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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:44PM
There's nothing wrong with dreaming. But as soon as you try to realize those dreams, you better look at how they match up with reality, or else you might find yourself in a nightmare.
Why not start by colonizing the moon, and letting Mars wait until we have more experience and better technology? After all, even a moon colony is currently an ambitious project. You have to learn to walk before you run.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:42PM
>Why not start by colonizing the moon
Because the Chinese will do it long before you get done arguing about it, obviously. ;)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @09:53PM
There's nothing wrong with dreaming. But as soon as you try to realize those dreams, you better look at how they match up with reality, or else you might find yourself in a nightmare.
Why not start by colonizing the moon, and letting Mars wait until we have more experience and better technology? After all, even a moon colony is currently an ambitious project. You have to learn to walk before you run.
Well, because colonizing the moon is hard, too.
Look at Mr. Regis' article and please outline which arguments he makes which are only applicable to Mars, and not the Moon? Then re-read it and tell me which parts of it would not have applied in the Apollo program?
I'm not saying you don't have a point, either. But what more do you expect to learn from the Moon that we won't learn from Mars, or have already learned from Apollo? Both destinations are impossibly far for a rescue mission.
The op-ed is also stupid because it mashes together Mars One and SpaceX with a frisson of NASA information.
But it gets its information wrong as well, claiming "ooh, what about all the psychological problems of people in such close quarters?" Apparently he hasn't heard of the HI-SEAS experiment, currently ongoing. Anybody who hasn't studied that, even a little, has no credibility to be heard on the topic.
Finally, I think I'll refuse to listen to someone who wrote a book called, "“Monsters: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Birth of Pathological Technology." But that's just me.
I don't think anybody isn't suggesting that the dreams have to be tested to and fitted to reality. (Maybe Mars One feels that way, but they don't represent the mainstream of the dream, either.) And is ten years realistic? Maybe not.
But that should not stop us from working on it.