How Will We Get Off Mars?
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How Will We Get Off Mars?
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Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?
#2I think the first humans on mars will go with the understanding that it's a one-way trip. And there will no doubt be people willing to sign on for that.
Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?
#3I think the first humans on mars will go with the understanding that it's a one-way trip. And there will no doubt be people willing to sign on for that.
Not only that but I guess they will accept they won't be able to live for long there too. Radiation and muscle wasting due to low gravity being the top two problems and growing food. Not much chance of overcoming those obstacles in even the medium term, if ever.
Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?
#4I think the first humans on mars will go with the understanding that it's a one-way trip. And there will no doubt be people willing to sign on for that.
I think the first humans to go to the red planet will actually orbit and not touch down. They will stay in orbit and either pilot robots on the ground or study what happens to the body during long space flight. This will help future space faring people that visit Mars and beyond.
Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?
#5I think the first humans on mars will go with the understanding that it's a one-way trip. And there will no doubt be people willing to sign on for that.
Not only that but I guess they will accept they won't be able to live for long there too. Radiation and muscle wasting due to low gravity being the top two problems and growing food. Not much chance of overcoming those obstacles in even the medium term, if ever.
Is muscle wasting a significant issue? Mars does have gravity, the people will no doubt be doing some physical work, so it won't be as bad as in orbit. On top of that, if they have no plans for ever coming back to Earth, then is there a significant downside to at least some atrophy?
Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?
#6I think the first humans on mars will go with the understanding that it's a one-way trip. And there will no doubt be people willing to sign on for that.
Not only that but I guess they will accept they won't be able to live for long there too. Radiation and muscle wasting due to low gravity being the top two problems and growing food. Not much chance of overcoming those obstacles in even the medium term, if ever.
I don't think seeing people deteriorate and die on Mars on TV/YouTube will be great advertising for Mars colonization efforts, so hopefully they will wait until surviving and returning is possible.
Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?
#7That MAV experience does not sound appealing at all.
43 hours, standing up, no food, no toilet, no sitting down, no stretching your limbs. Riding on top of a metal rocket. Surrounded by millions of miles of lethal void.
Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?
#8It's only when you realise that getting off Mars is far more like getting off Earth than getting off the Moon, that the full rationale behind SpaceX's obsession with a re-usable launch vehicle rocket that can land itself, becomes apparent.
Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?
#9I always thought that the Lunar Module† was the single coolest piece of technology of the Apollo program. (Sorry Saturn V, raw power doesn’t really do it for me and beyond that you are mostly … boring.)
It’s such an astonishing accomplishment to build something so lightweight, so complex, so versatile in such a short amount of time. It’s astonishing that it came together at all. And worked! Every single time, even beyond what it was originally intended for (during Apollo 13).
A hypothetical MAV would have a similar role during a Mars trip. Be this complex yet lightweight and versatile little thing, a rocket that can take off from another planet without all the fancy infrastructure we have on Earth. (Luckily Mars has still relatively low gravity. Imagine trying to take off from Venus with it’s atmosphere and Earth gravity and think of all the stuff we need on Earth to pull that off.)
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Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not only that but I guess they will accept they won't be able to live for long there too. Radiation and muscle wasting due to low gravity being the top two problems and growing food. Not much chance of overcoming those obstacles in even the medium term, if ever.
Is muscle wasting a significant issue? Mars does have gravity, the people will no doubt be doing some physical work, so it won't be as bad as in orbit. On top of that, if they have no plans for ever coming back to Earth, then is there a significant downside to at least some atrophy?
It's true that exercise does limit the loss and I guess you are right that it won't matter if you stay there.
I suppose we just don't have enough data to say one way or the other.
Edit: an old Nasa article on the topic...
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/as...