Project to colonize Mars in 11 years?
 

http://mars-one.com/

They want to start a mars colony in 2023. Ambitious...
I wonder if they will really find people who want to live the rest of their lives in these totally artificial structures with no way to get out?

Just because you don't, don't assume nobody does. A lot of people would want to for the recognition alone.

This looks really interesting, and I think it's great that private ventures are showing what they can do for humanity, with this and the asteroid belt project, and the recent success of SpaceX's Dragon :)

Yeah I mean for the first 2 years or so it may be really cool, but after 10 or 15 years there, when the fame has subsided and one recognizes that one cannot talk in person to any one of ones admirers... But I guess they will find enough people who are fascinated enough to do this.

This just looks like another high-concept project that won't really go anywhere. All it's plans are ifs and buts, dependent on technolgy that hasn't been built yet, or even designed.This kind of thing happened in the 60's with Collier's Mars mission which was another ambitious plan to get to mars. That never went anywhere.

Anyway private space travel to mars raises far too much space politics. Who got to mars first? Who is responsible for them? Should the base be run by a state? etc.

Its a nice idea but such plans need money, and only states can stump up the kind to get to Mars. Anyway this project has a team of 4, SpaceX is a true business with over a 1000 people.

Yeah, I can't help but feel very pessimistic about this. This kind of money can't really come from anywhere right now, and I wonder if this will ever be in anyone's budget.

It's all based on stuff that exists now. The fact that they've actually talked to potential manufacturers and suppliers (and have at least one for everything they'll need) says a lot rather than just "We might do it this way". As Moco said, it's just funding, but with the destruction of any and all NASA manned capability by the current US government, I think it's more likely that any Mars missions will have to be privately purchased anyway.

It is just me or does it look a little bit like a project that is about to collect a lot of money from enthusiastic people but then fails and goes bancrupt with some people getting richer in the process? Maybe that is sarcastic, but It happened before with ideas that looked "too good to be true".

Go on, point out exactly where there's a donation meter? where there's a point of contact for investors?

Oh wait, there isn't one.

Just because they do not try to get money from people like you does not mean that they are not trying to get sponsors. Of course they are trying to get sponsors and investors: http://mars-one.com/faq-en/23-faq-fe...ce-the-mission
And I dont even say that the mission is planned to fail - just that their timeline is extremely ambitious and they are talking about 6 billion dollars they want to collect. To me that sounds all a bit strange. They want to launch a mars mission with a rover and sattelite in the next 3 years and build, launch and assemble the whole settlement in the next 8 years as well. It is just a gut feeling, but I dont think they will be able to do this and if they cannot keep up to this, it is possible that they will fail and that the invested money is then lost. We'll see - maybe I am wrong and there will be people living on Mars in 10 years.

A question - would anyone here go there and become one of the astronauts that goes to Mars? I mean seriously and honestly?

Haha, I had a strange feeling that somethign was odd when I read that the "inventor" of the "Big Brother" TV show was on the team with this. But I guess this is one way to finance the mission once it has started:
New 'Mars One' mission aims to establish first human colony on Red Planet by 2023 | Mail Online

Make a Reality TV show from it. You can see live how the colonists suffer from a leak in the hull of a building, you can witness the death of one of them who was in that capsule and tomorrows special is - you can vote one of them out of the container who then has to find his own way in the lonely martian desert. Call now, just $5.60/call

Or something like that ;)

Let us see where this leads. Perhaps it will share the faith of a lot of similar somewhat megalomaniac vision capitalist ventures which often are halted by a shortage of funds.
And still most of those ventures have been on a much smaller scale than the Mars mission.

Freedom Ship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Moller M400 Skycar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Moller's skycar was flawed, and has essentially ruined a plausible concept in the eyes of many.

Try harder :P

So maybe Mars-One is flawed and is ruining the concept of sending humans to Mars for many :P

PS: Just read on that Skycar, that it has four large engines that are as powerful as a big regular car. That is about 3 times as much power and fuel consumption as my car - for one of the engines. That is 12 times as much fuel consumption as my car, that is about 24 times as much fuel as the most efficient commercial car. This sounds totally insane in a time of pending fuel scarcity. And I certainly don't see how that contraption should fly with electricity. There is a plausile concept of a lightweight personal air transport though that is based on the Quadcopter technology. But it is not as "sporty" and heavy as that Aircar. It is more like a air-scooter.

There's a reason it's dead (but that wasn't even it, really). As I said, Moller has ruined the concept to the point that "flying car" is now a joke rather than a serious concept. If the world had more sense, they would have examined things more critically first.

Big progress is often made by those who aren't afraid to dream big.

"Failure is always an option" - JC


- Mikko

I heard that from one of the Mythbusters. It doesn't sound very much like JC. :P

Despite being a journalist, I do tend to have my sources correct: James Cameron: Before Avatar ... a curious boy | Video on TED.com

- Mikko

Flying car was a joke before that particular sky car. But who wants flying cars anyways. Really. Only those who can afford them and dont have a "sky road" near their homes. It is a totally stupid idea to begin with. It is wasteful in terms of energy, it is noisy, dangerous (not only for the drivers but also for those on the ground below)and if used on a large scale it probably is not even fast. The only application would be as a replacement for airplanes or helicopters in remote areas or as a luxury item.

If those people in that Mars One project would really want to get humans on Mars, I think they should do a lot better than giving away one-way tickets financed at least in part by some reality TV show. I dont know, maybe they are good intentioned, but this sounds a lot like a recipe for a deja-vu of that skycar thing.

'Do better' how? A one way trip is far better than some kind of implausible return-mission idea that would need a huge expenditure and additional 'dead weight' resources brought to Mars.

I honestly would not really say that it is more plausible to manage to build a permanent Mars colony including the prospect of people getting old and sick there, the logistics of sending supplies to Mars reliably and/or reliably establish food production on Mars than to build a return mission. The return mission is complex, but to basically build a Mars station that lasts for decades without failure of oxygen, water, food or medical supplies - seriously, do you think that this is any easier? Just because one saves the costs of sending "dead weight" there immediately (the Mars colony project needs "dead weight resources" also, just repeatedly for the next decades).

This can so easily turn into a nightmare if something vital fails on that low-budget Mars colony and the whole world witnesses how 20 colonists slowly die because sending supplies and spare parts just takes years to get to them.

But thats the usual way to do things, I guess - disposable science. Taking high risks instead of using solid planning and taking care of consequences.

Then again, maybe its better that way. If that mission crashes and fails (hopefully before people are actually out there), at least those stupid fixation on sending people to Mars might stop for some decades :P

Actually, yes, it's easier. For the cost of a return vehicle system, which needs R&D, construction, extra launch resources, cargo brought to mars that's useless during the actual stay there, and additional on-surface work, they could just send a SpaceX Dragon-based vehicle every few years with additional supplier, with perhaps a larger different one bringing more people every few years. It's not like there will be sufficient volume to set up some kind of continual shuttle system; even new arrivals will still be rare and years apart.

I don't think you understand what dead weight actually is. It's things that would have to be brought to mars but not actually be useful in survival or research there. So no, it's not saved 'immediately', but a permanent saving.

Why, are old people not allowed on Mars? Are hey incapable of performing further research or habitability work?

So in your opinion, the antarctic bases that are cut off for ~6 months per year are going to kill everyone too? Wait, no, they aren't.

Anyway, enough of this, I'm going to stop posting here since you're just complaining, much as you did in the other thread.

We have (long-term) habitats suitable for shipping to and constructing on Mars? This is news to me.

The Antarctic is several orders of magnitude more hospitable than Mars. :P

It's the least hospitable desert on Earth. The Mars 500 mission was inspired in some design elements by habitation there.

Depending on where a manned mission to Mars lands, they have a water source from the ice caps; the main issues are power (easily solved by a decent sized reactor) and food and waste processing (done by creating a full cycle with plants, easier the larger the system is), as well as general environmental hazards (dust, occasional radiation) and reduced gravity (can be worked around, especially if they don't intend to return to Earth).

What about the R&D and construction of equipment that will allow people to stay permanently on Mars? That also has to be considerable....?

I mean, it is a different thing to send a small research station or lander up there that is supposed to run for some weeks or months - or to send something up that can support life and research for decades.

6 months and some 1000 miles are a different thing when compared to the time and efforts needed to reach Mars. And I doubt that people on the stations in the ice are there for life. I think all of them are there for some months or a year max - then return - and then maybe go there again. And if they get older, they dont go there anymore but retire in more temperate region. So the comparison to the antarctica stations would much more be the return-mission to Mars than the one-way ticket.
But maybe I am wrong and there are 70-year old permanent residents at the antarctica stations doing science - I dont know. Are there?

No, I am not complaining, I am pointing out the quite obvious problems that this kind of plan has.

These things sound nice in theory, but to research, build and test equipment that can reliably handle such challenges will take more than a couple of years. It is by no means "easy" to build a reactor that can deliver enough energy to supply a Mars colony for years and that can be launched to space, safely land on another planet and easily be operated and maintained by a handful of people in a hostile environment for example. I dont say that this is impossible. I think that a Mars colony certainly is possible, if risky. But I dont believe the project in the OP that it can be done within a couple of years with a relatively low budget. BTW, they propose solar panels, not a reactor.
Oh and a cycle with plants in a closed environment to give food and water - that worked horribly well in the biosphere 2 project - not. Again, I think it is possible, but it is not proven technology. R&D will take years.

One of the rare occasions I totally agree with Clarke here. This is another league here to set up a permanent colony on a low atmosphere, cold desert, dry planet - compared to a research station with changing personnel on Earth in a location that has at least enough air and water.

Not in the same scale. It's using stuff that already exists; a launch vehicle that can be landed on Mars and then launch from there back to Earth, either bringing all its fuel with it (while far less needed than launching form earth, still a considerable quantity) or creating fuel via ISRU still uses theoretical technologies on a scale that habitation units (which would be needed anyway) do not.

Even landers run for years. Weeks would be how long it would be just to get somewhere inhabited by humans set up and stable.

Just because you wouldn't like to go, don't start saying that nobody should be allowed to stay even if they want to.

Same principle, NOT a full equivalence. They have to use the resources and skills they have if something happens. There have been people there who have had to treat themselves for cancer because they could not be safely extracted, and have done so and survived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

It looks to more like your own idea of how it should be done - a more expensive return mission with far higher costs and demands on a launch vehicle yet to be developed; while the ENTIRE POINT of this is to show how it would be doable with near-future technology as opposed to something 40+ years ahead.

One is already on its way there, soon to land and be operating autonomously. The USSR that you so idolise was launching cruder but effectively equivalent RTGs in the 1980s. I didn't expect you to know that, but it's still a basic gesture of respect to do your research first.

Even if it doesn't follow schedule or budget, it's a serious proposal.

Fine; humans being there actually solves the problem with their use on Mars in that they become useless over time due to dust buildup. You just hurt your own point there ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_...hooter_fallacy
Check another off your list. You might as well say "Stopping X mining project failed so I should just give up" if you want that reversed.

Again, false equivalence. I said that it has been used to understand potential problems, not that it's the same environment. That is THE ENTIRE REASON projects like Mars500 build on that.

I've seen you do this in almost every argument you get in to. You always construe that the other person(s) is arguing against you because they have some ulterior motive and don't want you to be right. Or they're trolling. Or they're just being stupid. Nobody ever rationally, genuinely comes to a different conclusion than you do.

You're trying to design <complex engineering project>? Just scale up <simple model>...

I am no mechanical engineer, but saying that an Arctic base and a Mars base are the same principle sounds roughly like saying that human and Na'vi biology work on the same principles. It's technically true, but all the differing implementation details will bite you in the txim unless you actually work through them.

Saying (correctly) "We can do the arctic!" doesn't mean much, because Mars is not same-but-more. It's same-but-more, and then we go change the fundamental environmental as well. Surviving the trip in microgravity and a radiation bath, producing an entire closed ecosystem and launching return vehicles from Mars all has to be designed from scratch, and there certainly isn't a single design with all of that covered.

Can you honestly find an occurrence where someone argues against something while actually not opposing it, devils-advocate situations aside?


Again, that's the point. That's why it's only used as "These are the things that might happen based on what we know, in addition to things that could be reasonably extrapolated, and in addition, the closest scenario we have in a real environment, we didn't anticipate foo, bar or baz, so we can use that as part of our model too".

So you don't think Apollo should have happened then, clearly. It was a huge conceptual leap from Mercury, with far less known then than is now known about Mars.

Again, where do return vehicles EVER come into this? Oh, wait, they don't. That's the point, that someone had the sense to admit what anyone to have looked at the current state of things has thought, that as things stand, a one-way trip is the only sensible method if anyone wants to get there in the next half-century or so. Again, microgravity? We have people in it right now, in case you forgot. If people going to Mars were going to be exposed to 1G again afterwards, particularly after years, then it'd be a problem, but they won't and it isn't.

I dont want to waste some more time on this. HNM, if you want to go there, fine. Maybe then I dont have to "debate" you anymore which is pointless as hell.
Mostly because you feel offended by something not working as you thought and someone pointing that out and then you take that personal and construct a virtual reality in which others only argue to oppose you and because they are trolls or just want you to "loose". For you this quickly becomes personal, especially if some of your SciFi dreams are threatened by reality. Then you sift through your dictionary of fallacies and pull out some that you think do fit the argument, thus avoiding answers, while using the same or other fallacies yourself.
I am not argueing against this project because I dont like Mars missions, dont like space travel or dont like manned no-return Mars missions and thus grapple for arguments to support that opinion. I am a scientist and I look for flaws in plans on a rational basis. And fact is that nothing about the technology they are proposing to use is "proven" for the purpose they intend to use it - some of it is not proven on that scale at all. As a result, to make this kind of mission work, a lot of research, testing, building, rebuilding and retesting is needed and this cannot be done within a couple of years with a low budget as they propose. I dont say that it is impossible to make a manned Mars mission - return or one-way. I just think that either of them is something that is not going to happen in the next decade and I am pointing out that there are problems lurking for both ideas that are yet unsolved and will eventually come up. Like 70-year old astronauts on Mars.
And using misleading links to technology does not help your case either. What's the point in saying "there already exists a nuclear reactor like it would be needed to power the colony and it is already on the way to Mars" [paraphrased] and then giving a link to a 125W plutonium battery. I actually do look up those links and dont just accept the "facts" because there is a Wikipedia link behind them.
And also when I argue that something has not worked, like Biosphere2, that does not mean that I dont think it can work, but it means that it is not "proven technology" and that it better be tested and developed before it is deployed as a cornerstone of survival on Mars.

Again - I dont think this is impossible, but to promise people a 5-10 year timeframe for it to get them excited is very much unscientific and unfounded and frankly I think it exactly targets techno-enthusiasts like you, HNM, who just tend to believe everything that sounds fantastic because you "want to believe".

Technological arguments aside, I sure would like to see their business plan. This reminds me very much of Gary Hudson's effort circa 1990 to drum up business for suborbital tourist flights. He published slick brochures depicting mockups of his proposed spacecraft and took advance bookings. Superficially, what he wanted to do was technologically possible; it's being done right now. And I knew some people who took him seriously and gave him money. But in retrospect, he was over 15 years ahead of his time and a financial analysis would have shown that the amount of money to develop his system was prohibitive. I get the feeling that these people are equally off the mark and that it's more than a decade before this is a viable business.

Fine, I feel likewise. Again, I've gone past that point by simple inertia :(

Citation needed.
I point out inaccuracies, inconsistencies, fallacies and bad assumptions. I didn't ever say this was some kind of actual viable plan that will have things done by its deadlines; it's as much a thought experiment to get people actually considering it seriously rather than some of the stupid return mission ideas that sometimes get floated, or looking to new solutions rather than things that could already be repurposed for it. What I objected most to is going "it should be a return mission".

Ah, WTF?
Scifi has nothing to do with it. Mars is a worthless dead planet, with maybe slight historical value. If it was something like that project to build an actual ship modelled on the original Enterprise, I could understand what you meant there, but it isn't. Try harder.

I'd be interested in the context for that. Generally, when I point it out, that IS an answer in and of itself; adding "Oh noes, one attempt failed so something is impossible, right? Wrong!" to that is redundant. Again, if an attempt to stop a particular mine or whatever failed, would you give up on all future attempts? I'd bet not, making a double standard.

See earlier.

"I point out inaccuracies, inconsistencies, fallacies and bad assumptions. I didn't ever say this was some kind of actual viable plan that will have things done by its deadlines; it's as much a thought experiment to get people actually considering it seriously rather than some of the stupid return mission ideas that sometimes get floated, or looking to new solutions rather than things that could already be repurposed for it."
It's to encourage serious thought about how one might actually be done before the next 50 years. Don't shoot the messenger.

You've done that all the time, because having blue text is something that many people will just skip over while making a point seem stronger. You've outright contradicted the text of links you've posted before. As it was, I thought your objection was to launching anything radioactive into space, when, as I CORRECTLY pointed out, the USSR did it decades ago, and even with their abysmal safety record, nothing went wrong. I wasn't claiming a direct physical equivalence anywhere.

Isn't that the point of this?

I haven't paid a ****ing penny. I haven't joined anything. I have zero investment, interest or stake in this. I never said it would deliver objectives on time; I am almost certain it won't as things stand. Chances are, it won't happen just because governments won't spend the money anyway, but this is a demonstration if what COULD be done if people got out of their complacency and stopped letting China take the lead in anything new.

Sempu, I agree.
To me this project feels (!) like it is made either by overenthusiastic space nerds with good intentions and unrealistic plans or by some people who want to draw in money by inspiring peoples enthusiasm.

I will not play the meme game. Talk to me like a normal human being and not like a dumpsite for memes and abbreviations and I might reply.

So do I - except I do it in terms of the idea behind that project, while you seem to be mostly focussed on "debunking" me or my criticism, instead of supporting the idea of this project with good and reliable information.

For a thought experiment, these guys seem to take it awfully serious though. Including getting funding and hyping the media.

I personally think, that SciFi, with its dreams about colonizing other planets, mars colonies and easy space travel is deeply influencing the thoughts of people who actually do this kind of projects or dream about them. And in a way thats cool - fantasy can be a nice inspiration to actually making things happen. But what bugs me is that many people, you included, are caught by that dreams or fantasies in a way that conflates it with reality. It makes things seem all more plausible than they maybe are in reality, because there is faith involved. Yes, faith, the dirty word for scientists, but that is what it is. A lot of people who are talking about technology ins such an overenthusiastic way actually show faith in these ideas and belief in technology to make it happen and make it happen fast. Often this is based on not much solid ground at all. It is based on hypothesis, theories, ideas, hypothetical constructions, upscaling or transposing available technology to a new application and so on. And this is why I cann it SciFi, because that is what it is - it only gets hard Science when people actually build and test things, when they gather enough data to make a theory plausible. And it only get Technology when it passes that stage of Science and the theories are solid enough to risk building something that actually serves the purpose that was originally conjured up. This has NOTHING to do with Star Trek type of SciFi

As much as one failure does not make future attempts void, one success does not make it safe. Not even a couple of them. In both cases.
To make it safe means to carefully try something several times until it works. I dont say one should not try a biosphere 3 or 4 or 5 - just that it was not done yet and to try it on Mars, risking real people in the process that cannot ring the alarm bell and get out at any moment, thats cruel.

It is not all about money. It is about ideology as well. About publicity. Projects of that size dont go to crowdfunding websites to get pennies from people, they get millions and biollions of rich enthusiasts who want to see this happen, and these get inspired or pushed by publicity, medica echo, by the knowledge that funding such a thing allies them with millions of dreamers about this stuff in the world.
And idology is something that is an investment in itself. If you believe that this is going to happen within the next 10 or 20 years - or even within your lifetime and something comes along and makes a dent in that plan, maybe showing that you will not see it in your lifetime - that is something that would pull you down wouldn't it? It would make you feel sad - and the natural reaction then is to say "no, that cannot be, there has to be a way to make this work". That is ideological investment.

I am glad you agree that this project will not happen as they present it, because I think that they really are not honest in that timeplan. However, regarding funding - their argument was specifically that they want to make this cheap enough so that it can be funded by private investors - so if they would be right, it should be independent of government funding!