Dennis Tito's 2018 Mars Mission To Be Manned 233
Last Thursday, we discussed news that millionaire Dennis Tito was planning a private mission to Mars in 2018, but details were sparse. Now, reader RocketAcademy writes that Tito has provided more information about the tip, and that he intends the mission to be manned:
"Dennis Tito, the first citizen space explorer to visit the International Space Station, has created the Inspiration Mars Foundation to raise funds for an even more dramatic mission: a human flyby of the planet Mars. Tito, a former JPL rocket scientist who later founded the investment firm Wilshire Associates, proposes to send two Americans — a man and a woman — on a 501-day roundtrip mission which would launch on January 5, 2018. Technical details of the mission can be found in a feasibility analysis (PDF), which Tito is scheduled to present at the IEEE Aerospace Conference in March. Former NASA flight surgeon Dr. Jonathon Clark, who is developing innovative ways of dealing with radiation exposure during the mission, called the flight 'an Apollo 8 moment for the next generation.'"
Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
Whats the point? You're shoving many extra tons (between person and life support), and you have to put it on an orbit that brings it back home, and for a payload that can do little more than look out the window and go "ohh, pretty" while being irradiated for years outside of the protection of the Earth's magnetic field.
Even if the mission goes 100% to plan, the cancer risk alone is probably a death sentence for the two passengers.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whats the point? You're shoving many extra tons (between person and life support), and you have to put it on an orbit that brings it back home, and for a payload that can do little more than look out the window and go "ohh, pretty" while being irradiated for years outside of the protection of the Earth's magnetic field.
Even if the mission goes 100% to plan, the cancer risk alone is probably a death sentence for the two passengers.
Q: "Why climb Mount Everest?"
A: "Because it is there."
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: "Why climb Mount Everest?"
A: "Because it is there."
That was a reason to climb the mountain, not walk around it. Landing people on Mars would enable them to do a lot of scientific exploration. A fly-by is pointless. We would learn nothing about Mars that couldn't be done with an unmanned orbiter. We would learn nothing about humans in space that we couldn't learn in Earth orbit.
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Consider it the Apollo 10 of Mars exploration.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
We would learn nothing about Mars that couldn't be done with an unmanned orbiter. We would learn nothing about humans in space that we couldn't learn in Earth orbit.
We will learn that in 2018 you can buy, privately, enough hardware to fly to Mars.
Around the same time, there will be a company selling private space stations for less than some people spend on second homes. (Or on racing yachts. Or unstable private artificial islands.) Some billionaires gamble (ie, lose) more each year (for fun) than it will cost to orbit the moon, in a couple of years.
Tito will spend less than one third of one year's worth of the ISS budget. Or 1/70th of the estimated development cost of the SLS. Or about the same cost as a Shuttle mission (depending on what you count.)
To fly past Mars. Just because he feels like it.
Double the cost of this Mars flyby and you could put human boots on Phobos. That's well within the spending power of any modest developing nation. From hardware purchased privately and available to anyone. A basic lunar base for a couple of billion. A flyby of Jupiter for $3-5b.
The world changed, and the world's national space agencies are still playing with dead rats in the gutter pretending they have a space program.
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That's an assumption (one of many in your post) not a fact (notably absent in your post) - there is a difference between the two.
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The point of Tito's plan, the reason it sneaks under the line of possible, is because the 2018 window allows him to lift enough mass on a single launch for a free-return flyby around Mars. One launch of, say, the Falcon Heavy is being listed at $125m, but call it $150m by 2018.
The same mission profile would get you a Venus flyby mission, and probably a number of possible asteroid targets. But outside of the 2018 window, you will not get to Mars in one launch.
Likewise, to go into Mars orbit would mean two la
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: "Why climb Mount Everest?"
A: "Because it is there."
That was a reason to climb the mountain, not walk around it. Landing people on Mars would enable them to do a lot of scientific exploration. A fly-by is pointless. We would learn nothing about Mars that couldn't be done with an unmanned orbiter. We would learn nothing about humans in space that we couldn't learn in Earth orbit.
Well, people don't live on top of Mount Everest. They come back home. Dismissing the significance of this mission is like dismissing the significance of Apollo 8.
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You're right, we shouldn't give a shit about anything until it's already said and done.
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We would learn nothing about humans in space that we couldn't learn in Earth orbit.
I would not be so certain of that.
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We would learn nothing about Mars that couldn't be done with an unmanned orbiter. We would learn nothing about humans in space that we couldn't learn in Earth orbit.
So I guess humanity should just stop doing stuff that we already think we know the answers to. You have absolutely no idea what might be learned, and nor does anyone else until it's tried.
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The moon was a 3 day voyage though, not a 500 day one. Spending 500 days and however much money just to circle mars and come back is a dangerous waste, especially if you're going to send people - who, while on a spaceship - can't do anything more then a probe could.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
and however much money
Around a billion.
About the same as the average cost of a Shuttle mission. 1/18th NASA's annual budget. 1/3rd of what they spend on ISS every year. Slightly more than 1/3rd of what they spend each year developing SLS in the hope that they will, perhaps, be able to fly a crew of 4 around the moon and back in 2021 after 15+ years of development.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
The mission isn't supposed to find out anything new about Mars. It's about the problems associated with the trip itself. That's enough to be going on with. After the mission, I can practically guarantee there will be a succession of scientists and engineers giving presentations, saying "It turns out that...". There's no substitute for actually doing it - and if we want to reach the stage where we're regularly sending colony ships full of people to Mars, sending the first one just to loop round is in no way "a waste".
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We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
- JFK
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Q: "Why climb Mount Everest?" A: "Because it is there."
Sometimes also in form of "Because I can", which is almost equivalent
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:4, Informative)
Science : almost nil for the cost/fail
On the contrary. There will be a lot of science done. It will be in the realm of long duration space travel and its affects on humans, rather than on gathering data on Mars, but there is plenty of opportunity for science on such a mission.
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Sure, except most people don't seem to care much for the Mars missions that curently do take place. However, sending a human there might well be enough of an "Apollo 8" moment to reignite peoples interest in going to Mars - possibly even enough to fire up another space race.
Also, if we're ever to colonise Mars, we must start sometime to work out those logistics problems that you mentioned. So why not now?
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Also, if we're ever to colonise Mars, we must start sometime to work out those logistics problems that you mentioned. So why not now?
Efficiency, mostly. All medical research must eventually have human(or sometimes veterinary) application to count as useful; but humans are lousy enough research subjects(ethical whining, long lifespans, tendency to wander off and introduce uncontrolled variables, etc.) so we generally start with something simpler and cheaper, that can be run on a much vaster scale with the same money.
In the same vein, if we were serious about confronting the challenges of building self-sustaining colony type environments,
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There's been quite a few of those done, including a Russian one where Xeon was used as a filler gas instead of Nitrogen with the Mars atmosphere in mind. It would be very difficult to make a perfect copy of Earth air from the gas available on Mars so that's why they were looking into the long term effects of something that would be a bit easier to put together.
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However, sending a human there might well be enough of an "Apollo 8" moment to reignite peoples interest in going to Mars - possibly even enough to fire up another space race.
Contrariwise, it might well end up as more of a "Challenger disaster" moment, with all hands lost and a corresponding loss of public confidence in the feasibility of manned space exploration. But I guess that's the risk you gotta take...
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, you know we should have saved all the money on the whole Gemini program and Apollos 1-10 and just gone straight to the moon. This iterative approach to new discovery is for the birds.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?
-- Robert Browning
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I got slapped in a bar for that once.
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Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Informative)
Even if the mission goes 100% to plan, the cancer risk alone is probably a death sentence for the two passengers.
It's right there in the article:
The expected total radiation exposure is below NASA’s accepted lifetime limit for a middle-aged crew, Dr. Clark said. Clark expects that radiation exposure would result in a 3% excess cancer risk over the crew’s lifetime.
You may dispute the numbers (but I don't see how you could, given that the details of the spacecraft aren't known), but I think many people would be willing to take that risk - smokers probably face worse cancer odds than that.
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They're in very risky territory. Outside the earth's magnetosphere, things are much much worse than LEO.(where pretty much every astronaut except the Apollo ones spend all their time.)
There is a good paper on it here:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20070010704_2007005310.pdf
They estimate a dose of 1.03 Sv for a 600 d mars flyby, which would be just over the lifetime limit for most space agencies.
Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays
5% brain death seems like a
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Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
Also, we might find out how is space babby formed.
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Lol nice one, this thing probably just funded itself in the future right there. Talk about buying celebrities.
Fuckin ex-JPL goon in first "civilian" in the employ of top secret god knows what Eisenhower alien fiasco lizard person bullshit.
Just an Illuminati stooge I bet. Sorry big man with the bucks to make a publicity stunt out of human achievement, f your not a goon. I hope you succeed in bringing people to mars.
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...the money could be used to feed all the hungry children in Africa for 10 million years and prevent global warming...
The poor will always be with us.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Excellent policy. But why start with space exploration? Space exploration has some very useful applications for now and our future. Let's ban the spending of millions on films, tv, sports, music, entertainment, vacations, celebrations, art, fancy food and alcohol. All this non-essential crap that waste the Earth's resources and could be better spent on new energy technologies, food production and clean water preservation.
Sure, life would be dull and joyless. But I guess that's the price you pay when you get to ban use of resources on things you don't like.
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Pissed (Score:3, Insightful)
Stories like this sort of pisses me off. There are a lot cool things we could be doing if, as a nation, America used it's wealth for good instead of evil. But we'd rather spend trillions enriching the very few via wars/police state crap to prevent fewer deaths than dog bites cause (*), or on bailouts for the very rich and unscrupulous. What a fucking waste.
* http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/25/304113/chart-only-15-americans-died-from-terrorism-last-year-less-than-from-dog-bites-or-lightning-strikes/?mobile=nc [thinkprogress.org]
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But we'd rather spend trillions enriching the very few via wars/police state crap to prevent fewer deaths than dog bites cause (*)
If only 15 Americans died from terrorism last year, doesn't that mean the prevention is working? ;^)
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I know your comment is tongue in cheek, but it won't be seen that way by many. The fact is, there is no amount of money that can be spent to prevent all terrorism. There is certainly some amount that it is wise to spend, but the edge cases will always make it through. I'm thinking of Breivik or McVeigh/Nichols -- Lone Wolf types. We should just accept that within reason, like how we wear seat belts and have airbags in cars. The utility of vehicles causes to accept some rational risk despite the fact th
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I'm sorry but I don't see how you can possibly make that statement given that Breivik was from Norway. Don't they 'heavily invest in public schools and social security' there?
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Re: Pissed (Score:5, Insightful)
I think if you re-read his post you'll find he's actually on your side, numbskull.
What would be great (Score:5, Funny)
The ship comes back with an extra passenger or two..
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It will probably come back with a few micrometerites embedded in its hull.
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giving birth in space? they better stock up on baby formula too when planning the life support cargo...
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Don't let the breastapo hear this. The breast milk mafia has enough political clout to ban spaceflight with an insufficient stock of breasts.
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The ship comes back with an extra passenger or two..
It's a good thing that flippers might actually work in low-density fluids at zero G; because fetuses are total wimps about radiation...
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The ship comes back with an extra passenger or two..
I don't think any responsible parent would attempt to conceive a child in high-radiation conditions. They'll probably use implantable birth control to prevent any unwanted "accidents".
Crash and colonise (Score:3)
Landing and living on Mars might actually be safer than a cruise back to Earth and a 10g landing, after two years of microgravity. A better idea would be to send older people, land them on Mars and schedule resupply missions.
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Given the cost of sending somebody, sending an old person seems like a very unwise investment in terms of expected mission years per dollar...
You'd pretty much want the youngest you could get, subject to the restriction that they be old enough to exhibit basic human competence and keep the ethicists off your back... The communications delay is short enough that subject matter experts can be consulted from earth, and RF is much cheaper than meat when it comes to shipping 'wisdom and experience' across interp
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You'd pretty much want the youngest you could get
Yeah but then you have to commit to keeping them alive for longer, in this scenario.
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Or just make sure that they don't find the 'tragic accident circuit' or die in some particularly low-PR way before you have need to trigger said circuit.
It wouldn't do at all to have hours of increasingly labored gasping, crying, and inchoate begging broadcast across the globe; but some young explorers with stars in their eyes becoming the first humans to (as aseptically and off-stage as possible) lay down their lives in the noble cause of Space Exploration? Bring on the hagiographic documentaries...
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old people are harder to keep alive
But they will have less time for the long term consequences of radiation exposure to be an issue. I agree with your arguments about health though. The right people would need to be sent.
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Radiation?
Dude, it's going to take them 2 years in hermetically sealed microgravity to get there! I'm 30, and I've not had the need for a doctor in over a decade. My grandmother has been going to the doctor almost every month since she was 60 for one reason or another (and she's 80 now), and she's a healthy old person, comparably.
Dying from radiation poisoning is the least of their concerns for something like this. Simply dying of what would amount to 'exposure' is probably pretty high on the list. Sending
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I think the point is, if you're going to put people on a rocket and shoot them to Mars, in the understanding that, no matter what happens, they're going to die there, won't ever see Earth again, it might just be easier to find takers, and generally to sell this idea to the public, if you aim for 60+ aged who already lived their lives here.
I know people that age who are still in great shape, and maybe some would be willing to set off for one last adventure. Who knows. Tough one, that.
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if you're going to put people on a rocket and shoot them to Mars, in the understanding that, no matter what happens, they're going to die there, won't ever see Earth again
Then your best choice would be dead people. They don't need any life support, and they won't die again in the middle of the mission. They will do just as good as anyone else, after being confined to a small tin can for a year. A flyby? They are ideal for that, considering how much work they need to do on the way there and back.
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Yes, but if the whole point is to learn how to keep people alive up there, the dead are rather limited use. Not very photogenic either, for the obligatory shot of some guy planting a flag.
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Yes, but if the whole point is to learn how to keep people alive up there
There is very little to learn. We already had ground simulations of the flight, and they were generally unsatisfactory. Humans cannot sit in a tin can for two years and retain sanity. That alone overwhelms all the other issues, of which there are many. The best solution for keeping humans alive during the flight to Mars is to make the flight short - say, a day, or two. Until that happens nobody in his right mind should spend years o
Re:Crash and colonise (Score:4, Informative)
There is very little to learn. We already had ground simulations of the flight, and they were generally unsatisfactory. Humans cannot sit in a tin can for two years and retain sanity. That alone overwhelms all the other issues, of which there are many
Russia, the EU and China conducted a joint simulation with mission lengths of 15, 105 and 520 day durations. After the 520 day mission:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARS-500#Experiment_stages [wikipedia.org]
The 520-day final stage of the experiment, which was intended to simulate a full-length manned mission, began in 3 June 2010 and ended on 4 November 2011.[8][9][10] This stage was conducted by a six-man international crew, consisting of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian/ Colombian and a Chinese citizen.[10] The stage included a simulation of a manned Mars landing, with three simulated Mars-walks carried out on 14, 18 and 22February 2011.[11][12] The experiment ended on 4 November 2011, with all the participants reportedly in optimal physical and psychological condition.[10]
In January 2013, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that four of the six crew members had considerable problems sleeping, and some avoided exercise and would hide away from the others, in behaviour compared to animal hibernation.[13]
Insomnia and exercise avoidance doesn't sound all that unsatisfactory. Though I don't think it's possible to truly simulate a mission to Mars here on Earth when the participants know that if things go very bad, they are just an escape hatch away from help. I think the only way to do a true simulation would be if the participants really thought that they were in a space capsule, which is pretty hard to do when gravity gives it away.
They had 6000 volunteers for the long mission - I suspect that an actual mission to mars will result in many more volunteers, despite the risks.
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Yes, I was referring to that experiment, and I was aware of the outcome. IMO it is "generally unsatisfactory" because you cannot have astronauts in such psychological condition anywhere. One angry or suicidal man can kill everyone. Even if he kills himself, what to do with his body? Stuff him into a spacesuit and hope that it is airtight for a year? What nerves of carbon nanotubes you must have to eat, live and relax a foot or two away from a decomposed body?
There were other experiments as well, also on
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Um. Alright. I wasn't really commenting on Tito's plan, but rather on MichaelSmith's notion of a one-way trip, at the start of this thread (which, btw, has been proposed, seriously). But sure, let's get serious if you want.
I do see a point in sending meatbags to Mars. Not for the sake of a flyby, or that joke about the flag, but ultimately to attempt to live in Mars for extended periods of time. Staying in Mars, in some sort of habitat, establish a permanent presence in another planet. I think achieving thi
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I wasn't really commenting on Tito's plan, but rather on MichaelSmith's notion of a one-way trip, at the start of this thread (which, btw, has been proposed, seriously)
I remember seeing that, but that is even more ridiculous :-)
So I'm not quite sure, when you say "Humans cannot sit in a tin can for two years and retain sanity", what are you basing this opinion on?
Mir and ISS operators were always, at all times, 1 hour away from Earth. They could always jump into Soyuz, press a button and within an h
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No, for something like this, you'd probably want a young adult at the youngest. Hopefully you can find those who are either biologically or culturally unable/unwilling to have children, as such drives are somewhat disruptive to plans. Eunices or priests, maybe? Or just common IT types and a hooker or two...
If you send old people, they will lack the drive and creativity young people do. For this specific case, 35 might as well be "old".
If you send people much younger than 18, you're going to run into a probl
Re:Crash and colonise (Score:5, Interesting)
I envisage landing at the Hallas low point, for the highest temperatures and highest atmospheric pressure. The crew would dig or drill for water and use photovoltic power to extract oxygen from the water. They may also use oxygen and hydrogen in fuel cells for energy storage. They would land with two years of food, but they would have an inflatible habitat which could be used to grow some food as well.
One concern is the life of their pressure suits. Lunar fines are very abrasive and Apollo surface suits had a short working life. Martian fines may cause similar problems.
Re:Crash and colonise (Score:5, Informative)
One concern is the life of their pressure suits. Lunar fines are very abrasive and Apollo surface suits had a short working life. Martian fines may cause similar problems.
I don't think the fine particles on Mars will for the most part resemble those on the Moon. Mars has had wind blowing the particles around for a very long time, smoothing out the rough corners on the particles. The Moon clearly has no wind. The particles on the Moon likely formed via meteorite impact ejecta, either from shattered rock or by condensation from vaporized rock. After formation, there would likely be less corner erosion of fine particles due to the lack of wind. Thus the Moon's fine particles are quite abrasive.
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We haven't really had that much trouble with the rovers though, and they get covered in dust. They've all well outlived their operational lifespan.
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Yeah but its all metal bearings, etc. With the pressure suits on apollo it was grasping tools and rocks. The gripping surfaces of the pressure suit goves eroded badly.
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Same AC here. That could work. You'd have to include enough power to keep the habitat warm too. Probably the best power source for them would be a nuclear reactor similar to the ones used on spacecraft only bigger. That would last a decade or more. With PV you'd have to have enough batteries to last overnight and through the occasional dust storm.
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Well, not AC anymore and I blew some mod points. Oh well.
Bah, Robomakerbots instead. (Score:2)
How about instead of people, we send a few robots and some self-contained factories with which to build more. Once things are up and running, we can start constructing a base via remote control.
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How about instead of people, we send a few robots and some self-contained factories with which to build more.
Do that here, on Earth, first. It would be even easier, given that we know a lot about this planet. Make a robot that, once dropped off in, say, Himalayas, will do whatever is necessary to assemble another one. When that happens we will discuss flying such a robot to Mars.
IMO, it would be a challenge to even find one human - or one group of humans - who'd be able to pull that off. Many alternati
Apollo 8 Moment (Score:3)
The problem is that Earthrise [wikipedia.org] is going to be kinda lame [blogspot.com].
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Plenty more great views to share though. The crew of this vehicle will be the first to see the solar system from a totally different perspective.
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The problem is that Earthrise [wikipedia.org] is going to be kinda lame [blogspot.com].
At least you get an 'Earthrise' on Mars, you can't do that s*** on the Moon.
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At least you get an 'Earthrise' on Mars, you can't do that s*** on the Moon.
Sure you can. Start on the "dark side" of the moon and start walking in a straight line. Eventually you will see the Earth rise. (As an added bonus, you can make the Earth sink back down again simply by retracing your steps -- what power!)
sending canned humans to mars and back ... (Score:2)
I hope this gets actually done soon, so we can call it a day and get back to more interesting concepts like building a base in the south pole of the moon (using robot), or trying to build space elevators, or placing shades in the L1 point to regulate global warming, or, you know, maybe funding actual science (e.g. gravitational wave detectors, and plenty of other very cool missions).
Where does... (Score:2)
Where does one sign up?
Maybe a Venus flyby is easier (Score:5, Interesting)
Have they done a similar study for a Venus flyby? The launch dates might be more forgiving, the target a bit closer, the trip length might be a shorter and the delta-V requirements a bit less. Most important maybe the earth re-entry requirements would be a little less extreme. It is a 14km/sec aero-capture maneuver prior to re-entry that would, in some scenarios, put the vehicle in an elliptical, battery power only, 10-day trajectory beyond the moon (not to mention abusing the heat shield TWICE) just to reduce G-forces!. And there's only a 6km entry "window" between burn-up and bouncing off the atmosphere on an escape trajectory!
I mean since this trip is mainly a (very useful) test of long duration deep space flight with very limited "observation" of an already well-studied planet (there are currently three orbiters and two rovers on Mars), does it really matter which planet we flyby? Since the trajectory for this mission already takes it inward almost to Venus' orbit, they will be exposed to the same levels of solar heat (and radiation). Mars is, of course, more relevant for future long term exploration but other than the P.R. value there is not much more that would be gained over going to it versus Venus.
On the other hand, if somebody forks up the money for this tomorrow, please ignore everything I said. Mars or bust!
What if she gets pregnant? (Score:2)
Seriously. On a 501-day trip, intercourse will happen at some point. If it gets too wild, she could get pregnant. And having a baby in the middle of such a mission will be a major catastrophee. They should really make sure that the two humans in this mission are sterile. I don't see it worth of taking any chances.
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Unless I'm misunderstanding what was in the article, they seem to be sending two people almost 2 years in space to just fly around Mars and their not even going to land there.
Isn't it obvious? Humans have such well demonstrated qualifications for 'floating around in irradiated hard vacuum doing not much of any particular interest'. Robots aren't nearly as good at that...
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Isn't it obvious? Humans have such well demonstrated qualifications for 'floating around in irradiated hard vacuum doing not much of any particular interest'. Robots aren't nearly as good at that...
Sarcasm aside, I think that's the point -- to demonstrate that humans can survive the trip. (Of course, it might just as easily show that it can't be done, or at least that it shouldn't be done, depending on how the astronauts fare health-wise)
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No, that's about the sum of it.
Sort of cool from one aspect - first folks to go somewhere outside the earth's orbit, but sort of a letdown from the other angle - as it is nothing more than a sight-seeing trip. It might almost be argued that it makes more sense to send the same folks out to one of the larger asteroids - at least they could land there...
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"Sort of cool, but..." sums it up. A moon landing mission launched 440 days after Apollo 8 splashed down, and there was hardly a great deal of media interest in Apollo 13 until the explosion. So a trip of 501 days could be a bit longer than our collective attention span.
Also Apollo 8 was part of a series of missions culminating in a moon landing less than a year later. And it wasn't competing with awesome robots wandering around and sending color pictures from the surface as the tourists whizzed past.
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This is just a publicity stunt. How many rockets has Tito launched? How many manned orbits around the Earth have been completed by his "team"? If you try to fly with this clown, you will just get blowed up on the launch pad, or if it makes it out of the atmosphere it will loose navigation and you will drift until you die. What fun. If this was so easy to do, someone else would have done it by now.
I think that he'll have test fired some rockets (or buy them from someone who has). And it's not like navigation relies on a GPS sitting on the dashboard of the space craft - I'm sure NASA would even be happy to give some course correction help, they've got lots of real rocket scientists that will be watching the project closely if it ever takes off (pun intented).
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Yeah, he's not developing his own rocket and capsule system; he'll be contracting that out. Probably to SpaceX for the rocket. His team will probably act more like a design feasibility and mission control team.
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I do actually wonder if there's a built in assumption there that if you do something sufficiently grandiose you'll get a lot of extra help for free. You have to imagine that if it looked like people were actually going to be launched that we'd see a few other projects aimed at increasing their survival (i.e. launching supplies ahead of time etc.) and/or contingency planning.
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(i.e. launching supplies ahead of time etc.)
There's no orbit where supplies launched ahead of this flight can be reached by it. It's not the sort of mission you are thinking of.
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The sleeping quarters are going to look like a Jackson Pollock under the blue lights! Seriously, how do you cum on someone's face in zero G? If I'm doing it "doggy" and pull out right before I fire my huge load like a rocket, will the force blow me into the wall and hurt my back? And I mean, seriously, unless there is some kind of environment vacuum system to suck all the cum and sweat and other liquids out of the room space, by a few months into this thing, the whole place will be filled with free-floating globs of cum and pussy juice. On second thought, I'M IN!
I don't know if you've spent much time with a girl, but after a few weeks of constant contact with no breaks and no showers, there's not going to be a whole lot of sex going on.
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I don't know if you've spent much time with a girl, but after a few weeks of constant contact with no breaks and no showers, there's not going to be a whole lot of sex going on.
On the contrary, it will me like rutting animals. There will be nothing else to do. In fact they should take the Kama Sutra and a video camera, and sell the rights to Vivid Entertainment... And of course they will have to sign up a couple who are HOT looking and so forth...
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I have to say that the sex drive doesn't give a shit. It's like ugly girls in the absence of pretty girls. Suddenly they start to look damn good. If you don't get any pussy for a long time they look fucking fabulous. After a few weeks you just want to get laid and your mind adjusts to anything it has to in order for it to work out.
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sorry to burst your cum-bubble, but jizz and vag spoo and sweat dries very quickly.
Well, perhaps, but it will still be floating around unless it connects with a surface before it dries.
And if it does dry and continue to float about, will that be a respiratory issue?
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sorry to burst your cum-bubble, but jizz and vag spoo and sweat dries very quickly. The answer to your bukkake question is that it will be possible at a somewhat greater distance than on earth. the only thing left for you to fantasize about it how the place will *smell* after the mission is done. I find it ridiculous that they talk of sending a middle aged couple because of radiation concerns regarding sperm and egg, plenty of young couple opt to be made sterile by one means or another, tubal ligation or vasectomy or whatever. deep space porn rights could help offset cost of mission.....
Control of biological...undesireables... is actually a bit tricky in space. Lots of problems that just solve themselves when you have an entire planetary atmosphere to work with just don't when you have a few thousands or tens of thousands of liters of atmosphere along with whatever climate control you packed with it.
Both Mir and the ISS developed moderately nasty mold problems, and Mir even had a number of horrid water globules [nasa.gov] hiding behind rarely used access panels growing various vile slime.
It isn't obvious that sexual fluids would be worse than mere sweat(might actually be less troublesome, since there is a strong evolutionary imperative in favor of mechanisms that keep other microorganisms from hijacking our gene transfer mechanism for their own ends); but we know that mere sweat and exhaled water vapor are enough to really gross up the place.
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Build an automated city on Mars first. A habitat is needed so that people can land there and have something waiting. It would be even better if the automated city were busy harvesting water and splitting it into H2 and O2 for the return trip.
Before you do any of that, get international agreement that contamination of Mars is acceptable. Once humans land there, it's inevitable.
An "Apollo 8" for Mars just seems like a really bad idea.
Who's willing to pay for it? This guy is willing to fund a non-stop trip to mars and back, sounds like he just wants to see some man (and woman) reach mars before he dies.
If you want to fund an automated city on Mars, go for it - build a compelling case and shop the idea around to some billionaires and see if you can get it funded. That's probably easier than getting politicians to give NASA enough funds to do it.... or worse, trying to build an international coalition of national space agencies to do it.
IMHO, the tech for exploring Mars has to come from the mining industry. Yes. Mining. Start with ultra-automated mines on Earth. Then, Mars-adapt that technology and send it there. Ditto for construction. Come on miner/builder-bots guys, build us some Mars bots and get 'em on the job.
I
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You still need all that gas, even though you could run at a lower pressure, so it might as well be stored where it gives you some extra radiation shielding and thermal inertia.
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