Meet the People Living in Simulations of Life on Mars (smithsonianmag.com) 43
Smithsonian magazine explores the many Mars simulation facilities around the world, including the Mars Desert Research Station — which is located in Utah, four hours south of Salt Lake City, "but everyone spoke and acted as though they were actually on Mars."
A group of six people lived in a two-story cylindrical building. The commander, a former member of the Army National Guard, kept the participants on a strict schedule of fixing electrical systems, taking inventory, tidying up the facilities and sampling the soil. Everyone was assigned a special role: [photographer] Klos' was to prepare reports to share with the public. The health safety officer kept tabs on the crew's well-being, and the engineer monitored levels of carbon dioxide and solar power. Before stepping outside in a spacesuit, Klos and the others had to get permission from mission control back on "Earth" (actually a coordinator stationed in a nearby town). That person would send information about the winds and weather, and determine how long each person could stay outside the base. Sometimes dust storms rolled in, cutting off the solar power supply just as they would on Mars...
There are about a dozen such habitats around the globe, hosting simulations that run anywhere from two weeks to a full year. One of these is run by NASA's Human Research Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. But other facilities are funded by private organizations. The Mars Society, established by Brooklyn-born aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, operates the habitat in Utah, where Klos returned for another mission in 2017, and another in the Canadian Arctic. Klos also took part in a mission at the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS. The facility is run by the International MoonBase Alliance, a group founded by the Dutch entrepreneur Henk Rogers.
HI-SEAS is located on Hawaii's big island at 8,200 feet above sea level, on top of the active volcano Mauna Loa. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is collaborating with the facility to gather information about volcanic caves and the microbes that live in those Mars-like conditions. HI-SEAS is also studying the limitations of doing that kind of work while wearing heavy spacesuits. It's hard enough for astronauts to hold a screwdriver in a gloved hand while repairing the International Space Station, but if people are going to be clambering on Martian rocks looking for microbes, they'll need the right gear.
The article notes these missions "are open to people who have no background in science, engineering or astronaut training. After all, the goal is to send ordinary folks into space, so it's worth finding out whether ordinary folks can coexist in Mars-like conditions here on Earth." (Some are even recruited off the internet.) "Sometimes people make the critique that we're role-playing too much," the photographer tells the magazine. "But the goal is to really live the way people are going to live on Mars so scientists can figure out how to make it work when we get there."
And the article also points out that "The data we're gathering now about surviving on solar power, conserving water and growing plants in arid conditions could be useful here at home as our climate changes."
There are about a dozen such habitats around the globe, hosting simulations that run anywhere from two weeks to a full year. One of these is run by NASA's Human Research Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. But other facilities are funded by private organizations. The Mars Society, established by Brooklyn-born aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, operates the habitat in Utah, where Klos returned for another mission in 2017, and another in the Canadian Arctic. Klos also took part in a mission at the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS. The facility is run by the International MoonBase Alliance, a group founded by the Dutch entrepreneur Henk Rogers.
HI-SEAS is located on Hawaii's big island at 8,200 feet above sea level, on top of the active volcano Mauna Loa. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is collaborating with the facility to gather information about volcanic caves and the microbes that live in those Mars-like conditions. HI-SEAS is also studying the limitations of doing that kind of work while wearing heavy spacesuits. It's hard enough for astronauts to hold a screwdriver in a gloved hand while repairing the International Space Station, but if people are going to be clambering on Martian rocks looking for microbes, they'll need the right gear.
The article notes these missions "are open to people who have no background in science, engineering or astronaut training. After all, the goal is to send ordinary folks into space, so it's worth finding out whether ordinary folks can coexist in Mars-like conditions here on Earth." (Some are even recruited off the internet.) "Sometimes people make the critique that we're role-playing too much," the photographer tells the magazine. "But the goal is to really live the way people are going to live on Mars so scientists can figure out how to make it work when we get there."
And the article also points out that "The data we're gathering now about surviving on solar power, conserving water and growing plants in arid conditions could be useful here at home as our climate changes."
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Re:It's great and all... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just a cargo cult. They are building a fake colony that fails to address any of the problems a real colony would face.
They are simulating the psychological stress of working together in a confined space. But we already know that isn't a problem because submarine crews have been doing it for more than a century.
They are not dealing with any real problems, such as generating power in dim sunlight, extreme cold, producing oxygen and water, dealing with soil poisoned by perchlorates, lethal radiation, etc. And finally, the total lack of self-sustaining economic viability.
Re: It's great and all... (Score:3)
And lastly the effects of living in 1/3G for years.
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Meanwhile, we are basically bathing in 5G, with 6G and mmWave on the way
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And those structures used to house the colonists, they have to be lead lined. Probably going to take a while to cart all that weight up there.
No, they don't have to be lined with lead. Any substance blocks ionizing radiation, it's just a matter of how much. Air blocks ionizing radiation but it needs to be miles thick to protect humans sufficiently. On Mars there is plenty of loose dirt to dig up and pile on top of a habitat for radiation protection. With the lower gravity the habitat hold up this dirt would not have to be nearly as sturdy as on Earth so it can be much lighter in shipping to Mars. With a near vacuum on the planet just filling
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"No, they don't have to be lined with lead"
Lead has a lot of advantages, Earth-side.
Romans used it for the underground part of aqueducts (the water pipes), the late empire used it in short throwing spears (plumbata, used by Greeks by 500BC and by Romans by 300AD and later) and so on.
Lead is relatively abundant, inexpensive and has a very "inert" atomic structure (so it will absorb radiation and transform into other relatively inert substances).
It is also not dangerous at touch (even though the lead oxides d
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On Mars, the solar power per square meter is some 590 W/m2 compared to some 1000 on Earth.
Solar cooking of bricks might be a solution, as the lower gravity lowers the need for mirror rigidity (you could use lighter mirrors so you could ship more of them).
How much mirror surface is needed to cook bricks (target of around 1000 Celsius) is a question. Also, if the required "mud" exists on Mars is another question.
Brick construction is weak in case of earthquakes, but there are no marsquakes. And bricks were us
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This is just a cargo cult. They are building a fake colony that fails to address any of the problems a real colony would face.
They are simulating the psychological stress of working together in a confined space. But we already know that isn't a problem because submarine crews have been doing it for more than a century.
They are not dealing with any real problems, such as generating power in dim sunlight, extreme cold, producing oxygen and water, dealing with soil poisoned by perchlorates, lethal radiation, etc. And finally, the total lack of self-sustaining economic viability.
We solved most of those problems too in our experience with submarines. Producing heat and light on Mars will be like producing heat and light in a submarine, they will use nuclear power. Producing oxygen and water will be some combination of technologies on submarines and those used on the ISS. Dealing with radiation is a matter of putting enough material between the person and the source of the radiation. The issues of dealing with the dangerous chemicals in the soil sounds easy enough, given what we
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"Maybe there's something to these Martian simulations that we don't see"
Settlements on Mars would depend on everybody doing their _multiple_ jobs like nothing seen on Earth.
So, as a psychology experiment, one could get useful results out of "imposed confinement" - hopefully enough to "weed out" unlikely candidates for a future Mars mission.
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It's not clear(for a mixture of logistical and legal rea
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Re: "but everyone spoke and acted as though they w (Score:2)
AAAA!
Needs better title (Score:2)
When I first read the title, I did the cartoon "blrblbooblrbrb" thinking the story was a about a bunch of kooks living on their parents' money laying down in bed 24/7 with a VR headset thinking they are living some martian fantasy.
Reading TFS and finding out that it is a proper simulation with a physical mockup of the type of first martian base we can expect made me feel much better.
We're in an on going experiment (Score:2)
> After all, the goal is to send ordinary folks into space, so it's worth finding out whether ordinary folks can coexist in Mars-like conditions here on Earth."
Based on 2020, it's worth finding out whether ordinary folks can coexist in Earth-like conditions here on Earth. We're still collecting data.
Some people have strange hobbies (Score:2)
They should not be taken too seriously. We may make it to Mars this century, but a colony there is a different matter.
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It's science, you invalid. Show some respect for people who participate in such endeavors.
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It's science, you invalid. Show some respect for people who participate in such endeavors.
No, its bullshit. There is nothing wrong with having a bizarre hobby, but Science is something else.
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They should not be taken too seriously. We may make it to Mars this century, but a colony there is a different matter.
What colony? This is six people in a single two story structure. If we send people to Mars, a six month-ish voyage, and land them there, we are going to have them stay there for awhile, a year would not be unreasonable, maybe two. A simulation with a small crew for a year or two is about right for the kind of mission that would actually be staged.
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They'll be fucking in 8 or 9 months and back on Earth we'll debate if their offspring are Martians or not.
I doubt that will be the debate. The debate will be how to get the offspring back to Earth safely, and what citizenship they will have. This could be like being born on a ship in international waters, or maybe not. Citizenship in some nations is granted by jus soli, "right by soil". Some nations grant citizenship to the child of a citizen by jus sanguinis, "right by blood". Some nations grant this by both and/or other means. As an example Israel allows citizenship to any Jew that enters Israel, it's n
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At least at first, one assumes that anyone going to the trouble and expense of shipping people to Mars would be selecting them fairly carefully for some combination of scientific, technical; and medical talents and training; and (so
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" we are going to have them stay there for awhile, a year would not be unreasonable, maybe two"
Unfortunately, based on the energy cost of a return trip, people going to Mars would basically be going on a one way trip.
Not unlike going to Antarctica, building a hangar to store your plane, creating fuel for the return trip and then returning.
Currently, the cost to LEO varies between some $3,000/kg (SpaceX) and $16,000/kg (Soyuz 2, Atlas V, Delta IV).
However, to put the 900 kg Curiosity rover on Mars, a price o
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Thanks to fertility medicine we already have a fair amount of experience with producing zygotes in-vitro, doing some sex and genetic screening on them(if desired and not illegal in that jurisdiction) and then packing them in cryo where they can remain viable for years. If you want
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Horrifying thought indeed...
The issue with shipping zygotes is the need to grow them - under normal laws, they could start working at 16 years old (for 6 hours a day), with full time jobs starting at 18.
So, while adults on Earth can freely choose (or not) basically a one way trip to Mars, rich in work and dangers (long and short term) and poor in rest and recreation, sending what could be considered as children would seem like a sentence without the possibility of appeal.
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We may make it to Mars this century, but a colony there is a different matter.
Why bother? Anyone who wants to colonize Mars can just live in a pretend tin can in Utah. It's basically the same thing, with the added benefit of not dying instantly when something goes wrong. And you can sneak out and buy a pack of smokes when you want them.
Other than short term publicity stunts, no one will ever live on Mars, or the moon, or in Earth orbit.
There will never, ever be a city floating on the acid clouds of Venus. Even talking about it is just plain silly.
Human-kind started on Earth and i
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Exactly. Even with the very worst possibilities for climate change, any dessert on Earth would still be far better than Mars could ever be.
An act to follow (Score:2)
Remember that "Biosphere 2" cosplay event in Arizona back in the '80s that was funded by some billionaire? Did anything useful ever come of that?
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Why are you attempting to demean the work of scientists as a "cosplay event"?
Re: An act to follow (Score:2)
It was 10% science , 90% publicity stunt.
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The result was interesting. It showed that the simple idea of making a "mini biosphere" did not work out.
Is the grass always greener? (Score:2)
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It's ironic that people who live on a planet they've evolved to thrive in would want to leave it for a foreign world devoid of all life.
They said the same thing when the first hominids left Africa for other continents.
It's in our DNA (Re:Is the grass always greener?) (Score:3, Insightful)
It's ironic that people who live on a planet they've evolved to thrive in would want to leave it for a foreign world devoid of all life.
Do you live anywhere on the American continent? Australia or New Zealand perhaps? These are places occupied entirely by the descendants of people that crossed uninhabitable voids to create self sufficient colonies. I'm not just talking about European colonies, those we consider aboriginal people had to get to these places by crossing a body of water that they could not drink from, and that they did not know for certain could provide food. Call this "ironic" if you like but I'd call it "inevitable". Onc
"Get your ass to Mars." (Score:2)
As shown in the original Total Recall!