Is a Human Mission to Mars Feasible in the Near Future?

[earamsey]

Hi,

I am wondering why is it so important to put people on Mars? It is very dangerous and Nasa does not have the technology to do this safely without endangering lives. Why can't they wait for proper technology to do it correctly? In my opinion you need similar to following;

1) ability to create gravity
2) generate water for daily hot showers and cold drink everyday.
3) Propulsion not based on chemical rockets; nuclear or fusion?
3A) Power generators based on fusion or nuclear and plenty of it
3B) Propulsion system should get one to Mars in 2 months 3 max
5) spacecraft will be mobile space station with crew of 200 people consisting of scientist, engineers, doctors, nurses and maybe tourists.
5A) will live on space station and Mars habitats will be for 3 to 5 day excursions to surface.
5C) space elevator for transport of people and equipment from mmobile space station to surface
5D) need medical facility with at least 5 doctors and 6 nurses
5F) must be large. 4 stories where each level is size of 2 football fields, have gym, gravity, large living quarters, kitchen, research labs, fun room for relaxation.
--- Cool stuff to have
1) redeployable GPS system. satellites can be deployed and latter retreived for missions to other places in solar system. Nice if you get lost after taking cover from a dust storm.
2) skin tight flexible space suites; I think MIT has prototypes.
3) Virtually control humanoid for exploring dangerous places equiped with jet pack, can walk, crawl, run, give tactile and aromatic
feedback to human controller. it will be nuclear powered of course.
4) oxygen supply extender that will directly convert atmosphere to oxygen (when visiting celestial objects this is possible)

Because of size of mobile space station, its components will have to be constructed on moon and assembled in orbit. Robots can be sent to moon to construct factories to mine
and create materials maybe even construct components from them.

It would cost a lot of money to develop technology, guessing, not a scientist, about a trillion dollars. If it is too expensive then perhaps people should not explore in deep space; it's hostile out there and should not be explorered on a budget when human life is at stake; this is a basic concept of ETHICS, MORALS and general respect for life.

Also, to develop such technologies would require dedicated research and development and stop doing so many nothing missions to Mars with robots and focus on developing technology for real human deep space exploration program. I estimate about 40-50 years if one starts tomorrow... Hey, there is no rush the Universe is already 13 billion years old and it is not going anywhere. Why NASA get out of bed oneday and decide to go Mars in next 10 years is beyond me.

If any of this seems unrealistic and too fantastical then perhaps space is not yet for people it's very unforgiving and cruel environment :(

 

[Blenton]

Gosh.. you started out absurdly and then went into pure insanity.

1. Gravity is not that essential. Depends on how long the trip is.
2. Gee that's a pretty big unnecessary addition. Piping hot showers every day!
3. Yeah different propulsion method probably needed.
5(?). lol.. why would you need a craft of 200 people? Are you disconnected from reality! space elevators... 20 doctors... football fields.

Yeah i don't know how to respond to this post anymore.

1. We want to go to mars, we need to explore. Simple as that.
2. You don't need world crafts containing thousands of people for a simple one off mission. A hand full of people would do fine.
3. Its not a walk in the park.

 

[humanino]

skin tight flexible space suites

You know how to increase media coverage.

 

[russ_watters]

I wouldn't sweat this issue. We're not sending people to Mars. Bush announced the plan, then didn't fund it as a real project and future Presidents aren't bound by that. The project certainly will not survive Obama's first term.

 

[Pengwuino]

Yah that's actually a ridiculous argument. We can't even provide those accommodations on the international space station. People don't need to be pampered to take on extraordinary missions, you obviously have no idea what conditions people faced during the Apollo missions. People have been in space for decades and they are absolutely fine not having a full staff and luxury accommodations.

 

[signerror]

Switch off your bloody telly, you've watched far too much sci-fi. It's rotting your brain.

5F) must be large. 4 stories where each level is size of 2 football fields, have gym, gravity, large living quarters, kitchen, research labs, fun room for relaxation.

I rest my case.

 

[Phrak]

Yah that's actually a ridiculous argument. We can't even provide those accommodations on the international space station. People don't need to be pampered to take on extraordinary missions, you obviously have no idea what conditions people faced during the Apollo missions. People have been in space for decades and they are absolutely fine not having a full staff and luxury accommodations.

Yes, but this would be a coed mission. It will need a boutique and a nail salon.

 

[Phrak]

The Space Race--the Race to the Moon--was a race for nuclear dominance from space between the USSR and the USA. What in the world was Bush up to with his Mission to Mars speech? This has left me baffled for a very long time. Was he attempting to soften-up the left? He also did the hydrogen energy speech. Another peculiar call to action that might indicate political manuvering to soften the left.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What in the world was Bush up to with his Mission to Mars speech?

Maybe God told him to go.

 

[elect_eng]

Yes, but this would be a coed mission.

I heard NASA is actually doing research on how people can have sex in space. Seems unnecessary since people can be quite ingenious in figuring things out when highly motivated.:!)

 

[mgb_phys]

I heard NASA is actually doing research on how people can have sex in space.

can you imagine Nasa porn?
t-5mins: Engage the primary Y chromosone delivery nozzle with the baby habitation module entrance.
...

This is the Nasa that renamed a vehicle originally called CRV-X because they thought 'cervix' was rude and might shock people.

 

[Janus]

Hi,

I am wondering why is it so important to put people on Mars? It is very dangerous and Nasa does not have the technology to do this safely without endangering lives. Why can't they wait for proper technology to do it correctly? In my opinion you need similar to following;

1) ability to create gravity
2) generate water for daily hot showers and cold drink everyday.
3) Propulsion not based on chemical rockets; nuclear or fusion?
3A) Power generators based on fusion or nuclear and plenty of it
3B) Propulsion system should get one to Mars in 2 months 3 max
5) spacecraft will be mobile space station with crew of 200 people consisting of scientist, engineers, doctors, nurses and maybe tourists.
5A) will live on space station and Mars habitats will be for 3 to 5 day excursions to surface.
5C) space elevator for transport of people and equipment from mmobile space station to surface
5D) need medical facility with at least 5 doctors and 6 nurses
5F) must be large. 4 stories where each level is size of 2 football fields, have gym, gravity, large living quarters, kitchen, research labs, fun room for relaxation.
--- Cool stuff to have
1) redeployable GPS system. satellites can be deployed and latter retreived for missions to other places in solar system. Nice if you get lost after taking cover from a dust storm.
2) skin tight flexible space suites; I think MIT has prototypes.
3) Virtually control humanoid for exploring dangerous places equiped with jet pack, can walk, crawl, run, give tactile and aromatic
feedback to human controller. it will be nuclear powered of course.
4) oxygen supply extender that will directly convert atmosphere to oxygen (when visiting celestial objects this is possible)

Because of size of mobile space station, its components will have to be constructed on moon and assembled in orbit. Robots can be sent to moon to construct factories to mine
and create materials maybe even construct components from them.

It would cost a lot of money to develop technology, guessing, not a scientist, about a trillion dollars. If it is too expensive then perhaps people should not explore in deep space; it's hostile out there and should not be explorered on a budget when human life is at stake; this is a basic concept of ETHICS, MORALS and general respect for life.

Also, to develop such technologies would require dedicated research and development and stop doing so many nothing missions to Mars with robots and focus on developing technology for real human deep space exploration program. I estimate about 40-50 years if one starts tomorrow... Hey, there is no rush the Universe is already 13 billion years old and it is not going anywhere. Why NASA get out of bed oneday and decide to go Mars in next 10 years is beyond me.

If any of this seems unrealistic and too fantastical then perhaps space is not yet for people it's very unforgiving and cruel environment :(

Wow, If it had been left up to you, Columbus wouldn't have set sail until he had the equivalent of the Queen Mary at his command.

 

[WhoWee]

I wouldn't sweat this issue. We're not sending people to Mars. Bush announced the plan, then didn't fund it as a real project and future Presidents aren't bound by that. The project certainly will not survive Obama's first term.

Are you sure it's not buried in all of that spending?

 

[LowlyPion]

I heard NASA is actually doing research on how people can have sex in space. Seems unnecessary since people can be quite ingenious in figuring things out when highly motivated.:!)

To what purpose? If it's procreation, I'd be concerned about developmental issues in zero to low gravity. If it's recreation for long journeys, ... that's going to make crew selection a bit more complicated than it is currently. It might help in recruitment for future astronauts though.

 

[elect_eng]

To what purpose? If it's procreation, I'd be concerned about developmental issues in zero to low gravity. If it's recreation for long journeys, ... that's going to make crew selection a bit more complicated than it is currently. It might help in recruitment for future astronauts though.

It's definitely related to the latter issue. Procreation in space is out of the question for a long long time.

 

[wolram]

It's definitely related to the latter issue. Procreation in space is out of the question for a long long time.

Catch the baby.

 

[Coin]

"Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest?"
"Because it's there."

 

[elect_eng]

"Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest?"
"Because it's there."

I'm no longer interested to see NASA spend my tax dollars to send people to the top of the mountain just for the sake of looking down. Let them send robots till their heart's content, but I don't trust them to send people any more.

I still haven't forgiven them for killing the teacher Christa McAuliffe in the Challenger disaster. It's one thing to send trained astronaughts who volunteered for the risk. But, they offerred her a trip to space as if it were an amusment park ride, and then hid the known risks from her and the public. The vision of her parents and students watching her burn up in the sky is etched in my mind forever.

This was not the same NASA that sent men to the moon; - not even close!

 

[mgb_phys]

I'm no longer interested to see NASA spend my tax dollars to send people to the top of the mountain just for the sake of looking down.

They are spending your tax dollars on keeping Boeing + Lockheed Martin solvent. The alternative is to build a few more airborne lasers - it's probably safer for everybody if they send people to Mars.

It's one thing to send trained astronaughts who volunteered for the risk. ...then hid the known risks from her and the public.

Nasa administrations 'think of a number' attitude to risk assessment aside - I don't think anyone has/had any impression that sitting on top of a couple of hundred tons of explosive is risk free.

 

[humanino]

astronaughts

I'm sorry, what is an atronaught ? No, really, that was good

 

[elect_eng]

They are spending your tax dollars on keeping Boeing + Lockheed Martin solvent. The alternative is to build a few more airborne lasers - it's probably safer for everybody if they send people to Mars.

I never said I agreed with that either.

Nasa administrations 'think of a number' attitude to risk assessment aside - I don't think anyone has/had any impression that sitting on top of a couple of hundred tons of explosive is risk free.

There was the obvious known risk, which was tempered with the known history of NASA to be overly cautious. However, in this case management knew about issues with the O-rings and ignored repeated warnings from engineers that a disaster was very likely. In my mind this is unforgivable - and I don't forgive in this case.

 

[signerror]

"Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest?"
"Because it's there."

"Why are you standing on the toilet?"
"Because it's there!"

 

[LowlyPion]

There was the obvious known risk, which was tempered with the known history of NASA to be overly cautious. However, in this case management knew about issues with the O-rings and ignored repeated warnings from engineers that a disaster was very likely. In my mind this is unforgivable - and I don't forgive in this case.

I think that's overly harsh. Certainly there was a failure in judgment to account for the factors aligning to spell disaster, but knowing about risks isn't exactly the same thing as knowingly sending people to their deaths. Needless to say they have modified their process (and the O-rings).

We know about the risks of geese bringing down aircraft, yet planes takeoff every day.

 

[elect_eng]

I think that's overly harsh.

Harsh or not, it's how I feel and I think it is justified to be harsh in this case. They sent a civilian into a dangerous situation and did not disclose the known risks. The key thing here is that engineers were ringing the alarm bells and explaining the exact technical issues that were ultimately a main cause of the failure. This is clear negligence. I've seen this happen in industry too, but usually the loss is only a few million dollars and not actual lives. This was a failure of management.

I have no doubt that Christa McAuliffe would take your side in this, and that is just another reason why she is a hero. But 23 years later I'm still not over it. It just crosses a line in my own ethical system. I forgive the failures that led to the fire on the pad with Apollo 1. I even forgive the failures in the second shuttle disaster. But I don't forgive the failures that led to Christa McAuliffe's death. And, I will never apologize for that.

 

[Jack21222]

I just want to point out that there is no shortage of volunteers for a suicide mission to Mars. If NASA were to say "Alright, we're sending a team of 10 people to Mars, but you'll have no way to return, and your life support will run out after a few weeks on Mars," you'd have a huge pile of applications to sort through.

 

[humanino]

I'd go

 

[mgb_phys]

However, in this case management knew about issues with the O-rings and ignored repeated warnings from engineers that a disaster was very likely. In my mind this is unforgivable - and I don't forgive in this case.

There are 100s (if not 1000s) of potential disaster issues with the shuttle. It is fundementally a dangerous way to put things in orbit.

I would say the unforgivable part of Nasa's management is the attitude of: This problem happened before, that flight didn't crash, therefore this is not a problem.
This is rather different from the FAA/NTSB attitude of: This is a problem, therefore we assume it will causes crashes until we can prove it doesn't.

I don't know how much this attitude has changed - my own professional contact with Nasa was years ago and not very reassuring. Personally I'm not rushing for my free ride in the shuttle and I'm glad that Nasa doesn't run civil aviation.

 

[russ_watters]

I think that's overly harsh. Certainly there was a failure in judgment to account for the factors aligning to spell disaster, but knowing about risks isn't exactly the same thing as knowingly sending people to their deaths.

You're wrong about the particulars of that incident and you may want to read up on them. In short, Thiokol engineers and administrators knew about the flaw in the O-rings before the launch and the administrators forced the engineers to recommend a go for launch despite this knowledge (that's a little bit of an oversimplification). Thus, though they didn't know for certain they were sending the crew to their deaths, they did know for certain that they sent the crew up in a highly elevated risk scenario.

The word "accident" doesn't really apply in this case - this was murder via purposeful criminal neglegence. elect_eng is absolutely right about this case and absolutely correct that it is wholly different from the failure of Apollo 1 (and also the Columbia failure). I suspect he is young enough that he studied this issue in some depth in an engineering ethics class, in college, as I did...

One might argue a second design flaw is the lack of an egress system capable of saving unconscious crewmembers (ie, a single-piece ejectable module with a parachute). It is nearly certain that some of the crew survived the breakup (since they activated their personal egress equipment) and were killed because they passed out before being able to get out of the crew compartment, dying when the compartment impacted the water. This flaw would be a more forgiveable one.

 

[russ_watters]

I would say the unforgivable part of Nasa's management is the attitude of: This problem happened before, that flight didn't crash, therefore this is not a problem.

AFAIK, the problem never happened before. It was simply a known flaw/limitation that was not properly addressed and later suppressed.

 

[mgb_phys]

AFAIK, the problem never happened before. It was simply a known flaw/limitation that was not properly addressed.

I thought it had happened before, at least in that exhaust had partially burnt through the joint (or just the O-ring/sealing putty). But the attitude was - that didn't cause the shuttle to crash so it's not a problem. Rather like the debris impact/lost tiles a few years later.
I think that's a more serious failing than launching outside the official temperature spec of a component.

1>My brakes failed on the drive home.
2>Did you have an accident
1>No I was going slow on a flat road
2>Ok, brake failure isn't a critical fault !

 

[mheslep]

Seven of the prior flights had shown erosion or blow-by of the o-rings. Those events were rationalized into a gauge of robustness of the o-rings, when they were not designed to suffer any erosion. Then the engineers did not get the point across that the events were highly correlated with temperature.
Pages 22,23
http://www.soc.washington.edu/users/bpettit/soc506/tufte.pdf

 

[turbo]

In mechanical seal applications in industry it is common to use convoluted machining (Labyrinth seals) to engineer passive pressure-drops so that the primary seals (O-rings in this case) are not subject to the entire pressure differential. The solid-booster joints appear to be very simple, which probably ensures the re-usability of the components, possibly at the risk of primary seal failure.

 

[Coin]

"Why are you standing on the toilet?"
"Because it's there!"

*suspicious* how did you know what i was doing this weekend??!

 

[turbo]

*suspicious* how did you know what i was doing this weekend??!

Not much of a weekend! Nothing else to do?

 

[Enjoicube]

I'm no longer interested to see NASA spend my tax dollars to send people to the top of the mountain just for the sake of looking down. Let them send robots till their heart's content, but I don't trust them to send people any more.

Really? Curiosity never motivated you? I suppose manned missions are not as important to me, but still, think about where some of your money is already going. Meanwhile, a significant amount of my money is going to college sports, which reflect nothing I am interested in.