Mars One

RobS · 2012-10-22 06:35:59

I don't know, Falkor. If the four people on Mars are a tight team, working together and supporting each other emotionally, they will do much better than if they are a bunch of competing individualists like on most reality television shows. Mars is a truly dangerous place and no place for individualists. A team is needed to survive and do well.

bobunf · 2012-10-22 12:39:08

RobS wrote:

Cosmic radiation is not a health risk for a 6-month flight; the dosage is known. The International Space Station has half the sky covered by the Earth and thus gets half the cosmic ray dosage of a spacecraft in interplanetary space. Astronauts and cosmonauts have been stationed in Earth orbit for more than a year and have received a cosmic ray dosage equivalent to a 6-month flight to Mars. Once on the Martian surface, Mars provides the same shielding against cosmic rays as the Earth does in low orbit; i.e., half the normal dose is protected against because it can only come from above, not below. To shield you from above you need 3 or 4 meters or so of dirt. Three meters of water would probably be better.

This is just not accurate. The Earth's magnetic field deflects some of the cosmic rays (virtually all of which are charged particles), especially the more common lower energy ones. This protection is very effectively provided to the International Space Station since the orbit is near the equator. The Sun's magnetic field also deflects cosmic rays, but that effect may be reduced the further one is from the Sun. Cosmic rays in interplanetary space are more intense than in low Earth orbit by more than a factor of 2. Does anyone know by how large a factor?

It's possible that local naturally occurring magnetic fields on Mars may have a similar local effect to Earth's magnetic field, greatly reducing the need for radiation shielding from both cosmic rays and solar particle radiation. Three or four meters of water or regolith is an awful lot of stuff. A 100 square meter living space would require 300,000 liters of water.

RobS · 2012-10-22 12:49:24

I wasn't referring to the fact that the earth's magnetic field was deflecting cosmic rays; just that the Earth itself fills about half the sky and therefore no cosmic rays come from that direction. I did not assume any magnetic shielding at all. Perhaps there is some, though. Zubrin does not assume any when he says that one year on ISS is equivalent to a 6-month ointerlanetary cruise t0 Mars. I was essentially quoting him.

As for water shielding, presumably that's for a later time when there is a productive water well. Meanwhile, dirt will have to do.

falkor · 2012-10-22 15:12:46

talking of Mars Society president Dr Robert Zubrin - what is HIS reaction to the proposed Mars One "mission" - has he commented anybody know?

Cal Elson · 2013-01-08 19:37:53

Major updates today on the astronaut selection and training processes. Multiple teams of 4 will be selected for training.

http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en/21-faq-se … -be-chosen

http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en/21-faq-se … y-to-apply

http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en/21-faq-se … s-prepared

I'm surprised to see so much hand-wringing on this site about a one-way Mars mission. Did the Jamestown Company get charged with manslaughter for transporting willing individuals to a new world? That also proved to be very dangerous. This appears to be a colonization mission, not a plant-the-flag-and-bring-back-some-rocks effort. Still no sign of where the funding will come from, but this appears to be a serious effort.

bobunf · 2013-01-11 22:09:48

"Did the Jamestown Company get charged with manslaughter for transporting willing individuals to a new world?"

That was then; this is now.

A serious effort without funding is not a serious effort.

louis · 2013-01-17 15:50:49

There isn't going to be a one way mission. End of story.

Elon Musk is several astronomical units ahead of everyone else and is already well on the way to developing the infrastructure that will allow colonisation to begin. I'd be surprised if he's not actually able to get to Mars orbit and back by 2020. A landing by 2025 should be be possible.

Glandu · 2013-01-21 04:51:08

louis wrote:

There isn't going to be a one way mission. End of story. (.../..)

There will be.

Once pioneers will have set up a proper settlement, settlers will make a one-way mission. But I think we agree on the main point : first Marswalkers will be pioneers, coming back to earth after having done their job.

louis · 2013-01-21 17:12:41

Glandu wrote:

louis wrote:
There isn't going to be a one way mission. End of story. (.../..)
There will be.
Once pioneers will have set up a proper settlement, settlers will make a one-way mission. But I think we agree on the main point : first Marswalkers will be pioneers, coming back to earth after having done their job.

Well, maybe, after a few decades. But by then I think journey times between Mars and Earth may be down to 2 months or so. It seems unlikely that people won't return to Earth for a holiday, to see the old folks...maybe every 5 years or so.

Terraformer · 2013-01-21 17:49:35

2-3 month trips are doable. But cheap enough to do it every five years, and especially given that you'd have to take a year out even if you don't have to worry about launch windows? Maybe if you're a rich settler, say if you own a platinum mine...

I do suspect that effectively one way missions will get started quite rapidly, since signing someone up to a 5 year contract means you don't have to pay for a couple of transits (one to get them home at the next window, the other to send their replacement), and the people signing up are probably not the kind who want to return after their contract ends, preferring to stay on Mars. There'll probably only be a few two way missions before the settlers arrive.

louis · 2013-04-25 17:56:01

Mars One has been getting a lot of publicity in the UK recently.

Having looked at their site again, I must say I am quite supportive of their approach. It is a shame they have put the emphasis on the "one way ticket".

Their approach reflects a lot of my own thinking:

1. Pre-supply missions are vital - don;t try and do it all in one go

2. Make full use of TV link ups to build interest and generate subscription and sponsorship revenue

3. Use Space X's technology.

4. Use photovoltaic panels (already tried and tested on the planet) for energy.

RobS · 2013-04-25 18:59:57

Once people are there and the transportation system is established, they can create a return capacity. If Falcon stages are designed to soft land back on Earth, they could be soft landed on Mars as well, with some modifications, and then refueled. If they reall manage to land 4 people every 2 years, I wouldn't be surprised if return capacity isn't established in 10 or 12 years.

louis · 2013-04-27 04:42:43

RobS wrote:

Once people are there and the transportation system is established, they can create a return capacity. If Falcon stages are designed to soft land back on Earth, they could be soft landed on Mars as well, with some modifications, and then refueled. If they reall manage to land 4 people every 2 years, I wouldn't be surprised if return capacity isn't established in 10 or 12 years.

I agree. Manufacturing rocket fuel is actually one of the simpler tasks that a fledgling Mars community could perform well. I am surprised Mars One haven't built that in. Of course the "one way ticket" line it is a good way of getting publicity - perhaps that was the intention...and it's worked!

What they really need now is a billionaire philanthropist to stump up a few hundred million dollars. It might then really take off.

SpaceNut · 2013-04-27 17:00:31

Marsman wrote:

Just want to know what you guys think of one way missions and what issues you see from a technical standpoint. I'm surprised there hasn't been more response to this given the massive worldwide media attention this plan has got (more than all Mars groups combined PR power). In short- the first time the common man really hears about a Mars mission, it is this plan. What are your thoughts and issues?

I think that this was an idea that is a short term to get a colony footing started with the first few missions gearing a much larger assault on getting materials to the planet to strengthen its foothold rather than giving up the return mission costs for a lesser starting point.

louis · 2013-04-27 18:30:09

SpaceNut wrote:

Marsman wrote:
Just want to know what you guys think of one way missions and what issues you see from a technical standpoint. I'm surprised there hasn't been more response to this given the massive worldwide media attention this plan has got (more than all Mars groups combined PR power). In short- the first time the common man really hears about a Mars mission, it is this plan. What are your thoughts and issues?
I think that this was an idea that is a short term to get a colony footing started with the first few missions gearing a much larger assault on getting materials to the planet to strengthen its foothold rather than giving up the return mission costs for a lesser starting point.

I suppose one thing you can criticise the mission design for is that it depends on sending some pretty heavy looking habs. But the one thing Mars does have is plenty of building material. Wouldn't it make more sense to send ready-for-Mars brick kilns to convert regolith into bricks and then robot brick layers, which can be controlled from the main hab. With a digger to dig trenches the bricks can be arched over and then covered in regolith. Of course we do need to resolve the problem of pressure lock doors...I have suggested before that perhaps we should look at ice (which can be melted) to create the pressure locks.

Last edited by louis (2013-04-27 18:31:28)

louis · 2013-05-12 16:34:15

I think Mars One is becoming increasingly credible:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article … ramme.html

I am pleased they have picked up so many ideas that have been discussed here - including reality TV hook-up. I can't believe they haven't been visiting here, so many of their approaches seem to reflect discussions here.

I can see the way they are approaching the later rounds of crew selection as being really attractive for reality TV viewing across the globe. This could indeed appeal to billions across the globe. TV shows that can attract billions over a long period of time are pretty rare but I think they could do it.

What I think might clinch the deal here is if they (a) pick up some philanthropic funding along the way - a billion or so, perhaps and (b) if one of the smaller space agencies buy into it - let's say the Brazilian Space Agency decide to chip in with a couple of billion to guarantee participation of a couple of Brazilian space pioneers.

SpaceNut · 2013-12-14 18:50:23

I have been reading many of the news releases and have found that many of the thoughts are very simular to many that the various forums that I have visited have had posted on them including this one.

Mars One foundation inks deals with Lockheed, Surrey

A privately funded unmanned Mars mission will launch in 2018, officials with the non-profit Mars One foundation announced Tuesday. The mission will include an orbiting communications relay station, a lander equipped with a robotic arm, water generating gear, experimental thin-film solar panels and student experiments. The lander will be based on the design of the 2007 Phoenix Mars lander that Lockheed Martin developed for NASA. Lansdorp said the Lockheed Martin contract was valued at slightly more than $250,000 while the Surrey agreement came to about $60,000. He would not disclose internal projections for the mission's eventual cost other than to tell reporters he expected it to be less than NASA's next Mars lander, the $425 million Phoenix-derived Insight mission scheduled for launch in 2016.

With any private group wanting to get a mission to go to mars it is quite a feat to get enough funds to make it happen and it will take those that are more than just rich to make one happen.

I wonder if any cube sats are planned by others to catch a piggyback ride on this nission. as it would lower the cost for all to get to mars....

louis · 2013-12-14 22:02:10

Well if Mars One can pull that off then their credibility will increase exponentially. Surely we have got to see some Musk-Mars One synergy at some point.

SpaceNut wrote:

I have been reading many of the news releases and have found that many of the thoughts are very simular to many that the various forums that I have visited have had posted on them including this one.
Mars One foundation inks deals with Lockheed, Surrey
A privately funded unmanned Mars mission will launch in 2018, officials with the non-profit Mars One foundation announced Tuesday. The mission will include an orbiting communications relay station, a lander equipped with a robotic arm, water generating gear, experimental thin-film solar panels and student experiments. The lander will be based on the design of the 2007 Phoenix Mars lander that Lockheed Martin developed for NASA. Lansdorp said the Lockheed Martin contract was valued at slightly more than $250,000 while the Surrey agreement came to about $60,000. He would not disclose internal projections for the mission's eventual cost other than to tell reporters he expected it to be less than NASA's next Mars lander, the $425 million Phoenix-derived Insight mission scheduled for launch in 2016.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1312/11 … lander.jpg
With any private group wanting to get a mission to go to mars it is quite a feat to get enough funds to make it happen and it will take those that are more than just rich to make one happen.
I wonder if any cube sats are planned by others to catch a piggyback ride on this nission. as it would lower the cost for all to get to mars....

Tom Kalbfus · 2013-12-15 09:59:13

Well the Chinese landed a rover on the Moon. I think we're transitioning to a period of privately financed interplanetary missions. I think privately financed missions will be cheaper than the ones NASA conducts. NASA tech makes it seem expensive, but we have to remember government agencies have no incentive to cut costs, they get their money from you in the form of taxes, privately financed missions get their money in the form of voluntary contributions and investments. Government gets all of its money from the private sector, so the money is in the private sector to conduct these missions, we just need th proper incentives to encourage voluntary contributions and/or investments.

SpaceNut · 2013-12-15 16:47:36

louis wrote:

credibility will increase exponentially

This was one of the points made in the MarsDrive Human Mission groups efforts early on as to how does a group which has never done space gain the credibility that we speak of to garner funding for its cause.

SpaceNut · 2014-11-08 19:58:15

This must be a joke,

Based on computer simulations run by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it seems that the first colonists could be poisoned by the very oxygen they depend on in Mars’ thin atmosphere.
The source of this oxygen is the crop growth system, which the colonists would rely upon as their only source of food.
With no way of venting oxygen to a safe level, the concentration and pressure of oxygen would rise to over 30%; this presents a fire hazard in an enclosed space (such as that of a habitation module).
Additionally, the high pressure of oxygen in the environment would quickly result in a type of poisoning known as oxygen toxicity, which is most common in underwater divers.
Its symptoms include seizures, nausea, lung inflammation, damage to the eyes, coma and eventually death.
The paper published by the team at MIT contains considerable detail about many other potential failings of the mission, including difficulties with water supply, crop growth and life support systems.

Impaler · 2014-11-09 03:08:32

I've incredibly skeptical of these Mars One folks, the whole thing looks to be a publicity stunt without sound engineering behind it and it discredits anyone else who is a Mars advocate to even have this out in the air, you will not see Musk embracing these people publicly and I doubt he would even sell them a launch vehicle. Musk has no intent to see a Jamestown (90% die-off of initial colonists) as the start of human settlement especially when he considers his own development infrastructure to be superior.

I have read the MIT report, it narrowly examines the feasibility of the life support system, spare parts needs of the settlement. As Mars One has got no real design other then a statement of ISS systems + ISRU + Plants 4 foodz. They did a strait up simulation of that and found that you over produce Oxygen. They assumed martian CO2 is continually admitted at a rate sufficient to supply plants with carbon to fix (the exhaled CO2 of the crew is insufficient). Because 90% of the carbon fixed by plants will generally be in in-edible parts of the plant (roots, stems) and a plants oxygen production is always exactly that which is needed to oxidize all of it's fixed carbon, any environment which tries to grow a persons food needs will over produce oxygen 10 fold.

This has been known for decades, before Biosphere 2 even, that's why they included decomposition of plant matter as part of the carbon cycle. Mars One just showed they don't know anything about plant based life-support systems if they think they can just run a tidy little greenhouse. They need to either compost or incinerate plant waste (and not introduce Martian CO2). Or some means of pumping excess oxygen (and just oxygen) out of the habitat, which seems to be what Mars One says they will do, use oxygen concentrators to expel oxygen, but these will still lose some Nitrogen which their ISRU will need to replace at a fast rate, the 60 something days for everyone to die in the MIT study is exactly that, the point when they run out of Nitrogen to keep the air below oxygen toxicity (and fire hazard) levels. Point is that MIT found that they did not understand current life-support systems or how to combine them with plant based food production.

Worst of all Mars One (or it's leader) have been dismissive and rude in their response saying a 'lack of experience' on the MIT students lead to invalid results. This is no way to run a credible advocacy group.

GW Johnson · 2014-11-09 13:20:30

I've been skeptical myself, because I see no hint of a viable plan for survival in anything I've read about this. It looks to me like a one-way suicide mission. And if that's what it is, intended or not, it will set back human space exploration for decades at least.

Actually I had similar (but not as severe) qualms about Dennis Toto's flyby mission with a married couple. Except now that he's hooked up with NASA, his mission will never fly. Precisely because it was intended to shame NASA into actually doing something about men on Mars.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2014-11-09 13:21:36)

Tom Kalbfus · 2014-11-09 17:26:50

GW Johnson wrote:

I've been skeptical myself, because I see no hint of a viable plan for survival in anything I've read about this. It looks to me like a one-way suicide mission. And if that's what it is, intended or not, it will set back human space exploration for decades at least.
Actually I had similar (but not as severe) qualms about Dennis Toto's flyby mission with a married couple. Except now that he's hooked up with NASA, his mission will never fly. Precisely because it was intended to shame NASA into actually doing something about men on Mars.
GW

Only if they are run by stupid governments. We must get past the idea that only governments can travel in space!

Impaler · 2014-11-09 18:16:42

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

Only if they are run by stupid governments. We must get past the idea that only governments can travel in space!

It's not an 'idea', it is an accurate assessment of present capabilities, their is no mental-block somehow preventing private entities from going BEO, it's HUGE technical and thus monetary barriers combined with zero profit potential that prevents it.

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#26 2012-10-22 06:35:59

Re: Mars One

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#33 2013-01-21 04:51:08

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#37 2013-04-25 18:59:57

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#38 2013-04-27 04:42:43

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#40 2013-04-27 18:30:09

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#41 2013-05-12 16:34:15

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#42 2013-12-14 18:50:23

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#43 2013-12-14 22:02:10

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#44 2013-12-15 09:59:13

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#45 2013-12-15 16:47:36

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#47 2014-11-09 03:08:32

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