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Ed Regis writes in the New York Times that today we an witnessing an outburst of enthusiasm over the literally outlandish notion that in the relatively near future, some of us are going to be living, working, thriving and dying on Mars. But unfortunately Mars mania reflects an excessively optimistic view of what it actually takes to travel to and live on Mars, papering over many of the harsh realities and bitter truths that underlie the dream. "First, there is the tedious business of getting there. Using current technology and conventional chemical rockets, a trip to Mars would be a grueling, eight- to nine-month-long nightmare for the crew," writes Regis. "Tears, sweat, urine and perhaps even solid waste will be recycled, your personal space is reduced to the size of an SUV., and you and your crewmates are floating around sideways, upside down and at other nauseating angles." According to Regis every source of interpersonal conflict, and emotional and psychological stress that we experience in ordinary, day-to-day life on Earth will be magnified exponentially by restriction to a tiny, hermetically sealed, pressure-cooker capsule hurtling through deep space and to top it off, despite these constraints, the crew must operate within an exceptionally slim margin of error with continuous threats of equipment failures, computer malfunctions, power interruptions and software glitches.
But getting there is the easy part says Regis. "Mars is a dead, cold, barren planet on which no living thing is known to have evolved, and which harbors no breathable air or oxygen, no liquid water and no sources of food, nor conditions favorable for producing any. For these and other reasons it would be accurate to call Mars a veritable hell for living things, were it not for the fact that the planet's average surface temperature is minus 81 degrees Fahrenheit." These are only a few of the many serious challenges that must be overcome before anyone can put human beings on Mars and expect them to live for more than five minutes says Regis. "The notion that we can start colonizing Mars within the next 10 years or so is an overoptimistic, delusory idea that falls just short of being a joke."
(Score: 2, Disagree) by cloud.pt on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:20AM
About time someone relevant said it. And for those of you yelling "buzzkill!", let me break it down to you: he's trying to incentivize people to put their limited Benjamin supply where it counts. After all, nobody has disposable like Elon Inc. If you wanna dream, go see a movie or enroll in an MIT Physics-related course. If you wanna be a part of something useful without the later commitment, try giving to charity. But please don't give away so easily to stuff like Mars One (not just money, but attention too, for that matter).
Nobody is saying you shouldn't keep a look on it, but the amount of hope you should pour into should be much like the hope you place in an immortality being invented pill before your body reaches expiration date.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by riT-k0MA on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:41AM
I already forked out $40 for Kerbal Space Program. That's a good enough physics/training simulation for a space program, right?
Riiiight?
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:43AM
SpaceX use it for simulations
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:58PM
Nice sentiment, there. I presume you're a pious person.
Mark 14:7
Matthew 26:11
John 12:8
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:16PM
For readers who may not look these up:
Mark 14:6–9 MSG:
But Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why are you giving her a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me. You will have the poor with you every day for the rest of your lives. Whenever you feel like it, you can do something for them. Not so with me. She did what she could when she could—she pre-anointed my body for burial. And you can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she just did is going to be talked about admiringly.”
2nd account in Matthew 26:10–13 MSG:
When Jesus realized what was going on, he intervened. “Why are you giving this woman a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me. You will have the poor with you every day for the rest of your lives, but not me. When she poured this perfume on my body, what she really did was anoint me for burial. You can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she has just done is going to be remembered and admired.”
3rd account in John 12:7–8 MSG:
Jesus said, “Let her alone. She’s anticipating and honoring the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you. You don’t always have me.”
Context from Mark 14:1–5 MSG:
In only two days the eight-day Festival of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread would begin. The high priests and religion scholars were looking for a way they could seize Jesus by stealth and kill him. They agreed that it should not be done during Passover Week. “We don’t want the crowds up in arms,” they said.
Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper. While he was eating dinner, a woman came up carrying a bottle of very expensive perfume. Opening the bottle, she poured it on his head. Some of the guests became furious among themselves. “That’s criminal! A sheer waste! This perfume could have been sold for well over a year’s wages and handed out to the poor.” They swelled up in anger, nearly bursting with indignation over her.
Context from John 12:1–6 MSG:
Six days before Passover, Jesus entered Bethany where Lazarus, so recently raised from the dead, was living. Lazarus and his sisters invited Jesus to dinner at their home. Martha served. Lazarus was one of those sitting at the table with them. Mary came in with a jar of very expensive aromatic oils, anointed and massaged Jesus’ feet, and then wiped them with her hair. The fragrance of the oils filled the house.
Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, even then getting ready to betray him, said, “Why wasn’t this oil sold and the money given to the poor? It would have easily brought three hundred silver pieces.” He said this not because he cared two cents about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of their common funds, but also embezzled them.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:55PM
He's got some good points, but he's still wrong. I happen to think that Mars is a mistake, and that the goal should be the asteroids, but that's a trivial difference.
OTOH, there are lots of hard problems that need to be solved before we get seriously into colonization. The first, and most important, is an "almost closed" ecosystem. Until that one's solved any talk of colonization is ... not premature, but rather overly optimistic. And this is a problem that could be tackled cheaply and without lifting a foot off the ground. BioSphere 2 was one such attempt, which revealed that the implementers had severe gaps in their knowledge. Well, any off-earth base wouldn't use cement, so it wouldn't run into those particular problems, but there are problems that it would run into. So you need to start by building a base exactly like the one you're proposing be built, and then having people try to live in it under exactly similar conditions. (Vacuum or low-pressure, matched atmospheric composition. Matched temperature cycling, etc.)
Please note that I'm not claiming this would be cheap or easy, merely cheap and easy compared to doing the same thing "out there". I expect the first few attempts to be failures. Hopefully each failure will reveal things that can be fixed before the next attempt. (I acknowledge that it's impossible to test for stresses caused by low g, but if you plan to match Mars, you can match the day and seasonal year cycle.)
Any colony has to be something that can survive the home world losing interest in it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by snufu on Wednesday September 23 2015, @03:16AM
Agreed. It's a simple question of limited research and resource capital.
Putting meat on Mars is a net drain on Earth resources, just like putting meat on the moon was a net drain on Earth resources. If the moon provided a net resource gain, it would have already been colonized by humans. And no, schemes for mining asteroids and terraforming are fantasies that have not come close to passing even the most optimistic scientific analysis of the fuel/water budget. Not to mention the 'what could possibly go wrong' factor.
Sending meat to these places are political stunts, like the moon mission. They are inspirational, worthwhile projections of the human ego--if we have the resources to spare. But do not pretend it is a stepping stone to 'humans colonizing spayce!' This is not meant as a buzzkill. I support a human Mars mission, but we should do so with our eyes open and realistic understanding of the end condition.