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Mars Space

One-Way Ticket: Mars One Project Applicants Top 100,000 240

Bas Lansdorp's projected trip to Mars has a well-known catch: the ticket to space is free (rather than the millions of dollars for the more conventional kind of space travel available to civilians), but it's one-way only. That's a downside for any potential astronauts who'd like to do things like visit the beach or ever see their Earthside family again in person. Still, the Mars One project announced this week that more than 100,000 volunteers have announced their willingness to forsake this planet in favor of the next. The application process is ongoing; have you signed up?
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One-Way Ticket: Mars One Project Applicants Top 100,000

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  • by alen ( 225700 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @07:27AM (#44534995)

    will they sterilize the women first or will they risk children being born on Mars?

    • No need to sterilize them, they will sterilize during the journey due to high level of cosmic rays.
    • will make for one hell of a reality show

    • by ahem ( 174666 )
      Because then the kid might come back and form the Church of All Worlds, which would piss off the Fosterites.
    • by Hentes ( 2461350 )

      At this point, I think that's pretty much the least of their worries. For example, I doubt they have any solution to the problem of how to actually get humans to Mars.

  • by theodp ( 442580 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @07:31AM (#44535017)
    • They split that article into three pages? Discovery fucking sucks. I miss when the internet wasn't all about shoving as many baiting images to bullshit stories as they can on one page. Might be time to bust out Lync again. Here is the web page you requested: 20% information, 40% video, 40% links to other bullshit. Maybe I shouldn't use NoScript since then the links might be somewhat relevant, but fuck them.
  • As a bonus (Score:5, Funny)

    by countach ( 534280 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @07:35AM (#44535035)

    All 100,000 get honorary darwin awards.

    • by oodaloop ( 1229816 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @08:12AM (#44535175)
      And the remaining 7 billion people left on this dying planet get them as well.
      • There is a difference between dying due a resupply ship malfunction (or cutting of funds) and dying in a few thousand generations.

        • I don't what planet you're from that has thousands of generations of natural resources left on it, but I'd like to move there.
          • by gl4ss ( 559668 )

            fun fact: material doesn't disappear just because you eat it. plenty of resources to keep going for a thousand generations, lifestyles might change and overall population might go up and down but that's to be expected.

            compared to mars we're living in garden of eden. any tech that would sustain you on mars would sustain you easier here(in biodomes or whatever, if you think the atmosphere is going bust) and mars isn't filled with unobtanium magic feed crystals...

            if you just count stuff such as oil and coal as

    • Re:As a bonus (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @08:21AM (#44535203) Homepage
      And it wouldn't surprise me if someone said something similar about the humans who first moved out of Africa. And it applies as well to those who went on voyages of exploration, or those scientists who selflessly used their own bodies for medical tests (a category often underappreciated and discussed Lawrence Altman's excellent book "Who Goes First"). We progress by taking risks and we should be grateful for those willing to do so.
      • Re:As a bonus (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Vanderhoth ( 1582661 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @08:36AM (#44535281)
        It's funny how we claim in western culture that we should be free to do as we please as long as it's not hurting anyone else, but there are so many that feel the need to jump in and stop others from go on what could be the greatest adventure any of us could ever go on, possibility for the betterment and all mankind, but everyone and their dog feel it's absolutely necessary to try and stop them.

        I find it very disheartening
        • It's funny how we claim in western culture that we should be free to do as we please as long as it's not hurting anyone else, but there are so many that feel the need to jump in and stop others from go on what could be the greatest adventure any of us could ever go on, possibility for the betterment and all mankind, but everyone and their dog feel it's absolutely necessary to try and stop them.

          I find it very disheartening

          The problem is that statistically they are all lying. Maybe there are a few who understand and accept the risks for a higher cause. But for the most part these are people hoping for their 15 minutes. Maybe a quick interview on local news, maybe a bragging right on Facebook, maybe just frat boys who think its funny. Sorry, but almost no one is taking this seriously.

      • And it wouldn't surprise me if someone said something similar about the humans who first moved out of Africa.

        No doubt they did, but walking from Africa only meant going through a progressively changing environment in which you could turn back at any point, and which you could do in small stages over generations. Even those who sailed away in ships (a closer analogy) had no thought that it might be impossible to breathe air or find water at the destination (they were OK as it happened), or have to be confined to a small enclosure. They assumed (rightly as it happened) that it would be the same as home with perhap

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ewibble ( 1655195 )

          No they thought they might fall off the end of the world. Anyway you are right they will most certainly die (relatively quickly) but I am sure many previous explorers had a high change of death.

          But in the end, if we ever want to expand to other planets some people are going to have to take incredibly risky step of being the first people to go.

          Can we wait until we have better technology, yes, but at some point we will go (or at least I believe so).

          Their deaths will provide invaluable knowledge about next ti

    • There's a real problem here: they're planning to fund this project through Survivor type television selection process.

      And there is a relatively high probability that these people could die. We'll have the world watching as we send a group of four likely under-equipped people to Mars. I would wholeheartedly like to see us go to Mars and beyond, but I'm concerned that this half-hazard approach may end up damaging the long-term will to do this than succeeding.

      We need better radiation shielding - which is e

      • ...building things in orbit - not plugging modules together...

        You will apparently be surprised to learn that modern building techniques make heavy use of modularized materials.

      • by Belial6 ( 794905 )
        I'm not sure how much welding is the key. As I understand it, the primary reason to use metal for the hull is to protect against space debris. The reason you would need to weld is so that you get air tight structures out of the metal. It seems that metal structures that clip, bolt or rivet together would be more than adequet if an inflatable structure was put inside. Metal on the outside to stop the debris from puncturing the soft air tight inside.
  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @07:37AM (#44535047)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @07:55AM (#44535113) Homepage Journal
    Reject all those applications and send to Mars the 100.000 that are in the top 0.1%. Uh, and later send a second batch with lawyers.
  • by Quiet Sound ( 586239 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @07:58AM (#44535129)
    These people know nothing about space travel and are completely incapable of answering technical questions about the project. They aren't legitimate. [reddit.com]
  • I a little list. They will never be missed...

  • by Andunelen ( 781698 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @08:07AM (#44535161)
    No, but I signed my mother-in-law up.
  • by ebonum ( 830686 )

    One solar flare pointed in the wrong direction and they will fry before they get there. Without science fiction, there is no practical shielding tech that offers a solution (a room with 6 inch think lead walls is heavier than you think). Keep in mind, if you have a heavy shielding solution and you get that thing up to speed, slowing down becomes a problem. You could end up flying right past Mars. You could bring some big thrusters to slow you down. Oh wait, that is more weight. Or you could use some su

    • I heard one idea of using the water supply as shielding. If we could get the water from the moon it would save a lot of energy lugging it out of the gravity well.

      They could do a 'reverse-slingshot' maneuver to bleed off speed using one of Mars's moons.

      As to landing, yeah, thruster-based is really the only option. Maybe some way of using some of that shielding as a propellant would work to cut down weight. If they land in the right spot they can dig for more water once they are down.

      If a comet comes along at

      • They will need radiation shielding on Mars too. Not only for the trip to Mars. So, you have to figure out how to land this mass safely.
        • Not that bad (Score:5, Informative)

          by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @09:19AM (#44535509)

          They will need radiation shielding on Mars too.

          In a talk on current measurements for radiation levels on Mars I attended, the scientists responsible for the radiation measurement instrumentation said the rough dose you would get per year is around 100 x-rays worth. That's quite a lot, but not going to kill you anytime soon.

          That was with little solar activity, but you could provide a shielded area to retreat to if something happened to hit while the sun was up.

      • They could do a 'reverse-slingshot' maneuver to bleed off speed using one of Mars's moons.

        Mars' moons are way too small to do any kind of gravitational slingshot manoeuvre. You'd probably use an inflatable heatshield [space.com] and aerobrake into orbit.

    • Re:DOA (Score:5, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday August 11, 2013 @08:34AM (#44535271) Homepage Journal

      One solar flare pointed in the wrong direction and they will fry before they get there. Without science fiction, there is no practical shielding tech that offers a solution (a room with 6 inch think lead walls is heavier than you think).

      sigh, and also sigh. It's called water. You need it anyway. It's good for everything.

      Are they going to land on the surface? I doubt it. The atmosphere makes it very hard to land anything larger than the rover without making a new crater. If you landed, you would have supplies for a few hours before death. You can't do it with parachutes. You need a big rocket to slow you done

      You missed some punctuation there: "You need a big rocket to slow you. Done."

      It goes on and on. Mars is distraction. Money and energy should be spent on more practical projects.

      Yes. Like asteroid mining. Which would give us the mass in orbit necessary to build meaningful interplanetary missions.

      We'll all be dead from a antibiotic resistant super-bug before we have any hope of putting someone on Mars.

      Unfortunately, aerospace engineers aren't very useful in solving that problem. Probably we should still let them work on getting us off this mudball before the impactor arrives.

    • One solar flare pointed in the wrong direction...science fiction...blah blah...

      And then you go on to paint a very bleak portrait of space travel. We have sent men to the moon, have functioning sattellites, and sent man-made probes to Mars. Also, "one Solar flare" will be a factor with diminishing consequences the further from the sun you are. Clearly your "Space Travel == Instant Annihilation" scenario is not exactly (not even remotely) true. Are you writing a Science Fiction novel?

    • Re:DOA (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DamonHD ( 794830 ) <d@hd.org> on Sunday August 11, 2013 @10:14AM (#44535789) Homepage

      The "we must not do anything speculative until all more mundane problems are totally solved" view is broken on many fronts, not least of which is ignoring the potential parallelism in progressing our culture and expertise, and the actual practical intractability of many of the "simple" problems especially if they are even defined in relative terms.

      Life is neither binary nor single-threaded.

      Rgds

      Damon

    • There is no need to slow down once you get to Mars (due to the Sun's gravity and orbital mechanics). It's called a transfer orbit. Think of it like throwing an object up on the roof of a building. If you toss it just right, it will land softly. This is also why it takes so long to get to Mars -- if you go any faster, then you would have to "put on the breaks" when you get there.

      • Not true. At the end of the trip using a transfer orbit, you're still going about 6 kps. That's what the MSL mission control video mentioned on reentry.

        The expensive (and completely impractical way) to slow down from 6 kps to under 1 is to bring enough rocket fuel and an engine to make that kind of velocity change. However, you'd need to have a lander almost as big as the rocket that launched the mission.

        Or you can try to skim the atmosphere and use a really great heat-shield. That's what MSL did. I un

    • a room with 6 inch think lead walls is heavier than you think

      Minor point, but lead (or any metal) is not the appropriate shield in space. It produces secondary radiation showers that are worse than the incoming radiation. The shielding of choice is hydrogen. That means high-H plastics or water, the latter is preferred for long duration missions for reasons that should be obvious.

  • "The application process is ongoing; have you signed up?"

    Nope. I'm not a fool.

    And I suspect all but a tiny number of those signed up would turn tail and run if and when they were actually selected and it came time to board. The number of people chasing a 'net fad is pretty much meaningless.

  • Cabin Fever 2.0, based on a true story.
  • by notanalien_justgreen ( 2596219 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @10:53AM (#44535951)

    I really wish people would stop posting MarsOne propaganda. It's a scam, pure and simple. It's been pointed out time and time again that their team is primarily artists and PR people. Just look here for yourself:

    http://www.mars-one.com/en/about-mars-one/team [mars-one.com]

    Of the 7 people listed there's: an artist, an editor, a communication specialist, a communications director, and an MD. There's only 2 people who could conceivably have any expertise on getting to Mars.

    They did an interview (AMA) on reddit and were torn apart:

    http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ufb42/ama_i_am_founder_of_mars_one_sending_four_people/ [reddit.com]

    STOP FEEDING THESE PEOPLE FREE PRESS!

  • Considering my age and health - I'll pass.
    However, if a cyborg or fully synthetic body becomes possible meanwhile...
  • "I don't want to live on this planet any more."

        -- Hubert J. Farnsworth

    (Made you read that in his voice.)

  • by ebno-10db ( 1459097 ) on Sunday August 11, 2013 @03:44PM (#44537513)

    Never send a man to do a robot's job.

  • I understand this - I really do, but the potential for negative publicity is high here.

    Everybody's imagining brave souls doing this for exploration and such, but when death is closer the chance of one person buckling is much higher. Can you imagine the videos circulating of one or more of these people sending back messages when they got there saying that they made a mistake and begging for help? Help that we couldn't really provide even if we wanted to? It could really taint the public perception of spac

  • If this project is real, where are the rocket designs? Where are the hundreds of engineers and scientists working on the project? In fact there is NOT A SINGLE ONE! Not one person with scientific, engineering or technical knowledge has been identified as working on this. There are no want ads to hire those hundreds of engineers either.

  • Putting a human on mars without the possibility to return or build something meaningful there is a pointless exercise. We know the effects of zero gravity and radiation on the body, and the amount of drugs they would have to take regularly to reduce the probability of a psychological breakdown would be huge. What happen is somebody actually only realizes on the way to Mars that he actually does *not* want to die but live another 50 years on earth. Selecting a mission crew from people who volunteer for death

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