the mars site as we go hunting rabbits in the area next time!!!

      And yes, Mormons can definately use the Internet. I am a regular Slashdot reader, as well as a Linux user (100% Microsoft free) and Java programmer. I've programmed several open source applications over the years. I do stay away from the Pr0n sites, though.

      Before the typical Slashdotters start flaming, please try to be somewhat respectful. :)
      • Sorry for posting the flamebait post about Mormons. I'm glad you have somewhat of a sense of humour by the sounds of it. I guess the average Morman does not fit the stereotypes. I know almost nothing about Mormans, so I should have kept my mouth shut. BTW, 100% Microsoft free, that's quite an accomplishment.
        • I didn't regard your post as flamebait. The last part of my message was for the additional posts that may or may not have come (they didn't). You actually had some honest questions.

          BTW -- I forgot to add on my other post that I don't know why the "Mormon" commercials stopped in your area. I actually had a tape at one time of all of the commercials from the 70's. There were some really great ones and lots of funny ones, all with messages about how we need to spend more time with our kids, more time with our spouses, etc.

          One of the best ones was where they asked 3-5 years olds questions about God and Heaven. The kids had extremely funny answers.
    • Being ridiculed by a guy named CanadaDave. For the Mormon Church I'm gonna have to say ouch.

  • Um, duh? The Moon? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by doubleyou ( 89602 )
    I would've thought that the Moon would be more of "an effective simulant for the Red Planet" than Utah (or any other place on Earth) could ever be. But then again, what do I know. Let's just jump into the deep end and see what happens. If we fail, then so what if people won't fund us for another hundred years.
  • When I visited Hawaii's "Big Island" and went to the top of the extinct volcano there to watch the "famous sinrise", I noticed that not too far from the viewing site were rocks and soil that looked just like the Viking II landing site. I tromped around for a few minutes pretending like I was walking on Mars (until my wife started shouting, "What the f*** are you doing there? Its just a bunch of rocks, you stupid nerd!")

    As far as the weather, I agree with the other readers that polar regions on earth are probably a better training place. However, if you want the *visuals*, then Hawaii is the place. Plus, you can stop at Maui on the way home.

    Also, the atmosphere was kind of thin up there, at least to an Earthling.

  • Fry: Very impressive. Back in the 20th Century we had no idea there was a university on Mars.

    Prof.: Well, in those days Mars was just a dreary, uninhabitable wasteland, much like Utah. But unlike Utah it was eventually made livable when the University was founded in 2636.

  • Soon people really will be all thumbs.
  • And is now Jane County. Although why anyone would want to live on him....er....her I mean is beyond me..... Whatever turns your crank I guess

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