Will Mars be a One-way Trip?

alexj33 writes "Will humans ever really go to Mars? Let's face it, the obstacles are quite daunting. Not only are there numerous, difficult, technical issues to overcome, but the political will and perseverance of any one nation to undertake such an arduous task is huge. However, one former NASA engineer believes a human mission to Mars is quite possible, and such an event would unify the world as never before. But Jim McLane's proposal includes a couple of major caveats: the trip to Mars should be one-way, and have a crew of only one person."

A great idea!

[Hawthorne01]

And that man should be genetically engineered to live on Mars all by himself! And have a backpack computer that talks to another computer in Mars orbit!

Hmmmn, where have I heard that before [wikipedia.org]...

Re:Mars weather

[Omestes]

Clever troll.

Don't click, its a goat.cz link... Do any of these trolls REALLY think that the average /.er is going to fall for something like this anymore?

Unless this actually is OT, in some strange, vaguely DaDa way.

Re:A few very complicating points...

[ceroklis]

NASA does not sterilize probes it sends

Sure: http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/pp/ [nasa.gov].

Unify what world?

[Angst Badger]

such an event would unify the world as never before

Sure, as long as you're talking about Mars, and that's just because there'd only be one guy there. Back here on Earth, everyone would go on fucking and fighting the way they always have, though a few might pause to watch some of the news coverage.

Unifying this world would take an alien invasion, and that would last just long enough for us to start losing badly against their superior technology, after which there would be an awe-inspiring race to stab each other in the back to curry favor with our new alien overlords. Face it, there's only so much you can do with a bunch of aggressive, paranoid primates no matter how smart they are.

Lindbergh

[fm6]

Charles Lindbergh is supposed be the inspiration for this, but the guy knows jack about him. Lindbergh didn't set out to do a risky stunt. He was contending for the Orteig prize for the first aircraft to fly New York/Paris (either way) non-stop. Several previous attempts had ended tragically, and Lindbergh was convinced they failed because previous designers had not paid enough attention to various safety margins, especially those relating to weight and fuel. Thus he designed a plane that put fuel tanks in every conceivable space (including the place where any other aircraft would have had a windshield!) and did everything he could think of to minimize weight.

That's why he flew alone: it's not that hard to stay awake for 36 hours, and so he saw a co-pilot as unnecessary extra weight.

Ironically, he got lucky and didn't drift off course as much as he assumed he would, arriving at Paris with enough leftover fuel to continue to Rome. But he designed his plane on the assumption that he would not be lucky. He was a safety-first guy, that's why he succeeded where others failed. It ridiculous to associate him with this insane proposal.

Re:I mean...

[jaaron]

The slashdotted article has a few details not in the summary, including:

• There would first be a series of unmanned missions to provide supplies and a base
• The first mission would be followed by other manned missions

So it's more of an advanced scout mission, though the chance of returning is very low

Re:A few very complicating points...

[Overkill Nbuta]

NASA actually does make sure there are no bacteria on objects it sends into space as well as object it returns. They started doing this after the Surveyor 3 probe which was claimed to have bacteria onboard. They have 5 different classifications of how sterile a probe has to be, with Mars, Earth , Europa right up at the top with very strict prosedures.

Re:At least two?

[Captain Nitpick]

Four people isn't enough to start a colony. You need enough unrelated folks to prevent genetic drift [britannica.com]. Not sure how many, but it's a lot more than 4.

Wikipedia cites anthropologist John H. Moore [wikipedia.org] as saying the minimum reasonable size is around 170. I'm assuming these individuals would be measurably unrelated.

Werner von Braun's plan

[Animats]

Werner von Braun's plan for going to Mars was published in the 1950s. It's worth reviewing it.

1. Build a two-stage rocket that can lift reasonable loads to Earth orbit. The first stage, the big booster, is recoverable with parachutes. The second stage can re-enter on wings.
2. Build a large number of these rockets, hundreds of them. This is the big difference from NASA's current one-off thinking.
3. Build a big wheel-type space station in Earth orbit, using several hundred launches of the big boosters. This is the base for the Mars shot.
4. Use about 400 launches (!) to move the Mars fleet of 14 rockets into Earth orbit, along with the necessary fuel.
5. 14 rockets take off for Mars, with about a hundred people.
6. The rockets land on Mars on wings. (This wouldn't work. Von Braun didn't have data on Mars' atmosphere. Back then, it was thought that Mars had maybe 20% of Earth's atmospheric pressure. The actual number is about 0.6%. This is a serious problem. We do not, in fact, know how to land a big load on Mars. The combination of heat shield and parachute used for small robotic craft isn't enough. Power is required, which means lugging fuel for landing.)
7. A sizable base is built, exploration takes place.
8. Some of the rockets return to Earth, to dock at the Earth space station.

Ah, the good old days of industrial production. If China does a Mars program, it might look like that.

Sterile probes?

[neapolitan]

>>NASA does not sterilize probes it sends.

> Yes, they do.

No, they don't. Please read up on what "sterilize" means and stop spreading misinformation.

Oh, heck, you probably would have done it by now if you were going to.

Sterilize = kill ALL bacteria. You can put something that has been sterilized in your bloodstream and not get direct infection or exposure to bacteria.

Sanitize = kill bacterial to a certain threshold or standard, or kill harmful bacteria. You can lick something that has been sanitized and probably not get sick. However, if you cultured that hospital toilet seat, you can be sure you'd get bacteria.

Bioload reduction = "We're pretty much sure that it is not covered in stool or loads of harmful bacteria, but beyond that can't say."

It is almost impossible to build something the size of Mars rovers and have it be STERILE. Anything exposed to general atmosphere for over 20 seconds or so is no longer sterile. Even in the O.R. (which has special filters and a non-recirculating atmosphere) things exposed to the air for prolonged period are considered unsterile. If any of you guys worked in a bio lab, open up a can of L.B. broth, and walk away. After 20 minutes, recap it. What happens?

I really appreciate whoever sent me the planetary protection link, and it confirmed what I thought. We are *very* concerned about bringing foreign / alien bacteria here, but it is just about impossible to keep us from spreading our own throughout the universe.

why not die?

[Maxsparrow]

Why does he need to stay alive once he gets there? Can't he just walk around Mars and record what he sees and send it back to earth until he runs out of supplies and dies? I mean I would probably go to Mars and look around a place no one has ever been to if it meant I would be remembered as "that guy who went to Mars and just walked around until he died," and I'm only slightly insane. I bet you could find someone crazy enough to do it and still smart enough to keep the spaceship running.

Orion spaceships, wimps!

[sudog]

You all are looking at this in completely the wrong way. The cost of getting stuff up into space doesn't have to be significant. We can send tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of crap up there relatively inexpensively, and the vehicle to do it would be reusable and have a significant lifetime. Just build an Orion spaceship. Piece of cake. We can send thousands of people up, tonnes of supplies.. heck we could launch an entire colony in one shot, and not really have to worry much about carefully conserving every gram of fuel.

What's an Orion?

Glad you asked: Orion Spacecraft Rule [wikipedia.org]

Nuclear pulse propulsion behind giant push-plates on springs, man! With a payload measured by the tonne rather than the kilo!

Re:I mean...

[arth1]

You're probably assuming that Mars has a higher gravity than it does. The mass of Mars is only a tenth (yes, really!) of Earth's. In fact, Mars has almost the same surface gravity on tiny Mercury (3.7 m/s/s for both), which is closer to the surface gravity on the moon (1.6 m/s/s/) than the surface gravity on Earth (9.8 m/s/s). You also need less than half the escape velocity to leave Mars' gravity well compared to Earth.

There's a widespread common belief that Mars is a sibling planet of Earth, just a little smaller. This is far from the case. It's a very tiny planet compared to Earth and Venus, and much more like Mercury and the asteroids than the two big dirtballs. It doesn't even qualify for being a planet based on the new rules (keeping its orbit clear of other stellar objects) -- Phobos and Deimos are evidence for that.
If Venus hadn't been so darn inhospitable, it would have been a much more logical place to visit -- it's a true sister planet, unlike Mars.

Re:I mean...

[zippthorne]

The atmosphere on mars is far too thin to consider *landing* something like the space shuttle, and even if it could, there is no place to land: it's covered in huge boulders. Mars looks a lot like southern Arizona. A mars lander is naturally going to be quite a bit more like the lunar lander, only bigger. By a lot.

And the critical issue is: there's nothing on Mars that's worth sending people for. The moon, maybe, assuming you need people to run a far-side radio telescope.

As for Diaspora, we don't have anywhere near the resources necessary to attempt anything like that. We'd need much better launch vehicles, or an impending disaster severe enough that nuclear rockets make sense to build.

Re:I mean...

[tenco]

It doesn't even qualify for being a planet based on the new rules (keeping its orbit clear of other stellar objects) -- Phobos and Deimos are evidence for that.

FUD. Phobos and Deimos are moons aka satellites of Mars. And satellites have been cleared [wikipedia.org]

Re:I mean...

[ceroklis]

Actually, all three were fake. The real ones were hidden underneath.

Re:I mean...

[mobydobius]

Joe Swanson: How about you, Peter?
Peter Griffin: Oh, like you got to ask. The chick with three knockers from Total Recall.
Joe Swanson: Interesting.
Cleveland Brown: I never saw that movie.
Glenn Quagmire: You know one of 'em was papier-mâché, right?
Peter Griffin: Oh, gee, can I change my ans--of course I know it's paper! I don't care! W-what's wrong with you?

Re: Two? No, one.

[jcuervo]

/. ID's don't have to be integers anymore? When did this happen? Do the numbers have to be rational?

Not to ruin the joke. [wikipedia.org]

Re:Werner von Braun's plan

[salec]

I would add necessary step between steps 5 and 6: building another big wheel type space station in Mars orbit or, even better, building it in a Lagrange point near Earth, then pushing it up to Mars orbit.

The point is that, logistically, we need to develop space traffic infrastructure (and supplies storage) outside of gravity wells first, then work out the problem of establishing routine connections between planets' surfaces and respective local orbital ports.

First step is certainly one grand orbital spaceport with large warehouse in Earth orbit. Then, we can do same in Moon orbit, then Mars, ... once we have the system of suppling orbital relay bases working flawlessly, we'll be ready to support surface bases.

IMHO colonizing planets shouldn't be our primary goal. Instead, self-sustainability of extra-terrestrial industry should - perhaps mining easily accessible materials useful for fuel (reactive propellant) or construction material, found on small, low gravity celestial bodies such as asteroids, or planets' moons, could power our zero-G "empire" and remove necessity of heavy lifting all of the supplies up from the bottom of Earth's gravity well.

To do that, we need production technologies for producing solar electric panels and nanostructure materials (fabric, for solar sails and inflatable modules, lightweight but strong rigid construction elements, ...) from raw materials in space, that work in low gravity, high vacuum, high radiation environment, and it needs to be fully automatic - without need for constant human supervision.

Component by component, part by part, everything needed in space must eventually be producible up there.

Re:I'd go.

[Teancum]

Something more to think about:

Skylab had nearly as much room, in terms of m^3 of usable volume, as the ISS had until very recently with only the latest module additions. It would be hard to say just where we would be right now if some rather lousy decisions weren't made at NASA in terms of spending money wisely, but in hindsight there has been considerable waste.

I'm just glad that finally some people are serious about getting back into space in a serious manner, and willing to end some of the more wasteful approaches. The problem to think about now is what to do with the ISS now that we have it.