(Human) life on Mars

[OptOut | 8,883]

With the dramatic advances in rocketry witnessed in the last decade, especially the impressive reusable rockets developed by Space X and their prototype Starship, it feels as though the possibility of putting a man or woman (or men or women even) on Mars is closer than ever.

How long do you think it will be before we see human feet on red soil? Assuming this is not a one way trip, what additional challenges are going to be faced on the journey there and back, and getting back off the surface?

Unlike the moon, which has gravity only 1/6th as strong as Earth, Mars has much stronger gravity around 2/3rds that of Earth. This makes the return journey MUCH more difficult, with much more powerful and thus energy intensive rockets required to come back.

Another question I have is would you actually WANT to live on Mars, either for a few months, many years, or even a lifetime? Not to be too flippant, but we've seen what living your whole life indoors does to the human psyche during this coronavirus epidemic... Could you imagine living your whole life in the catacombs of Mars?

 

Personally, based on the progress and ambitions of Space X, I would not rule out a manned mission to Mars including a return trip to Earth by the early 2030's, it's an amazingly exciting time in terms of the technological opportunities opening up to us.

However, when it comes to long term habitation on Mars, I gotta wonder what the point would be, or why anyone would willingly sign up for that. Just sounds like a living hell trapped inside artificial bounds, with a caustic, freezing, radioactive hellscape waiting beyond the walls to suck my eyeballs out like Arnie in Total Recall...

 

Anyway, I'd love to hear more opinions on this, and whether it's even worth doing!

[Rhino | 105]

We will have people on Mars within the next 2 decades. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mission_to_Mars

 

• In 2022, at least 2 Starship cargo vehicles will land on Mars.^{[needs update]}
  • They will confirm water resources and identify hazards.
  • They will place power, mining and life support infrastructure for future missions.
• In 2024, 2 Starship crew vehicles will take the first people to Mars.^{[needs update]}
  • 2 Starship cargo vehicles will bring more equipment and supplies.
  • They will place a propellant production plant.
  • They will build up a base to prepare for expansion

 

NASA is already simulating life on Mars in Hawaii too. https://qz.com/768341/nasas-year-long-experiment-in-hawaii-to-mimic-life-on-the-mars-has-come-to-an-end/

[Estil | 1,264]

Buzz Aldrin more than most anyone wanted us to go to Mars.  I think this new Space Race (NASA vs private enterprise (no pun intended) instead of the old US vs USSR) is just what is needed to light a fire in their butts in this regard.  As much as I would love to see what would no doubt be the biggest history making event since the birth/life of Jesus (our calendar/year system is based off of it after all)...I honestly think we need to take it one step at a time and get good at exploring/colonizing/mining/whatever the moon first.  I mean it's kinda embarrassing we haven't been back in almost 50 years.  

Now in 1972, as many of you are aware, Nixon and NASA had to make a big decision as to where to go after the Apollo moon landings.  In the real time line, they did the Space Shuttle.  But in this alternate history book from 1996, it is decided instead to go full speed ahead with a human mission to Mars, and they do indeed succeed in planting footprints/Old Glory on March 27, 1986 (right after my sixth birthday)...but it came at a very heavy and I would say completely NOT worth it cost  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_(novel)

[OptOut | 8,883]

@Estil yeah I think you're right about returning to the moon, and building out our in-space infrastructure for establishing a more permanent presence in space.

I've read a lot about NASA's plans for what they call the Lunar gateway, which would consist of a permanently manned space station in orbit of the moon, as well as mining and manufacturing infrastructure on the surface.

The big advantage of developing this moon base system is as I mentioned previously, the far lower energy cost of escaping the moon's gravity well compared to the earth. If we mine and manufacture resources for space travel IN SPACE then we could build smaller rockets which use way less fuel and still achieve the same results.

However, I am ACTUALLY in favour of a two pronged approach. I think it would be better for NASA and the other cooperating space agencies to focus on the moon, and leave Mars exploration to Space X. Elon Musk has a HUGE boner for Mars, and all the technology they're working on is pointing in that direction, I think Space X is far better positioned than NASA at this stage to make the leap to Mars, even if it's just for a little wander around on the surface then back home.

[Gloves | 11,776]

 

[PII | 1,885]

winabego was here

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by PII

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

 

On 8/1/2020 at 9:51 AM, Rhino said:

We will have people on Mars within the next 2 decades. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mission_to_Mars

 

• In 2022, at least 2 Starship cargo vehicles will land on Mars.^{[needs update]}
  • They will confirm water resources and identify hazards.
  • They will place power, mining and life support infrastructure for future missions.
• In 2024, 2 Starship crew vehicles will take the first people to Mars.^{[needs update]}
  • 2 Starship cargo vehicles will bring more equipment and supplies.
  • They will place a propellant production plant.
  • They will build up a base to prepare for expansion

 

NASA is already simulating life on Mars in Hawaii too. https://qz.com/768341/nasas-year-long-experiment-in-hawaii-to-mimic-life-on-the-mars-has-come-to-an-end/

I had some college classmates participate in part of that experiment back in the early 00's. 

But in terms of any SpaceX related dates, you've got to correct for "Musk-time" (i.e. publicly boasted targets versus real world plausible execution), which slips any estimates "to the right" by a significant margin.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

On 8/1/2020 at 7:03 AM, OptOut said:

Unlike the moon, which has gravity only 1/6th as strong as Earth, Mars has much stronger gravity around 2/3rds that of Earth. This makes the return journey MUCH more difficult, with much more powerful and thus energy intensive rockets required to come back.

Your math seems off.

Acceleration due to gravity on mars is 3.71 m/s^2, vs 9.81 m/s^2 on Earth. That is nearly 2/3's LOWER, not "2/3's that of Earth". (i.e. more precisely Mars is around 38% earth gravity)

 Moon gravity is 1.62 m/s^2, so a little less than 17% earth gravity.

That still gives Mars around twice the gravitational pull of the Moon, but Mars gravity is about half of what you stated.

 

[OptOut | 8,883]

29 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Your math seems off.

Acceleration due to gravity on mars is 3.71 m/s^2, vs 9.81 m/s^2 on Earth. That is nearly 2/3's LOWER, not "2/3's that of Earth". (i.e. more precisely Mars is around 38% earth gravity)

 Moon gravity is 1.62 m/s^2, so a little less than 17% earth gravity.

That still gives Mars around twice the gravitational pull of the Moon, but Mars gravity is about half of what you stated.

 

Oh shoot my bad lol!

Yeah it's still a hassle getting off the surface, nonetheless, which is why Space X is designing the reusable rockets. Big advantage in the whole vertical landing and takeoff thing, all they'll need to do is figure out how to refuel the rocket on the surface, presuming that they don't bring excess fuel with them.

Whadaya say Arch, would you like to take the trip to mars someday? Presuming that it's safe etc. and Musk doesn't accidentally disturb an ancient Martian burial ground or whatever, lol!

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

16 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Oh shoot my bad lol!

Yeah it's still a hassle getting off the surface, nonetheless, which is why Space X is designing the reusable rockets. Big advantage in the whole vertical landing and takeoff thing, all they'll need to do is figure out how to refuel the rocket on the surface, presuming that they don't bring excess fuel with them.

Whadaya say Arch, would you like to take the trip to mars someday? Presuming that it's safe etc. and Musk doesn't accidentally disturb an ancient Martian burial ground or whatever, lol!

The practical thing to do is you send fuel or pre-fueled return rockets as a separate mission payload, ahead of time.

You need enough of it that it is an entirely separate launch mission to get it there, and you need to make sure it gets there completely successfully before you risk humans getting stuck.

Realistic (not Musk-proposed) timelines are far enough in the future that it is never going to be an option for me, whether I wanted to, or not

[RH | 4,903]

Regarding public funding, I am near full-stop against returning to the Moon, much less going to Mars.  Don't get me wrong, the space race inspired countless men and women to become engineers and from that HUGE rush of funding and communal focus, the amount of technological breakthroughs was staggering.  Not only that, I am still amazed that people have landed and walked on the Moon, and I'm even more blown away that that event happened in the 60's when our space craft were still largely relying on analog technology!  It was an amazing feat of human determination.

But... this day and age I see no purpose to it, versus the costs.  IIRC, it was estimated that in the 60's 1/10th of the entire US GDP was some how directed towards the space exploration industry.  1/10th of all our work and production went into NASA and companies working to help them research and develop the means to get less than 20 to the Moon.  At that time, that focus helped bankrupt the USSR since they were trying to compete with us as much as they could.  So, one could consider that a "peaceful" race was worth the efforts for that reason alone.  Regardless, keeping the US vs. USSR politics out of this discussion I still find it hard to justify such a "race", even back then.  Of course, there was a lot that was unknown about the Moon and had viable resources been found up there then maybe it would have made the investment worth it, but that hasn't happened.  I'm not saying the Moon doesn't have useful resources but from my casual reading up on the topic, there's nothing on the Moon we can't get here on Earth faaaaaar cheaper.

I know this isn't "cool" but if we really need a governmental-based reason to develop space technology, it needs to be defense driven and that's going to be research finding cheaper and easier ways to get materials in orbit and, more importantly, keeping those skies clean and clear of space trash.  Going to the Moon or even Mars serves no greater purpose other than being able to say "Oh, look what we've done! We've gone to the Moon and colonized it! Weeeeeee!"  That doesn't motivate me,from a public investment perspective.  I just see no reason for it, that can't be solved by other, cheaper means.

These investments don't come cheap, and as cool as it would be to be alive to see the first people walk on Mars, I also don't see the pay off.

However, if people in the public sector want to invest in this research and ventures, then they 100% have my support.  It's their money, do with it as they see fit.  It will probably be a cost-losing venture for decades to come, so we might as well let the private sector absorb 100% of those R&D costs. If/when it's viable for the public (e.g. NASA) to get back involved, start licensing or contracting out the results once all of that effort has proven viable and valuable.

I'm sure most people would disagree, whether you are politically on the left and right, but I honestly just don't see the point.  Yes, it's 100% cool but I don't see the long term value weighed against the tremendous costs it takes to pull off these efforts.

[avatar! | 1,811]

46 minutes ago, RH said:

Going to the Moon or even Mars serves no greater purpose other than being able to say "Oh, look what we've done! We've gone to the Moon and colonized it! Weeeeeee!"  That doesn't motivate me,from a public investment perspective.  I just see no reason for it, that can't be solved by other, cheaper means.

With all due respect, as a scientist I have to vehemently disagree with that statement. 

I see so many reasons to go back to the Moon. Here are a few off the top of my head

1)Learn about Earth's history and formation, and its relation to life.

2)Similar to (1) but of special note, learn about impact events, and how to mitigate them.

3)Test new technologies such as flight capabilities, life support, medicine including cancer research, etc. 

4)Similar to (3), help test and understand human physiology. 

5)Develop new technologies for robotics and habitation and of course travel - such as mining asteroids etc.

6)Clean energy from the Moon - it is possible! 

Sure this is not cheap, new technology and exploration has never ever been cheap. However, the payoff from these will be tremendous. I firmly believe if we are complacent and not willing to invest and take chances, we might as well go back to live in a cave. 

[RH | 4,903]

5 minutes ago, avatar! said:

With all due respect, as a scientist I have to vehemently disagree with that statement. 

I see so many reasons to go back to the Moon. Here are a few off the top of my head

1)Learn about Earth's history and formation, and its relation to life.

2)Similar to (1) but of special note, learn about impact events, and how to mitigate them.

3)Test new technologies such as flight capabilities, life support, medicine including cancer research, etc. 

4)Similar to (3), help test and understand human physiology. 

5)Develop new technologies for robotics and habitation and of course travel - such as mining asteroids etc.

6)Clean energy from the Moon - it is possible! 

Sure this is not cheap, new technology and exploration has never ever been cheap. However, the payoff from these will be tremendous. I firmly believe if we are complacent and not willing to invest and take chances, we might as well go back to live in a cave. 

I respect your opinion and would like to hear more detail on it.  Honestly.  But this is my rebuttal in the form of asking questions in light of this perspective.

Sure, for all of those points there is information to be learned from attempting research and exploration in space.  I'm not sure about the cancer research part (enlighten me, seriously) but for every point you've made, are there not cheaper and more diverse ways of conducting related research here on Earth, at least for the time until the cost of getting to space significantly decreases? Some answers may come from only outside of the earth (like those related to the history of the Earth) but what costs, today, are to high to spend in answering those questions?

The cost of getting to orbit is astronomical (no pun intended.)  The cost alone of building a rocket, firing it to space, keeping up with the life support systems and sending someone home is in the billions of dollars.  Well, maybe in the multi-hundreds of millions of dollars for a given round trip, but that's still considerable.  Those dollars have to be spent per trip, and those are costs before a single dollar is spent on research. Even then, you are always going to be limited in your research because you're going to have to be selective on what you can bring along due to the weight of the materials and equipment needed, because it just costs a lot of money to send anything up into space.

Granted, if someone invents some form of "magical" impulse drive we could launch into outer-space at a fraction of current costs, then my opinions would completely change.  It's just that getting to space, and subsequently space travel beyond that point, is extremely expensive.  Those billions of dollars spent on modern space travel can be spent on like-research hear on Earth, looking to solve the same problems, and likely yield better results on a per-dollar-spent basis.

I'm not claiming to be an expert on this topic. Certainly not.  However, in many conversations I've had with people who are space travel & exploration enthusiasts, including a couple who were scientist (though not in the specific field of space research), I've yet to be given a good example were the cost of space-based research is worth the investment at the current state of modern technology, compared against using those same investment dollars hear on Earth for similar outcomes. I'm not saying it can't be worth those costs at times, nor am I suggesting that we should completely throw out space travel.  However, I am saying that many of our viable ambitions are far more expensive than the benefits of accomplishing those goals today.

I'm just not one of those people that believes that just because we can do something, we should. Again, it's exciting to think that I might be alive in a time where people might colonize the Moon and people may also walk on Mars. Likewise, it's awesome to consider what all we may about the Earth and even the universe from all of that effort and research.  But other than simply answering questions of curiosity, I don't see what we can't practically gain if we spent those billions upon billions of dollars and efforts on research here on the surface of the Earth.

[Link | 2,709]

Let UAC handle it.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

To sum up your opinion @RH basically this?

 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

Just now, LeatherRebel5150 said:

To sum up your opinion @RH basically this?

 

Seems a bit disingenuous to claim it was done in 6 years, since they started the crew program in 2012, and the only reference to <$1B I can find is an interview with the COO of SpaceX from 2014. There is no way that whatever amount of funding they were talking about back then is actually true today, once the rubber met the road of real world test and operations.

Not saying they didn't beat the price and schedule of ULA, but worth at least being accurate in the comparison.

[RH | 4,903]

23 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

To sum up your opinion @RH basically this?

 

Regarding all of my former comments, this is another reason why I am pro, private sector exploration.  This isn't just capitalism because capitalism!  When the private sector funds ventures like this, there's far greater incentive to do it as cheap as possible.   That might include cutting corners, but it also means you don't have an overhead organization that can, and does, throw whatever money at the problem you request.  I'm not saying there aren't financial limitations on NASA, there are, but all governmental organizations make "apple pie" budgets and expect to get that money out of congress.  When congress if feeling spendy, they grant as many of those magical dollars to whichever branch has requested them.

If the private sector is going to succeed at any R&D venture, they have to do it the (reasonably) cheapest way possible.  I'm not a fan of Musk and Space-X because I feel he's quite the huckster, but it's undeniable the Space-X is getting results and he's doing it far more cheaply than Uncle Sam.  And with that success, he's landed the governmental contracts to ship people to space.  All said and done, it's probably cheaper than NASA by multiple orders of magnitude for the tax payer.

IMHO, this is the way it should be done.  Even if Musk received countless grants from the US government, it's still cheaper than NASA.  My only hope is that in the next 10 years, with more projects he gets, and potentially Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic, that there are no "mistakes" on the launch pad and take off.  I hate to say it, but I could see it happen if these things are too cheaply made.  It's hard to say that considering the investment costs but rockets are a very precise and violent form of travel.  Hopefully they've learned from NASA with all of the mistakes they've made.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

4 minutes ago, RH said:

 

If the private sector is going to succeed at any R&D venture, they have to do it the (reasonably) cheapest way possible.  I'm not a fan of Musk and Space-X because I feel he's quite the huckster, but it's undeniable the Space-X is getting results and he's doing it far more cheaply than Uncle Sam.  

 

So an interesting wrinkle to any discussion of "cost" is that it is completely unknowable what Space X's cost SHOULD BE, because they have a work culture of truly abusive levels of unpaid overtime from their salary staff.

 

[OptOut | 8,883]

It's a pretty well worn point by now, but if you're looking at waste in public spending you're better off starting with the military before coming down hard on NASA.

They do incredible things, especially in the unmanned spaceflight arena, with a budget that has been squeezed in real terms for decades. If they had had funding for more than a mere handful of their projects over the last few decades, we could have seen far greater progress in space development which would in turn start to have a more meaningful impact here on Earth.

I don't know anything about cancer research or whatever, but I do know that easier access to space via in-space manufacturing would allow us to make fantastic scientific advancements in the exploration of our solar system and the wider galaxy.

For example, if we were decently well established on and orbiting the moon, we could put a few space telescopes out behind it, shielding them from all the noise here on Earth. In that position, we could make FAR more sensitive readings of the sky, and find out way more than we even have known before, much like how big of a leap in understanding Hubble was at the time.

[avatar! | 1,811]

7 hours ago, RH said:

I respect your opinion and would like to hear more detail on it.  Honestly.  But this is my rebuttal in the form of asking questions in light of this perspective.

Sure, for all of those points there is information to be learned from attempting research and exploration in space.  I'm not sure about the cancer research part (enlighten me, seriously) but for every point you've made, are there not cheaper and more diverse ways of conducting related research here on Earth, at least for the time until the cost of getting to space significantly decreases? Some answers may come from only outside of the earth (like those related to the history of the Earth) but what costs, today, are to high to spend in answering those questions?

The cost of getting to orbit is astronomical (no pun intended.)  The cost alone of building a rocket, firing it to space, keeping up with the life support systems and sending someone home is in the billions of dollars.  Well, maybe in the multi-hundreds of millions of dollars for a given round trip, but that's still considerable.  Those dollars have to be spent per trip, and those are costs before a single dollar is spent on research. Even then, you are always going to be limited in your research because you're going to have to be selective on what you can bring along due to the weight of the materials and equipment needed, because it just costs a lot of money to send anything up into space.

Granted, if someone invents some form of "magical" impulse drive we could launch into outer-space at a fraction of current costs, then my opinions would completely change.  It's just that getting to space, and subsequently space travel beyond that point, is extremely expensive.  Those billions of dollars spent on modern space travel can be spent on like-research hear on Earth, looking to solve the same problems, and likely yield better results on a per-dollar-spent basis.

I'm not claiming to be an expert on this topic. Certainly not.  However, in many conversations I've had with people who are space travel & exploration enthusiasts, including a couple who were scientist (though not in the specific field of space research), I've yet to be given a good example were the cost of space-based research is worth the investment at the current state of modern technology, compared against using those same investment dollars hear on Earth for similar outcomes. I'm not saying it can't be worth those costs at times, nor am I suggesting that we should completely throw out space travel.  However, I am saying that many of our viable ambitions are far more expensive than the benefits of accomplishing those goals today.

I'm just not one of those people that believes that just because we can do something, we should. Again, it's exciting to think that I might be alive in a time where people might colonize the Moon and people may also walk on Mars. Likewise, it's awesome to consider what all we may about the Earth and even the universe from all of that effort and research.  But other than simply answering questions of curiosity, I don't see what we can't practically gain if we spent those billions upon billions of dollars and efforts on research here on the surface of the Earth.

These are all fair questions. I don't have the time to answer all of them right now, but I assure you, I am happy to discuss them. In the meantime I'm attaching this paper which is a bit old (from 2005) but still relevant. It's also straightforward and easy to read. I don't know if it will convince you or change your mind, but I assure you that numerous scientists will argue that the return investment on these "billions upon billions of dollars" is absolutely priceless. 

WhySpaceExploration_CrawfordCockell_2005.pdf