Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars • Hacker News Board

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#71

Post by nfm » Sun, Mar 17, 2013, 9:15 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #47

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you vastly underestimate the difficulty of "fixing" a country. I think Russia is a good example: communism fell, but that doesn't mean things have necessarily gotten better for the average citizen. You could replace the entire government of Equatorial Guinea, but that won't address the problems like poor education that underlying many poor country's problems.

I agree entirely for middle tier countries (which Russia was -- and, honestly, Iraq under Saddam was). For really defective places (NK, Somalia, EG, maybe Afghanistan under the Taliban, ...), your odds of killing the leadership and randomly replacing are much more likely to give you something adequate. It doesn't always work out, and it's hard when you have set yourself up for failure (like the US did in Afghanistan,…

That is a historically naive assertion. Take a look at the list of countries in this article - most of them are still in pretty serious shit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re...

It very rarely works out.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#72

Post by eloisant » Sun, Mar 17, 2013, 9:15 PM UTC

Before talking about colonizing Mars, why not colonizing other areas of Earth?

See the Sahara for example, or even your own deserts in US. Closer, more clement climate and no less resources.

Why colonize a far away deserts when we have enough on Earth?

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#73

Post by handzhiev » Sun, Mar 17, 2013, 9:16 PM UTC

I wonder how many of the people who say they are ready to go, imagine what it really is going to be. I think it won't be glorious. It might be exciting at first but if you have the chance to live there more than few months it will turn into rather lonely and hard experience. You won't have the internet or other communications. You won't have your favorite beer, or most probably any beer at all. Chances are you'd say good-bye to sex/love relationships, to your parents and friends forever, to the Earth weather and green grass... You get the idea. I know it sounds romantic and glorious when you are 20 years old or so, but I hope everyone who thinks they are ready to go, really is.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#74

Post by moo » Sun, Mar 17, 2013, 9:25 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #10

I wonder how many people are willing to take on the real adventure of living in any of the twenty poorest countries in the world, or twenty most tyrannical countries of the world (there is overlap between the two sets) to try to change those from the inside. When I was in high school, going to a high school that was named after an astronaut just after the first moon landing, I thought it was completely natural to hav…

You sound like an excellent candidate to further promote and maintain U.S. interests in one of the numerous Third World countries. A person who already has much experience in destabilizing efforts to facilitate the overthrow of non-cooperative governments. As John Perkins outlined in his book, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", we need people like you to further our Western economic and political interests by keeping the Third World countries in Third World conditions so we can have access to cheap labor, cheap resources, sites for our military bases (which we already have close to a thousand), and establish a pro-western crony capitalist dictatorship dressed as a democracy. Currently we have openings in NGO front organizations which are well funded to sway populaces toward our own candidates. We also need people to pose as missionaries and report on peasant activism. I can tell you are open to much sacrifice but rest assured you would be well compensated. I recommend you begin by contacting one of the many front organizations headed by the CIA.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#75

Post by stephth » Sun, Mar 17, 2013, 9:27 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #10

I wonder how many people are willing to take on the real adventure of living in any of the twenty poorest countries in the world, or twenty most tyrannical countries of the world (there is overlap between the two sets) to try to change those from the inside. When I was in high school, going to a high school that was named after an astronaut just after the first moon landing, I thought it was completely natural to hav…

Why worry about meaningful change, why work against the dysfunctional, towards peace and sanity, why care about reaching our true potential as intelligent beings on this planet when we can instead fantasize about going to Where no man has gone before ?

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#76

Post by 1123581321 » Sun, Mar 17, 2013, 9:27 PM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #9

dangrossman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I doubt it would be much riskier than we're currently living our lives here on Earth. You're probably underestimating the risks associated with humans leaving Earth for any considerable period of time. Radiation is the first issue. NASA will not plan a mission that exposes astronauts to higher than a 3% risk of exposure-induced death. Their reports from 2010 based on all the studies done up to that point put th…

> So just getting to Mars would exceed the safe limits This is the problem with your argument that I'm underestimating risks. You're assuming that nobody finds a way to solve this problem or to mitigate the effects of the radiation, and that nobody would be willing to find a way to go even with the health concerns. I know this will be extremely difficult and quite costly, but I think hard work and constant innovation…

We have already measured bone loss in low gravity environments. http://weboflife.nasa.gov/currentResearch/currentResearchGen...

Gravity plays an essential role in bone maintenance. You can work this out from first principles if you know anything about biology, or read about NASA's findings.

This has been known for a long time, well before humans ever went to space. For example, HG Wells' First Men on the Moon described the very weak chests/ rib cages of the moon's citizens due to low gravity resulting in very low bone density. When the explorers from earth struck them, their chests crumpled like a beetle might on earth. Wells either learned this from other scientists or worked out the logic himself.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#77

Post by rdl » Sun, Mar 17, 2013, 9:34 PM UTC

nfm wrote: post #71

rdl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree entirely for middle tier countries (which Russia was -- and, honestly, Iraq under Saddam was). For really defective places (NK, Somalia, EG, maybe Afghanistan under the Taliban, ...), your odds of killing the leadership and randomly replacing are much more likely to give you something adequate. It doesn't always work out, and it's hard when you have set yourself up for failure (like the US did in Afghanistan,…

That is a historically naive assertion. Take a look at the list of countries in this article - most of them are still in pretty serious shit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re... It very rarely works out.

The US government's interest in intervention is not "fix things for the residents" but "US interests" (which, during the cold war, essentially just meant opposition to the USSR and some basing rights or access to resources). Admittedly even by that metric, most of the US interventions have been failures.

There are a few cases where US/NATO intervention has been sort of helpful. Panama is probably better now that we got rid of Noriega, although we put him there in the first place. The Balkans at least didn't turn into a pan-European or WW3. French intervention in Mali seems at least not to be making things worse, and while they went into Rwanda late, they did at least settle things down. Australian forces actually did a lot of good in PNG/ET from what I've read, although I don't know too much about it.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#78

Post by DocG » Sun, Mar 17, 2013, 9:37 PM UTC

The big question is, Is this my only chance to get to Mars? Or am I young enough to get artificially longer life, to get round trip to mars? Or do I die before it is possible? Can I live on Mars long enough for round trips to get frequent? Is science advanced enough to keep me live after getting back(c'mon, I am piece of history then, first ones on Mars, of course they are going to keep me alive if they can)?

What are you betting on?

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#79

Post by iandanforth » Sun, Mar 17, 2013, 9:55 PM UTC

fjarlq wrote: post #25

I don't like it. Let's go all the way and make bringing the crew back safely part of the challenge. It will be more rewarding because it's more difficult. "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." "We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things -- not because they are easy; bu…

It's interesting, we used to have to bring people back to do our exploration, but in some ways thanks to high-quality video that need is less and less.

If you think of society as a single entity then the notion of 'bringing people back' doesn't have as much meaning as it used to. We don't need martian resources (other than the space) and anything else is a souvenir. People had to go and come back from the Americas because of the lack of video (no other way to see it) and because we wanted something the Americas had (gold, wood, coal, cotton etc).

We went to the Moon a few times, but it didn't have very much of anything we needed. Also you can pull up a video of what it's like to walk or drive on the moon anytime you want.

While I agree the full return trip is a higher, more noble goal I just don't see the same forces at work that will require regular back and forth trips.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#80

Post by danielweber » Sun, Mar 17, 2013, 10:00 PM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #7

cryptoz wrote: post #2

I think the most likely way to successfully land on Mars and stay there is to allow for frequent trips back and forth. Obviously I think Musk and SpaceX are taking this approach. Ensure complete and rapid rocket re-usability, make engines that take fuel that Mars mostly provides, and ensure a constant stream of supplies, growth, new people. If your colony is growing, and expanding, and there are frequently (every 2 y…

> But I doubt it would be much riskier than we're currently living our lives here on Earth. You're probably underestimating the risks associated with humans leaving Earth for any considerable period of time. Radiation is the first issue. NASA will not plan a mission that exposes astronauts to higher than a 3% risk of exposure-induced death. Their reports from 2010 based on all the studies done up to that point put th…

If you are worried about radiation, a solar minimum is probably the worst time to send someone. Cosmic rays are more prevalent during solar minimums, and shielding against solar flares is non-negotiable anyway.

The "safe limits" have already been exceeded by people on the ISS.

If NASA has decided that we can't send people into space if there is a 3% chance of them getting cancer at some point later in their lives, then NASA has decided that they aren't going to send anyone to Mars, and it's time for us to find someone else who will.