All Dressed Up for Mars and Nowhere to Go(medium.com)
medium.com
All Dressed Up for Mars and Nowhere to Go
https://medium.com/matter/all-dressed-up-for-mars-and-nowhere-to-go-7e76df527ca0
64 comments
To your point (3), perhaps it is reasonable to bring a lifetime's supply of vitamin supplements for four people. But with an artificial lamp you would have to worry about bulbs burning out (how many would you need?), and the lamps would consume a significant part of what would have to be a limited power supply in the colony.
To your point (4), that there may exist an even more difficult problem does not mean that building a Mars vehicle is "not especially technically challenging." The author explicitly cites the three recent malfunctions with rocket launches, and the older Apollo, Soyuz, and Shuttle programs all had their difficulties too. Building a Mars vehicle is surely challenging.
To your point (4), that there may exist an even more difficult problem does not mean that building a Mars vehicle is "not especially technically challenging." The author explicitly cites the three recent malfunctions with rocket launches, and the older Apollo, Soyuz, and Shuttle programs all had their difficulties too. Building a Mars vehicle is surely challenging.
You wouldn't build such a lamp like on Earth. An oxygen plasma with a spectrum filtered glass case, microwave excited to avoid the need for electrodes, would last pretty much forever and be repairable using only in with materials.
I worked in industrial nitrogen/oxegen generator provider, and it is not really rocket science to do this. All we had to do was finding optimized pressure and substance for gas distillation.
> Building a vehicle to carry sufficient fuel and supplies for the trip to Mars is not especially technically challenging, when compared to the design of an earth-entry vehicle. Earth orbit rendezvous allows for the assembly of massive (though expensive) space vehicles such as the ISS.
Of course, they do have to land on mars, don't they? Isn't this roughly similar (and thus similarly as challenging) as earth re-entry?
Of course, they do have to land on mars, don't they? Isn't this roughly similar (and thus similarly as challenging) as earth re-entry?
Possibly more so.
I think it was someone working on Curiosity that said mars has just enough of an atmosphere that you have to worry about it, but not quite enough to be useful.
And bearing in mind that when your spacecraft hits the martian atmosphere, it was traveling at interplanetary transit speeds, much greater than orbital speed.
I think it was someone working on Curiosity that said mars has just enough of an atmosphere that you have to worry about it, but not quite enough to be useful.
And bearing in mind that when your spacecraft hits the martian atmosphere, it was traveling at interplanetary transit speeds, much greater than orbital speed.
I'm pretty sure that was Steve Squyres in the book Roving Mars, discussing Spirit and Opportunity. From memory, a heat shield can get you from escape velocity down to ~mach 3, and then supersonic parachutes can get you down to ~100mph. It's an issue because you've still got to slow down beyond that, but you can't just ignore atmospheric shielding like you could with the Moon (in response to iwwr)
I could be wrong about him saying that in Roving Mars (I can't exactly grep my paperback copy, and Google isn't helping), but I'm pretty sure it wasn't on the subject of Curiosity... I heard it in 2006 or 2007, while Curiosity was still called the Mars Science Laboratory.
I could be wrong about him saying that in Roving Mars (I can't exactly grep my paperback copy, and Google isn't helping), but I'm pretty sure it wasn't on the subject of Curiosity... I heard it in 2006 or 2007, while Curiosity was still called the Mars Science Laboratory.
>I think it was someone working on Curiosity that said mars has just enough of an atmosphere that you have to worry about it, but not quite enough to be useful.
It certainly is useful and you can still shed 90-95% of the inbound orbital velocity or even that from an interplanetary trajectory with a reasonable heat shield. It would be far more difficult if Mars were completely airless. You still need retrorockets for landing big payloads but at a discount.
Though the other atmosphered bodies in our solar system: Earth, Venus (cloud deck), Titan can be achieveable with just parachutes.
It certainly is useful and you can still shed 90-95% of the inbound orbital velocity or even that from an interplanetary trajectory with a reasonable heat shield. It would be far more difficult if Mars were completely airless. You still need retrorockets for landing big payloads but at a discount.
Though the other atmosphered bodies in our solar system: Earth, Venus (cloud deck), Titan can be achieveable with just parachutes.
Aside from all the serious problems, their puny budget being probably the biggest, what always bugged me was the reality show aspect... What an ugly way to even think about achieving such a great feat. Are they picking their candidates like Big Brother does, with the egos and sex appeal? Will there be fighting? Sex? I mean, if the viewers get bored, and this will be a pretty long show with a pretty small cast, what happens then? And how will people even react to watching someone die in a "show" like this? Wouldn't this actually be the most perverse form of human exploitation ever conceived?..
I don't think this nasty idea even deserves this much work to write about it. I'm sorry for Josh, but I hope they do not succeed. I do not want to see the horror that this could turn into. Let's not mar space and Mars with this bullshit.
I don't think this nasty idea even deserves this much work to write about it. I'm sorry for Josh, but I hope they do not succeed. I do not want to see the horror that this could turn into. Let's not mar space and Mars with this bullshit.
This is an excellent point; reality-show-manufactured drama would rob this achievement of the gravitas it deserves. Humans are given to pettiness on occasion, it would be a tragedy to elevate and preserve those petty moments when memorializing a new human epoch.
"reality-show-manufactured drama would rob this achievement of the gravitas it deserves"
Worse, it risks completely ruining the idea of human space exploration and planetary colonisation.
Worse, it risks completely ruining the idea of human space exploration and planetary colonisation.
It's nice to be an idealist like that, but like the capitalism vs. communism argument - when they made water free in Cuba, people just left the taps running. In reality, media like movies, games, and reality TV make massive amounts of money. If that money is spend on improving space technology instead of just sending people to a remote island to watch them suffer, it is a clear win, and doesn't take trying to force people to match your idealist image.
First: I thought this was a well-written article.
Second: although it is definitely not something I would seriously consider, I can appreciate that there are some people out there who are in fine mental health and would eagerly go on a one-way trip to Mars.
But third, when I read this:
Before he’d applied for Mars One, Josh had met a girl at the Redhead Days festival in the Netherlands. Eli did not have red hair, but was brunette; Josh was drawn to her easygoing demeanor, her effortless good moods, and they fell very much in love. But a shot at Mars would be a serious, life-changing turn of events, and Josh knew that he would have to fully commit if he was ever going to make it to the final selection. He didn’t even wait for the application deadline to break it off.
...I concluded that Josh was an idiot. Not for wanting to go on a one-way trip to Mars, not because of any career or lifestyle decisions he had made, but simply because he sabotaged his potential happiness based upon a promise of something exciting happening, made by people a world away that he had never met and who seemed to have a dubious command of the critical technical details of such an undertaking.
Ten years from now, when Josh is still on Earth, Mars One is considered to be another Biosphere 2 and Bas Landsorp and his pals have long since moved on to other commercial ventures, I suspect Josh will wonder about that brunette.
Second: although it is definitely not something I would seriously consider, I can appreciate that there are some people out there who are in fine mental health and would eagerly go on a one-way trip to Mars.
But third, when I read this:
Before he’d applied for Mars One, Josh had met a girl at the Redhead Days festival in the Netherlands. Eli did not have red hair, but was brunette; Josh was drawn to her easygoing demeanor, her effortless good moods, and they fell very much in love. But a shot at Mars would be a serious, life-changing turn of events, and Josh knew that he would have to fully commit if he was ever going to make it to the final selection. He didn’t even wait for the application deadline to break it off.
...I concluded that Josh was an idiot. Not for wanting to go on a one-way trip to Mars, not because of any career or lifestyle decisions he had made, but simply because he sabotaged his potential happiness based upon a promise of something exciting happening, made by people a world away that he had never met and who seemed to have a dubious command of the critical technical details of such an undertaking.
Ten years from now, when Josh is still on Earth, Mars One is considered to be another Biosphere 2 and Bas Landsorp and his pals have long since moved on to other commercial ventures, I suspect Josh will wonder about that brunette.
I strongly suspect Josh knows exactly what he's doing, even if it's not exactly what he's saying he's doing.
Yep. He sounds like a really fascinating character, but it seems to me like Mars is not really the key motivation in his life. He sounds like he's running away from something. I hope everything works out for him in the end.
I felt sorry for Josh as well. He seemed like a well-meaning, overly optimistic fool, giving up real, potential happiness for an illusion, a wonderful fantasy, a pipe dream.
When they explain to me how ISRU (in-situ resource utilization) can fabricate a replacement for a blown microchip or a refrigerator's compressor - based only on the equipment you can bring to Mars in a couple of space capsules - I'll be ready to begin seeing Mars One as something other than an insane pipe dream.
This article nails it: these people would be living an 18th-century lifestyle. But it would be one utterly dependent on 21st-century technology for something as basic as breathable air. If their 18th-century lifestyle can't keep their 21st-century technology working, and the organizing company can't drum up enough money to send regular resupply flights for decades to come, they die. Simple as that.
This article nails it: these people would be living an 18th-century lifestyle. But it would be one utterly dependent on 21st-century technology for something as basic as breathable air. If their 18th-century lifestyle can't keep their 21st-century technology working, and the organizing company can't drum up enough money to send regular resupply flights for decades to come, they die. Simple as that.
It's like a time machine that kills everyone as soon as the time machine breaks.
To send actual humans to the surface of Mars requires several robotic missions first to prepare.
If we expect to make fuel for the return journey there, that needs to be happening before the people leave Earth orbit.
Ditto for digging the hole and putting in an underground habitat.
Building a greenhouse from glass made on Mars.
Growing actual food on the surface.
Each of these steps are critical and need testing before we send people. Otherwise it's a pointless test to find out which failure gets them first.
If we expect to make fuel for the return journey there, that needs to be happening before the people leave Earth orbit.
Ditto for digging the hole and putting in an underground habitat.
Building a greenhouse from glass made on Mars.
Growing actual food on the surface.
Each of these steps are critical and need testing before we send people. Otherwise it's a pointless test to find out which failure gets them first.
How about, before all that, we try and inhabit, say, deserts on Earth first? Make that psychologically and economically feasible first. To my knowledge, we are yet to successfully demonstrate that we can maintain a viable, materially-closed ecosystem, without having to worry about extra things we'd encounter on Mars like pressure and temperature differentials and excess radiation.
I am all for Mars, 100%. The sooner the better. But it's not like Earth doesn't have its own inhospitable climates that are vastly easier to conquer than Mars, and we haven't even managed that (but then, perhaps there's just not enough motivation?).
I am all for Mars, 100%. The sooner the better. But it's not like Earth doesn't have its own inhospitable climates that are vastly easier to conquer than Mars, and we haven't even managed that (but then, perhaps there's just not enough motivation?).
We already comfortably inhabit a desert, we call it Los Angleles :-) Perhaps a better example is the underground city of Australia, Coober Pedy. Non self-sustaining examples exist in the Antarctic as well.
The point being, Earth has hard to live in places, but not a lot of motivation for living in those places. Mars as a sort of sex appeal to it "Mars!" but its a valid question what happens once people figure out that its just a place that is really really far away from Walmart.
The point being, Earth has hard to live in places, but not a lot of motivation for living in those places. Mars as a sort of sex appeal to it "Mars!" but its a valid question what happens once people figure out that its just a place that is really really far away from Walmart.
I think the point is not that it is technologically infeasible to live in deserts, but that doing it years with only what you can fit in a capsule the size of a U-Haul or dig out of the ground (with a drill you brought with you in the U-Haul) is extremely difficult.
And, that no one has demonstrated how that can be turned into a positive, long-term revenue stream, even in principle.
And, that no one has demonstrated how that can be turned into a positive, long-term revenue stream, even in principle.
Camping in the Sierras as I have done over the years has lead to seeing a lot of mining towns. And a mining town in the 19th century was a modest analog of a Mars colony in that they made most of their own tools out of locally available material, lived off food that could be sourced locally, and had few support structures outside of their own ingenuity.
The argument that presumably robotic missions would pre-supply a landing site with materials that could not be locally sourced, tools for processing locally sourced materials into useful form (including but not limited to air/water). Puts what is left being there for the hell of it.
Failed earth experiments like the Biosphere ones depended primarily on self containment (good for when you are surrounded by vacuum), successful experiments like the Russian 'mobile home from hell' [1], and some things in the middle like 'earth ships'[2] actually point to feasibility.
What is lacking is the certainty that you will die if this doesn't work. And that, is pretty hard to simulate on Earth because there is always an "option" of some sort for rescue.
[1] http://www.space.com/13500-mock-mars-mission-mars-500-ends.h...
[2] http://earthship.com/
The argument that presumably robotic missions would pre-supply a landing site with materials that could not be locally sourced, tools for processing locally sourced materials into useful form (including but not limited to air/water). Puts what is left being there for the hell of it.
Failed earth experiments like the Biosphere ones depended primarily on self containment (good for when you are surrounded by vacuum), successful experiments like the Russian 'mobile home from hell' [1], and some things in the middle like 'earth ships'[2] actually point to feasibility.
What is lacking is the certainty that you will die if this doesn't work. And that, is pretty hard to simulate on Earth because there is always an "option" of some sort for rescue.
[1] http://www.space.com/13500-mock-mars-mission-mars-500-ends.h...
[2] http://earthship.com/
LA (or Sahara or whatever) at least has oxygen, decent atmospheric pressure, and non-freezing temperatures.
Mars is very, very different. You can't go out at any moment and take a breath if your CO2 scrubbers break down.
Mars is very, very different. You can't go out at any moment and take a breath if your CO2 scrubbers break down.
Vegas baby
The Mars Society has already been doing this with a habitat simulation in the Canadian arctic[1]. They're also talking about doing a reality TV show[2] and you can try to sign up as a volunteer crew member[3].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashline_Mars_Arctic_Research_...
[2] http://deadline.com/2014/03/thinkfactory-media-shopping-mars...
[3] http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/announcements/ma365-ca...
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashline_Mars_Arctic_Research_...
[2] http://deadline.com/2014/03/thinkfactory-media-shopping-mars...
[3] http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/announcements/ma365-ca...
> I am all for Mars, 100%
I recall a pretty good article shared here a while ago about how Mars makes no sense as a target compared to Mercury. You can put people on the dark/light edge of Mercury and find a pretty good temperature. A tiny solar panel can generate gobs of power. There are minerals worth mining on Mercury.
Because Mars has no magnetosphere all habitable structures will have to be well underground to protect against radiation. It's really not more habitable compared to other solid bodies as you might expect.
I recall a pretty good article shared here a while ago about how Mars makes no sense as a target compared to Mercury. You can put people on the dark/light edge of Mercury and find a pretty good temperature. A tiny solar panel can generate gobs of power. There are minerals worth mining on Mercury.
Because Mars has no magnetosphere all habitable structures will have to be well underground to protect against radiation. It's really not more habitable compared to other solid bodies as you might expect.
"Because it has almost no atmosphere to retain heat, Mercury's surface experiences the greatest temperature variation of all the planets, ranging from 100 K (−173 °C; −280 °F) at night to 700 K (427 °C; 800 °F) during the day at some equatorial regions." — From Wikipedia.
That doesn't really sound like pleasent temperature fluctuations or something that is easy to work with?
That doesn't really sound like pleasent temperature fluctuations or something that is easy to work with?
You can set up on the poles where it's steady.
> If we expect to make fuel for the return journey there
The folks in this article do not plan a return journey.
The folks in this article do not plan a return journey.
The fact that there is no return journey planned makes a lot of stuff much simpler.
The point about the overabundance of oxygen (from the plants) that would require venting, but limited nitrogen, which would ultimately result in suffocation is one of those great little details that you don't normally think about when you think about living on other planets. There is so much we take for granted living day to day on a planet that we've evolved in concert with, that it's easy to overlook the little (and big) details that are so important for life to exist.
This problem has been solved, and machines capable of separating gasses exist all over the world; they are commonly used in hospitals to provide oxygen to patients, and for various other purposes.[1]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation
How often do these machines need spare parts? And how much power do they consume to operate?
This article is like a laundry list of what's wrong with my generation. Whiny, cynical, woefully uninformed but happy to share technical reasons why something won't work.
> How the colonists might cope with a deficiency in vitamin A from a lack of sunlight, however, is.
Don't they mean vitamin D?
Don't they mean vitamin D?
I believe so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D
We are no where near ready to go to Mars.
What would the impact on the public's psyche be if this mission failed by means of a torturously slow death of the crew? I think it'd be a huge setback for any sort of space exploration to witness fellow humans triumphantly land on Mars and then watch it all fall apart and the crew perishes tragically (being optimistic enough to say they actually land safely).
I bet the Apollo program would have ended much sooner if Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin never made it off of the Moon.
I have always thought as Cmd. Hadfield stated, that we have to go to the Moon and get it right there first. Go to the Moon, get this space colonization thing figured out and then the conversation on heading to Mars can begin.
What would the impact on the public's psyche be if this mission failed by means of a torturously slow death of the crew? I think it'd be a huge setback for any sort of space exploration to witness fellow humans triumphantly land on Mars and then watch it all fall apart and the crew perishes tragically (being optimistic enough to say they actually land safely).
I bet the Apollo program would have ended much sooner if Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin never made it off of the Moon.
I have always thought as Cmd. Hadfield stated, that we have to go to the Moon and get it right there first. Go to the Moon, get this space colonization thing figured out and then the conversation on heading to Mars can begin.
Well written article!
As much as I would like to but I think it will probably never happen in the near future. Not because of technical reasons as some people state in the article. In my opinion the technical difficulties are not the most difficult things to solve in order to travel to Mars. Humanity went basically from 0 to space and on the Moon but this was only possible because of the political pressure where everything was dedicated to reach this goal. This included a lot of money and ten thousands of people. But most important it was the society who supported this goal no matter what. Today nobody really cares if people go to space and this makes it impossible for a hand full of people who do.
As much as I would like to but I think it will probably never happen in the near future. Not because of technical reasons as some people state in the article. In my opinion the technical difficulties are not the most difficult things to solve in order to travel to Mars. Humanity went basically from 0 to space and on the Moon but this was only possible because of the political pressure where everything was dedicated to reach this goal. This included a lot of money and ten thousands of people. But most important it was the society who supported this goal no matter what. Today nobody really cares if people go to space and this makes it impossible for a hand full of people who do.
I agree. Barring some economic windfall that hasn't yet been discovered, it will require a national (world?) crisis and a Manhattan/Apollo project for a project on this scale.
And the $6B pricetag is ludicrous. To put this in context, the state of California estimates the cost of high-speed rail from SF to LA at ~$50B.
And the $6B pricetag is ludicrous. To put this in context, the state of California estimates the cost of high-speed rail from SF to LA at ~$50B.
Yeah fine, and everyone at SpaceX DEVELOPED the rockets that take people to SPACE for the same as what Facebook paid for Snapchat. Valuations are WEIRD.
Further the $50B price tag has a lot to do with paying a LOT of union folks, legalized "corruption" in many forms and the like. Finding huge cost savings in the construction industry is possible if you're motivated but nobody is because big infrastructure projects like that get handed out more based on politics than merit.
Further the $50B price tag has a lot to do with paying a LOT of union folks, legalized "corruption" in many forms and the like. Finding huge cost savings in the construction industry is possible if you're motivated but nobody is because big infrastructure projects like that get handed out more based on politics than merit.
SpaceX benefited from a great many years of experience, technology, knowledge, and lessons learned in blood from NASA, which is priceless. Comparing SpaceX outlays to a corporate acquisition pricetag is a weak analogy, at best. NASA (federal taxes) provided roughly half of SpaceX's initial funding. Large fractions of their current contracts come from NASA. And of course plenty of SpaceX's engineers are ex-NASA employees.
As far as unions go, I will grant that wages are higher as a result of their existence. That's a feature, not a bug. I'm curious: just how much of that $50B pricetag do you imagine is due to unions and "corruption"? A ballpark figure from the website of your choice will be fine.
As far as unions go, I will grant that wages are higher as a result of their existence. That's a feature, not a bug. I'm curious: just how much of that $50B pricetag do you imagine is due to unions and "corruption"? A ballpark figure from the website of your choice will be fine.
Yes, that's all fine. But here's the thing: even if the billion dollars dropped magically out of the air, it still only took a billion dollars to develop a new rocket. Doesn't matter where the money came from if that's how much money it was.
I don't care if it's public or private money that made SpaceX possible, and it doesn't much matter to me if the tech to go to Mars is all designed from scratch or bought from people who already know how to do it. It's that it is possible to do big things for a lot less than $50B.
If you have to design everything from scratch because it's $10k/lb and every pound counts, well, then yes it's going to cost a huge pile of money.
But what if it's $1k/lb to get to space? Suddenly COTS stuff doesn't look as stupid.
I don't care if it's public or private money that made SpaceX possible, and it doesn't much matter to me if the tech to go to Mars is all designed from scratch or bought from people who already know how to do it. It's that it is possible to do big things for a lot less than $50B.
If you have to design everything from scratch because it's $10k/lb and every pound counts, well, then yes it's going to cost a huge pile of money.
But what if it's $1k/lb to get to space? Suddenly COTS stuff doesn't look as stupid.
No, it took much more than a billion dollars to develop a rocket. You are just ignoring huge swathes of the cost to support your claim. If you estimate the aggregate cost of SpaceX launches, including 50 years of work by NASA, it will be orders of magnitude greater than $1B. I mean, tell yourself whatever you want, but R&D isn't free, and they didn't have to do most of it.
In the context of the present thread, since many of the problems associated with a manned Mars mission are unsolved, forgive me if I'm skeptical that Adam Smith's invisible hand will somehow bring the cost down to manageable levels. With or without COTS.
In the context of the present thread, since many of the problems associated with a manned Mars mission are unsolved, forgive me if I'm skeptical that Adam Smith's invisible hand will somehow bring the cost down to manageable levels. With or without COTS.
There's a big difference from developing the FIRST rocket and developing A rocket. The first one is now built. We now have the people with the experience. It can (and is!) being done.
I'm not arguing the price of the first rockets that NASA built at all. I'm arguing that SpaceX didn't have an extra hundred billion of secret NSA black money that they used in addition to the publicly known about billion that we can be sure was spent.
You can't argue that because NASA spent $20B or whatever in 1960's dollars to get us to the moon that somehow SpaceX's $1B rocket is ACTUALLY a $21B rocket. You could argue that if SpaceX had to develop everything from scratch it would cost a lot more than $1B, but they didn't.
Similarly not everything that it would take to go to Mars is going to have to be engineered from scratch. Especially as launch prices keep coming down. If you could get to orbit for $100/lb it's only 10x as expensive as overnight air freight and at that point weight wouldn't even be a real issue anymore.
Is it kind-of crazy to talk about $100/lb launches right now? Yeah sure. But Musk has said that it's $200k worth of fuel to launch a Falcon 9, which has a 30klb payload to LEO. That's $6/lb in marginal cost plus whatever overhead on the rocket. Suddenly $100/lb doesn't look quite so batshit insane.
I'm not arguing the price of the first rockets that NASA built at all. I'm arguing that SpaceX didn't have an extra hundred billion of secret NSA black money that they used in addition to the publicly known about billion that we can be sure was spent.
You can't argue that because NASA spent $20B or whatever in 1960's dollars to get us to the moon that somehow SpaceX's $1B rocket is ACTUALLY a $21B rocket. You could argue that if SpaceX had to develop everything from scratch it would cost a lot more than $1B, but they didn't.
Similarly not everything that it would take to go to Mars is going to have to be engineered from scratch. Especially as launch prices keep coming down. If you could get to orbit for $100/lb it's only 10x as expensive as overnight air freight and at that point weight wouldn't even be a real issue anymore.
Is it kind-of crazy to talk about $100/lb launches right now? Yeah sure. But Musk has said that it's $200k worth of fuel to launch a Falcon 9, which has a 30klb payload to LEO. That's $6/lb in marginal cost plus whatever overhead on the rocket. Suddenly $100/lb doesn't look quite so batshit insane.
You mention paying union folks like it is a bad thing, in line with "legalized "corruption"".
Perhaps you should go work in a foundry, machine shop, or a mine for a while and then see how you feel about unions.
Perhaps you should go work in a foundry, machine shop, or a mine for a while and then see how you feel about unions.
Way to make a not-relevant comparison that doesn't really address my point!
Ultimately this addresses my point best:
“The highway department didn’t use to see the drivers as customers,” said Frank DePaola, administrator of the highway division for the department. “For a while there, the highway department was so focused on construction and road projects, it’s almost as if the contractors became their customers.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/us/rapid-construction-tech...
It is possible to get this kind of thing done with or without unions, but when unions have a strong presence it's harder because the union bosses know that this could mean fewer jobs, and for them, less power. People generally don't take a pay cut (or reduction in status) willingly.
Ultimately this addresses my point best:
“The highway department didn’t use to see the drivers as customers,” said Frank DePaola, administrator of the highway division for the department. “For a while there, the highway department was so focused on construction and road projects, it’s almost as if the contractors became their customers.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/us/rapid-construction-tech...
It is possible to get this kind of thing done with or without unions, but when unions have a strong presence it's harder because the union bosses know that this could mean fewer jobs, and for them, less power. People generally don't take a pay cut (or reduction in status) willingly.
> To put this in context, the state of California estimates the cost of high-speed rail from SF to LA at ~$50B.
Well, $67 billion, up from the $33 billion figure they were promoting when they asked voters to approve it.
Well, $67 billion, up from the $33 billion figure they were promoting when they asked voters to approve it.
> To put this in context, the state of California estimates the cost of high-speed rail from SF to LA at ~$50B.
Mars One is pretty silly, but a significant portion of that $50B cost is because they need long, straight lines and as such will have to seize and reimburse a lot of very expensive real estate, isn't it?
Mars One is pretty silly, but a significant portion of that $50B cost is because they need long, straight lines and as such will have to seize and reimburse a lot of very expensive real estate, isn't it?
I don't know, it was just the first thing I thought of.
Here are dozens of projects that make me chuckle about the naivete of the $6B figure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_megaprojects
Here are dozens of projects that make me chuckle about the naivete of the $6B figure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_megaprojects
"Gravity on Mars is only 38% that of Earth’s. What this would mean for the long-term health of colonists on Mars is not known"
I think this fact is often overlooked. The problem of gravity (and radiation) are probably harder to overcome than food and oxygen.
I think this fact is often overlooked. The problem of gravity (and radiation) are probably harder to overcome than food and oxygen.
This kind of argument was made early and often in the late 1950s, with respect to zero gravity, and it proved to be fear-mongering. Without evidence for this sort of proposition, it is simply pessimistic speculation.
This piece was not well researched, please do not invest too much credence in it.
This piece was not well researched, please do not invest too much credence in it.
To this day astronauts need to spend good amounts of time exercising during long stints in zero-g aboard ISS to avoid significant bone loss. Of course, maybe if you never leave Mars, you would be just fine with the bone density/strength you have.
Citing specific problems can be instructive, and I would agree that bone and muscle mass loss could prove very bad. My issue is with nebulous claims that 'anything could happen'.
I would add that the bone and muscle problems are very well known to just about everyone who has done as much as read a science fiction book. Heinlein went into the subject in detail in his 1966 novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", and more recent writers such as Kim Stanley Robinson have written about it too.
I would add that the bone and muscle problems are very well known to just about everyone who has done as much as read a science fiction book. Heinlein went into the subject in detail in his 1966 novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", and more recent writers such as Kim Stanley Robinson have written about it too.
It is worth remembering that Heinlein and KSR are writers of fiction, which tends to gloss-over difficult problems in favour of pleasing stories. Neither were/are scientists, although Heinlein had an engineering degree, and it would be inadvisable to rely on their work.
In 1966 the space endurance record was just under 14 days (Gemini 7) and very little was known about the long-term effects of low gravity environments at that time.
In 1966 the space endurance record was just under 14 days (Gemini 7) and very little was known about the long-term effects of low gravity environments at that time.
That's a good point. I always associate the astronauts in the ISS with having very severe health effects from the zero-g, but if they never came back, perhaps they would be okay!
The human body has the ability to adapt, nobody knows if our body would naturally adjust to that or not, the probability that we just get used to it after a long time living there is actually big. In that case if a person living on Mars for a long time coming back to Earth, he would actually suffer bone loss or things like that.
If that is the intellectual level of the applicants, they have far worse problems than radiation and food.
A well written article, interspersed with great art. Makes me wonder why he published it on Medium of all places.
This article deserved better. The author deserves recognition.
This article deserved better. The author deserves recognition.
Some of the errors include:
1) Separating oxygen from nitrogen is quite commonly done, and there are at least three distinct methods for doing it. The reference is to an amateurish analysis done by others who had not done any research. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_swing_adsorption
2) It is quite well known that NASA distributes its contracts around the country, so as to increase political buy-in from governors, congressmen, and senators. In fact, the space shuttle was green-lit because Nixon had cancelled the national aerospace plane, and his administration had a meeting about how that would affect votes in key swing-states, and they decided that the shuttle would benefit his re-election effort. Sources are numerous including https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo8v7juSgRw .
3) Vitamin D would be a problem from lack of sunlight, not vitamin A, and even then supplements and artificial lamps both provide viable long-term alternatives to sun-exposure.
4) Building a vehicle to carry sufficient fuel and supplies for the trip to Mars is not especially technically challenging, when compared to the design of an earth-entry vehicle. Earth orbit rendezvous allows for the assembly of massive (though expensive) space vehicles such as the ISS.