Confronting the Credibility Gap for Crewed Exploration of Mars

Unfortunately - even if you had some weird results that didn't fit the prevailing theorems, publishing would likely destroy your professional credibility. See: Fleischmann/Pons and their publications of abnormal results that others speculated might be related to cold fusion, the decades of slander and defamation of them as quacks (despite the fact that they themselves had not claimed anything of the sort), and their recent vindication.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/its-not-cold...

HN discussion: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/its-not-cold...

> Perhaps most surprising is that, in the formative years of atomic science in the early 20th century, some scientists reported inexplicable experimental evidence of elemental transmutations. In the 1910s and 1920s, this research was reported in popular newspapers and magazines, and papers were published in the top scientific journals of the day, including Physical Review, Science and Nature. The experiments, using relatively simple, low-energy benchtop apparatus, did not use radioactive sources so the results defied prevailing theory. Several researchers independently detected the production of the gases helium-4, neon, argon, and an as-yet-unidentified element of mass-3, which we now identify as tritium. Two of these researchers were Nobel laureates.

To think that our current models adequately explain every phenomenon in the universe is truly the height of hubris. They can't even explain every phenomenon that has been observed on Planet Earth, let alone universally.

Of course extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof - but we do a tremendous disservice by disincentivizing scientists from ever reporting a novel finding that disagrees with the prevailing theories.

That's too kind! Say hi on fb some day.

Sure, but it's not about whether or not the thing works. When I read his comment, I thought to myself, "What else has this guy missed in his work with such a dismissive attitude?" It's a messy mentality IMHO. And, you know, all seriousness aside, here he is saying the EmDrive is impossible, yet he's actually working on the hyperloop. Badum-psh!

If we can't call perpetual motion machines "impossible" then what can we call impossible?

  "Do you realise the astronauts 
   will run out of nitrogen on day 
   59 and die?" 

  So Mars One isn't really funny, it 
  has probably set back the credibility 
  of the movement by a decade. 

I realize it's not meant to be a truly quantifiable statement, but I'm always curious why people regard incidents like this as producing serious damage to progress.

There are definitely crucial moments in political science, when an absurd gaff completely botches a carefully crafted image, completely imploding the efforts of hundreds of people, and sinking an entire team permanently. Cringey things that seem to matter to the echo chamber of a 24 hour news cycle.

But I don't feel like hard science works that way. When it comes to real engineering feats, if one company tries to trade on faulty calculations, and their charade is laid bare, the smoke and mirrors disappear only to reveal the same bald truth that had always been there from the start: hard problems defy shenanigans.

A political failure doesn't deflate an engineering problem. Not in the same way it deflates a PR campaign. If the hard science was not respected, then there was no investment in a decade of progress to begin with.

So, these swindlers then maybe blew a decade of real funding, only to burn their investors with bogus project plans and proposals, ripping off charity and fomenting skepticism and suspicion? I think skepticism in this sphere is actually healthy, and separates the children from the adults.

Waste is a bad thing, and maybe real money disappears, but maybe that kind money came from the kinds of people who might have just as soon blown their cash on personal assistants, vacations and clothes. Clearly such investors were not "buying science," or they'd have known better.

So, then the only thing left is that maybe there's the premise that admirers of the charade would not have loitered on the sidelines, simply yearning to lend their support to the parlour trick they were true believers in. That they would have stepped up to the task, had they known progress was stalled. I don't buy that.

No matter what, I don't think there has even been a decade of effort spent on crewing a mission to Mars. It's all been so much conjecture. It's never seemed to be an easier idea than an underground moon base, and no one seems to be giving lunar round-trips or installations much more consideration than mars.

Space shuttle accidents and launchpad explosions cast the true hazards in a much more severe relief, but knowing that people are even trying and failing feels like much more significant progress than a lot of talk and faulty plans.

So was there really any "damage" done by some of these PR goof ups?